Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 7 - Mendelssohn String Quartet

String Quartet No. 1 In D Minor, Op. 7    
1        Nicht Zu Rasch    12:47
2        Kräftig    12:19
3        Massig Langsam Viertel    12:48
4        Massig Heiter    8:46

Few composers have had as great an influence on the course of musical development as Arnold Schoenberg. In retrospect, Schoenberg's compositions follow a logical evolution in Western music. Both the final step away from the traditional system of tonality in 1907 and the first ordering of this new "atonality" into the 12-tone method were revolutionary concepts which had a tremendous impact not only on his own disciples, Webern and Berg, but on the entire musical community from the turn of the century to the present.

In 1874, Arnold Schoenberg was born into a musical world where traditional coordinates of structure and harmony were being stretched to their limits. Schoenberg's rejection of tonality, heard for the first time in the final movements of his Second String Quartet, was an extraordinary act which he significantly called "the emancipation of dissonance."