Schoenburg - Der Kranke Mond

- From a melodrama - musical theatre common in Europe from late 19th Century

- Loses Western harmonic language

- Atonal

- Serialist influences

- Chromatic Melody - every semitone of the chromatic scale used bars 1-3

                                   - almost every interval used in bars 1-6

- Large angular leaps in voice: 

• Augmented 9th bar 13
• Diminished 8ve bar 18
• Augmented 11th bars 9-10 (flute)

- No noticeable melodic motifs - only 1 phrase repeated at end in voice

                                                      - bars 23 - 25

                                                      - Sequence in flute

- Music fragmented by rests

- Dissonant harmony - no triads possibly with only 2 melodic lines

- Intervals created are discordant e.g. "dort" in bar 3 - diminished 8ve

- Wide range - 2 octaves in voice, 2 octaves and 4th in flute

- Augmentation (bar 24 motif in quavers, bar 25 crotchets/quavers with rests)

- Very slow - almost discernable pulse = sence of unease (no regularity)

- Sinister words in text highlighted musically

• e.g. "dort" (there) in bar 3 - Db is followed by rests
• changes pitch (tritone from last note G)
• off beat and dissonant against flute D natural
• "Blut" (blood)

- Unusual vocal techniques including sprechgesang

- Extreme dynamics e.g. flute bars 14-15; f - pppp