Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was associated with the
expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the
Second Viennese School. As a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
composer, Schoenberg was targeted by the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, which labeled his works as
degenerate music and forbade them from being published. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, becoming an American citizen in 1941.
Schoenberg's approach, bοth in terms of harmony and development, has shaped much of
20th-century music
The following Wikipedia articles deal with 20th-century music.
Western art music Main articles
*20th-century classical music
*Contemporary classical music, covering the period
Sub-topics
*Aleatoric music
*Electronic music
*Experimental music
*Ex ...
al thought. Many composers from at least three generations have consciously extended his thinking, whereas others have passionately reacted against it.
Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German
Romantic styles of
Brahms and
Wagner. Later, his name would come to personify innovations in
atonality (although Schoenberg himself detested that term) that would become the most polemical feature of
20th-century classical music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the
twelve-tone technique, an influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered
series of all twelve notes in the
chromatic scale. He also coined the term
developing variation and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing
motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea.
Schoenberg was also an influential teacher of composition; his students included
Alban Berg,
Anton Webern,
Hanns Eisler,
Egon Wellesz,
Nikos Skalkottas
Nikos Skalkottas ( el, Νίκος Σκαλκώτας; 21 March 1904 – 19 September 1949) was a Greek composer of 20th-century classical music. A member of the Second Viennese School, he drew his influences from both the classical reperto ...
,
Stefania Turkewich
Stefania Turkewich-Lukianovych (25 April 1898 – 8 April 1977) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, and musicologist, recognized as Ukraine's first woman composer. Her works were banned in Ukraine by Soviet authorities.
Biography Childhood
...
, and later
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...
,
Lou Harrison,
Earl Kim,
Robert Gerhard,
Leon Kirchner,
Dika Newlin,
Oscar Levant, and
other prominent musicians. Many of Schoenberg's practices, including the formalization of compositional method and his habit of openly inviting audiences to think analytically, are echoed in
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
musical thought throughout the 20th century. His often polemical views of music history and aesthetics were crucial to many significant 20th-century musicologists and critics, including
Theodor W. Adorno,
Charles Rosen, and
Carl Dahlhaus
Carl Dahlhaus (10 June 1928 – 13 March 1989) was a German musicologist who was among the leading postwar musicologists of the mid to late 20th-century. A prolific scholar, he had broad interests though his research focused on 19th- and 20th ...
, as well as the pianists
Artur Schnabel,
Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.
Early life, childhood debut, and education
Serkin was born in t ...
,
Eduard Steuermann, and
Glenn Gould.
Schoenberg's archival legacy is collected at the
Arnold Schönberg Center
The Arnold Schönberg Center, established in 1998 in Vienna, is a repository of Arnold Schönberg's archival legacy and a cultural center that is open to the public.
Activities
Archive and library, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, workshops and ...
in Vienna.
Biography
Early life
Arnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle-class
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in the
Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish
ghetto
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...
) of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, at "Obere Donaustraße 5". His father Samuel, a native of
Szécsény
Szécsény is a town in Nógrád county, Hungary.
Etymology
The name comes from the Slavic ''sečь'': cutting (''Sečany''). 1219/1550 ''Scecen''.
History
The valley of the Ipoly and especially the area of that around Szécsény was inhabited ...
, Hungary, later moved to Pozsony (Pressburg, at that time part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...
, Slovakia) and then to
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, was a shoe-
shopkeeper
A shopkeeper is a retail merchant or tradesman; one who owns or operates a small store or shop. Generally, shop employees are not shopkeepers, but are often incorrectly referred to as such. At larger companies, a shopkeeper is usually referred ...
, and his mother Pauline Schoenberg (née Nachod), a native of
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, was a piano teacher. Arnold was largely self-taught. He took only
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...
lessons with the composer
Alexander Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law.
In his twenties, Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating
operettas, while composing his own works, such as the string sextet ''
Verklärte Nacht'' ("Transfigured Night") (1899). He later made an orchestral version of this, which became one of his most popular pieces. Both
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
and
Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg's significance as a composer; Strauss when he encountered Schoenberg's ''
Gurre-Lieder'', and Mahler after hearing several of Schoenberg's early works.
Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909, and at that point dismissed Schoenberg. Mahler adopted him as a protégé and continued to support him, even after Schoenberg's style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death. Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahler's music, was converted by the "thunderbolt" of Mahler's ''
Third Symphony'', which he considered a work of genius. Afterward he "spoke of Mahler as a saint".
In 1898 Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
church. According to MacDonald (2008, 93) this was partly to strengthen his attachment to Western European cultural traditions, and partly as a means of self-defence "in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism". In 1933, after long meditation, he returned to Judaism, because he realised that "his racial and religious heritage was inescapable", and to take up an unmistakable position on the side opposing Nazism. He would self-identify as a member of the Jewish religion later in life.
1901–1914: experimenting in atonality
In October 1901, Schoenberg married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of the conductor and composer
Alexander von Zemlinsky, with whom Schoenberg had been studying since about 1894. Schoenberg and Mathilde had two children, Gertrud (1902–1947) and Georg (1906–1974). Gertrud would marry Schoenberg's pupil Felix Greissle in 1921.
During the summer of 1908, Schoenberg's wife Mathilde left him for several months for a young Austrian painter,
Richard Gerstl (who committed suicide in that November after Mathilde returned to her marriage). This period marked a distinct change in Schoenberg's work. It was during the absence of his wife that he composed "You lean against a silver-willow" (german: link=no, Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide), the thirteenth song in the cycle ''
Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten'', Op. 15, based on the collection of the same name by the German mystical poet
Stefan George. This was the first composition without any reference at all to a
key.
Also in this year, Schoenberg completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the
String Quartet No. 2. The first two movements, though chromatic in color, use traditional
key signatures. The final two movements, again using poetry by George, incorporate a soprano vocal line, breaking with previous string-quartet practice, and daringly weaken the links with traditional
tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is ca ...
. Both movements end on
tonic chords, and the work is not fully non-tonal.
During the summer of 1910, Schoenberg wrote his ''Harmonielehre'' (''Theory of Harmony'', Schoenberg 1922), which remains one of the most influential music-theory books. From about 1911, Schoenberg belonged to a circle of artists and intellectuals who included
Lene Schneider-Kainer
Lene Schneider-Kainer, born Lene Schneider (1885 – 1971), was a Jewish-Austrian painter, daughter of the painter Sigmund Schneider, noted for her illustration of "'' Lukian:Hetärengespräche. Mit Illustrationen von Lene Schneider-Kainer und ei ...
,
Franz Werfel
Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian- Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of ''The For ...
,
Herwarth Walden, and
Else Lasker-Schüler.
In 1910 he met
Edward Clark, an English music journalist then working in Germany. Clark became his sole English student, and in his later capacity as a producer for the BBC he was responsible for introducing many of Schoenberg's works, and Schoenberg himself, to Britain (as well as
Webern,
Berg and others).
Another of his most important works from this atonal or pantonal period is the highly influential ''
Pierrot lunaire'', Op. 21, of 1912, a novel cycle of expressionist songs set to a German translation of poems by the Belgian-French poet
Albert Giraud. Utilizing the technique of ''
Sprechstimme'', or melodramatically spoken recitation, the work pairs a female vocalist with a small ensemble of five musicians. The ensemble, which is now commonly referred to as the
Pierrot ensemble, consists of
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedles ...
(doubling on
piccolo
The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the s ...
),
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...
(doubling on
bass clarinet), violin (doubling on
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
), violoncello, speaker, and piano.
Wilhelm Bopp, director of the
Vienna Conservatory from 1907, wanted a break from the stale environment personified for him by
Robert Fuchs and
Hermann Graedener. Having considered many candidates, he offered teaching positions to Schoenberg and
Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker (originally ''Schrecker''; 23 March 1878 – 21 March 1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality (a mixture ...
in 1912. At the time Schoenberg lived in Berlin. He was not completely cut off from the Vienna Conservatory, having taught a private theory course a year earlier. He seriously considered the offer, but he declined. Writing afterward to Alban Berg, he cited his "aversion to Vienna" as the main reason for his decision, while contemplating that it might have been the wrong one financially, but having made it he felt content. A couple of months later he wrote to Schreker suggesting that it might have been a bad idea for him as well to accept the teaching position.
