Sir Simon Rattle will be conducting Arnold Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder on 19 August at the Royal Albert Hall.

Schönberg worked on his Gurre-Lieder 1900-1911, a period in which he left the work’s style far behind. For him its completion represented the documentation of a compositional style and spiritual attitude no longer his own. At its 1913 première in the Vienna Musikverein the piece enjoyed overwhelming success; Schönberg’s pupil Webern wrote: What a moment of my life! Unforgettable. The sensation of this tumultuous noise thrills me to the point where I swoon.

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