Schoenberg in Hi-Fi is an ongoing series of albums that posit an alternate reality. In my speculative universe, Schoenberg lives a little longer—into the late 1950s: a time when a new commodity was reshaping the music industry, the stereo LP. As high-fidelity audio entered the homes of more and more middle-class Americans, record companies began producing and marketing albums around how unique the sounds on it were, whether that was in the exotica of Lex Baxter, the space music of Sun Ra, or the extreme eclecticism of Esquivel. Though mostly aimed at a wide popular audience, countless liner notes spun infinite variations of the same boast: you’ve never heard this before. Schoenberg had been living in Los Angeles for many years, and had he been alive when the Capitol Records building was completed in 1956, he would have been a stone’s throw away from one of the centers of mid-century pop music. What if an executive from Capitol had became taken with the idea of presenting Schoenberg’s works in the manner of the many “jazzing up the classics” albums produced in this period?
The music I have arranged and produced for Schoenberg in Hi-Fi follows a strict constraint: I can’t change or add any notes. I add percussion and can recontextualize rhythms to fit the genre, but the melodies, harmonies, and counterpoint remain intact. This is Schoenberg’s music—which somehow thrives under the translation in wonderful and unexpected ways.
Schoenberg in Hi-Fi is an exercise in what I call speculative musicology. Schoenberg enjoyed exploding musical binaries, and just as he removed the lines separating consonance and dissonance, melody and harmony, Schoenberg in Hi-Fi collapses popular and art musics through a mid-century lens. In this way, it represents an act of radical translation similar to Schoenberg’s own transformational orchestrations of Bach’s Chorale Preludes. Of course Schoenberg’s works need no translation, but, as with any act of translating, much is revealed about all the parties involved—in particular the clarity and cohesion of Schoenberg’s idea through a radical transformation of style.
Click the album covers to listen and read my accompanying essays on Bandcamp
Selected Press
“Wyanski brilliantly reimagines [Schoenberg’s composition], infusing it with jazz elements through a clear and progressive vision. The result is a mesmerizing blend of tradition and innovation, a true masterpiece of sonic exploration…Each part of the composition is approached with care and reverence, yet infused with Wyanski’s distinctive flair. From the haunting melodies to the intricate harmonies, every moment of the recording is carefully framed by Wyanski’s exceptional taste and artistic intuition.”
Grant Williamson, Planet Singer
“This music makes complete sense and is an exceptionally engaging listen.”
Sammy Stein, Free Jazz Collective
“[Schoenberg in Hi-Fi] will blow your mind and have you questioning everything you thought you knew about music composition.”
Martha Blake, Music Crowns
“A truly unexpected development. Go ahead, Aaron!”
Ethan Iverson, Transitional Technology
“Pianist and composer Aaron Wyanski has already accustomed us with his remarkable and witty idiomatic sense in exquisite, refined, effective and extremely “cool” and logical arrangements for “jazz” ensemble of works by Arnold Schoenberg…And it is truly remarkable how the logic of Schoenberg’s “atonal” writing, the sophistication of timbre and harmony, the irrepressible call to melodic ideas emerge, sharing their existence with an accentuation and a rhythmic impulse that sometimes even appear inevitable.”
Gianni Morelenbaum Gualberto, Doppio Jazz
“A party I’m sorry I missed.”
Norman Lebrecht, Slippedisc