World War I
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
brought a crisis in his development. Military service disrupted his life when at the age of 42 he was in the army. He was never able to work uninterrupted or over a period of time, and as a result he left many unfinished works and undeveloped "beginnings". On one occasion, a superior officer demanded to know if he was "this notorious Schoenberg, then"; Schoenberg replied: "Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me". According to
Norman, this is a reference to Schoenberg's apparent "destiny" as the
"Emancipator of Dissonance".
In what
Alex Ross calls an "act of war psychosis", Schoenberg drew comparisons between Germany's assault on France and his assault on decadent bourgeois artistic values. In August 1914, while denouncing the music of
Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become on ...
,
Stravinsky, and
Ravel, he wrote: "Now comes the reckoning! Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God".
The deteriorating relation between contemporary composers and the public led him to found the
Society for Private Musical Performances
The Society for Private Musical Performances (in German, the ) was an organization founded in Vienna in the Autumn of 1918 by Arnold Schoenberg with the intention of making carefully rehearsed and comprehensible performances of newly composed musi ...
(''Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen'' in German) in Vienna in 1918. He sought to provide a forum in which modern musical compositions could be carefully prepared and rehearsed, and properly performed under conditions protected from the dictates of fashion and pressures of commerce. From its inception through 1921, when it ended because of economic reasons, the Society presented 353 performances to paying members, sometimes at the rate of one per week. During the first year and a half, Schoenberg did not let any of his own works be performed. Instead, audiences at the Society's concerts heard difficult contemporary compositions by
Scriabin,
Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...
, Mahler, Webern, Berg,
Reger, and other leading figures of early 20th-century music.
Development of the twelve-tone method
Later, Schoenberg was to develop the most influential version of the dodecaphonic (also known as
twelve-tone) method of composition, which in French and English was given the alternative name
serialism by
René Leibowitz
René Leibowitz (; 17 February 1913 – 29 August 1972) was a Polish, later naturalised French, composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher. He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after ...
and
Humphrey Searle in 1947. This technique was taken up by many of his students, who constituted the so-called
Second Viennese School. They included
Anton Webern,
Alban Berg, and
Hanns Eisler, all of whom were profoundly influenced by Schoenberg. He published a number of books, ranging from his famous ''Harmonielehre'' (''Theory of Harmony'') to ''Fundamentals of Musical Composition'', many of which are still in print and used by musicians and developing composers.
Schoenberg viewed his development as a natural progression, and he did not deprecate his earlier works when he ventured into serialism. In 1923 he wrote to the Swiss philanthropist
Werner Reinhart:
For the present, it matters more to me if people understand my older works ... They are the natural forerunners of my later works, and only those who understand and comprehend these will be able to gain an understanding of the later works that goes beyond a fashionable bare minimum. I do not attach so much importance to being a musical bogey-man as to being a natural continuer of properly-understood good old tradition!
His first wife died in October 1923, and in August of the next year Schoenberg married
Gertrud Kolisch (1898–1967), sister of his pupil, the violinist
Rudolf Kolisch
Rudolf Kolisch (July 20, 1896 – August 1, 1978) was a Viennese violinist and leader of string quartets, including the Kolisch Quartet and the Pro Arte Quartet.
Early life and education
Kolisch was born in Klamm, Schottwien, Lower Austria and r ...
. They had three children: Nuria Dorothea (born 1932), Ronald Rudolf (born 1937), and Lawrence Adam (born 1941). Gertrude Kolisch Schoenberg wrote the libretto for Schoenberg's one-act opera ''
Von heute auf morgen'' under the pseudonym Max Blonda. At her request Schoenberg's (ultimately unfinished) piece, ''
Die Jakobsleiter
''Die Jakobsleiter'' (''Jacob's Ladder'') is an oratorio by Arnold Schoenberg that marks his transition from a contextual or free atonality to the twelve-tone technique anticipated in the oratorio's use of hexachords. Though ultimately unfinish ...
'' was prepared for performance by Schoenberg's student
Winfried Zillig
Winfried Zillig (1 April 1905 – 18 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, and conductor.
Zillig was born in Würzburg. After leaving school, Zillig studied law and music. One of his teachers there was Hermann Zilcher. In Vienna ...
. After her husband's death in 1951 she founded Belmont Music Publishers devoted to the publication of his works. Arnold used the notes G and E (German: Es, i.e., "S") for "Gertrud Schoenberg", in the ''Suite'', for septet, Op. 29 (1925). (see
musical cryptogram).
