EPISODE · Jan 3, 2017 · 13 MIN
Stephen Johnson
from The Essay · host BBC Radio 3
Breaking Free - the minds that changed musicIn The Essay this week, personal reflections on the revolutionary music and ideas of the Second Viennese School as they searched for an antidote to all the certainties and expectations of the past, and cast music on a new path of dissonance and discovery, shocking audiences then and now.Tonight's essayist is broadcaster and journalist Stephen Johnson who has chosen Schoenberg's Second String Quartet as his touchstone - a work that defines Schoenberg's movement away from traditional tonality and embraces the dissonance.
What this episode covers
Breaking Free - the minds that changed musicIn The Essay this week, personal reflections on the revolutionary music and ideas of the Second Viennese School as they searched for an antidote to all the certainties and expectations of the past, and cast music on a new path of dissonance and discovery, shocking audiences then and now.Tonight's essayist is broadcaster and journalist Stephen Johnson who has chosen Schoenberg's Second String Quartet as his touchstone - a work that defines Schoenberg's movement away from traditional tonality and embraces the dissonance.
NOW PLAYING
Stephen Johnson
No transcript for this episode yet
Similar Episodes
Mar 26, 2026 ·1m
Mar 19, 2026 ·34m
Feb 18, 2026 ·11m
Feb 11, 2026 ·45m