Skandal!

Donald Macleod ends his exploration of Vienna's pre-war musical life with a recreation of the most scandalous concert in Viennese musical history.

As part of World War I on the BBC, this week Radio 3 focuses on the European music scene in the years leading up to the First World War.
In the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, Vienna was the hub of the world's art, music and philosophy. Donald Macleod takes us through the key musical figures and works that made waves in pre-war Vienna, including Mahler, Korngold, Zemlinsky and the "Second Viennese School" of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, and explores the personal, musical and philosophical conflicts that tore it apart.

March 31st, 1913 was a date that would go down in the annals of European music history. The event that would later be termed "Das Skandalkonzert" was billed innocuously enough ? a programme of new music by Schoenberg, Webern, Berg and Zemlinsky, plus one of Mahler's achingly beautiful Kindertotenlieder. But before long, the audience were rioting at the daring new sounds emanating from the stage. Donald Macleod ends the week by recreating the programme of this infamous date in musical history ? presenting the story behind the works that caused such a scandal.