Pelleas und Melisande, Symphonic Poem for orchestra, is composer Arnold Schoenberg's first completed orchestral work, and his opus 5. A symphonic poem, the work was completed in February 1903, when Schoenberg was 28. Pelleas und Melisande is based on Pelléas et Mélisande, the play by Maurice Maeterlinck. When Schoenberg began composing Pelleas und Melisande in 1902, he was unaware that Claude Debussy's opera of Maeterlinck's play was about to pre...
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Pelleas und Melisande, Symphonic Poem for orchestra, is composer Arnold Schoenberg's first completed orchestral work, and his opus 5. A symphonic poem, the work was completed in February 1903, when Schoenberg was 28. Pelleas und Melisande is based on Pelléas et Mélisande, the play by Maurice Maeterlinck. When Schoenberg began composing Pelleas und Melisande in 1902, he was unaware that Claude Debussy's opera of Maeterlinck's play was about to premiere in Paris. It was published in 1912.
Schoenberg's work is in D minor and is scored for the following large orchestra:
Even so, the huge orchestra of Pelléas (quadruple woodwind, eight horns, four trumpets, five trombones, tuba, two harps, much percussion and strings) is handled with unexpected bravura and an astonishing range of texture and colour.
The work is in one continuous movement in many connected sections. The major sections are as follows:
This piece made the first notated use of a trombone glissando as Golaud led Pelleas to the...
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