Following the death in 1924 of composer
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...
, who had served as Director of a Master Class in Composition at the
Prussian Academy of Arts
The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and la ...
in Berlin, Schoenberg was appointed to this post the next year, but because of health problems was unable to take up his post until 1926. Among his notable students during this period were the composers Robert Gerhard, Nikos Skalkottas, and
Josef Rufer.
Along with his twelve-tone works, 1930 marks Schoenberg's return to tonality, with numbers 4 and 6 of the Six Pieces for Male Chorus Op. 35, the other pieces being dodecaphonic.
Third Reich and move to the United States
Schoenberg continued in his post until the
Nazi regime Machtergreifung
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
came to power in 1933. While on vacation in France, he was warned that returning to Germany would be dangerous. Schoenberg formally reclaimed membership in the Jewish religion at a Paris synagogue, then traveled with his family to the United States. This happened after his attempts to move to Britain came to nothing.
His first teaching position in the United States was at the Malkin Conservatory (
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original cam ...
). He moved to Los Angeles, where he taught at the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8.1 ...
and the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...
, both of which later named a music building on their respective campuses Schoenberg Hall. He was appointed visiting professor at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
in 1935 on the recommendation of
Otto Klemperer, music director and conductor of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; and the next year was promoted to professor at a salary of $5,100 per year, which enabled him in either May 1936 or 1937 to buy a Spanish Revival house at 116 North Rockingham in
Brentwood Park
Brentwood Park, or simply Brentwood, is a neighbourhood in North Burnaby, British Columbia, between Willingdon Avenue to the west and Springer Avenue to the east. Hastings Street separates it from the Capitol Hill area to the north, while Loughe ...
, near the UCLA campus, for $18,000. This address was directly across the street from
Shirley Temple's house, and there he befriended fellow composer (and tennis partner)
George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...
. The Schoenbergs were able to employ domestic help and began holding Sunday afternoon gatherings that were known for excellent coffee and Viennese pastries. Frequent guests included
Otto Klemperer (who studied composition privately with Schoenberg beginning in April 1936),
Edgard Varèse,
Joseph Achron
Joseph Yulyevich Achron, also seen as Akhron (Russian: Иосиф Юльевич Ахрон, Hebrew: יוסף אחרון) (May 1, 1886April 29, 1943) was a Russian-born Jewish composer and violinist, who settled in the United States. His preocc ...
,
Louis Gruenberg,
Ernst Toch, and, on occasion, well-known actors such as
Harpo Marx and
Peter Lorre. Composers
Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman (September 7, 1924 – March 4, 2008) was an American film, television and concert composer with credits in over 130 works, including '' East of Eden'', ''Rebel without a Cause'', '' Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'', ''Beneath th ...
and
George Tremblay
George Amédée Tremblay (14 January 1911 – 14 July 1982) was a Canadian (and later, naturalized American citizen) pianist, composer, and author who was active in the United States. Although his works display a broad range of stylistic influenc ...
and the Hollywood orchestrator
Edward B. Powell Edward Benson Powell (December 5, 1909, Savanna, Carroll County, Illinois - February 28, 1984, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles) was an American arranger, orchestrator and composer, who served as Alfred Newman's musical lieutenant at 20th Century Fox ...
studied with Schoenberg at this time.
After his move to the United States, where he arrived on 31 October 1933, the composer used the alternative spelling of his surname ''Schoenberg'', rather than ''Schönberg'', in what he called "deference to American practice", though according to one writer he first made the change a year earlier.
He lived there the rest of his life, but at first he was not settled. In around 1934, he applied for a position of teacher of harmony and theory at the
New South Wales State Conservatorium in Sydney. The Director,
Edgar Bainton, rejected him for being Jewish and for having "modernist ideas and dangerous tendencies." Schoenberg also at one time explored the idea of emigrating to
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
. His secretary and student (and nephew of Schoenberg's mother-in-law Henriette Kolisch), was
Richard Hoffmann, Viennese-born but who lived in New Zealand in 1935–1947, and Schoenberg had since childhood been fascinated with islands, and with New Zealand in particular, possibly because of the beauty of the postage stamps issued by that country.
During this final period, he composed several notable works, including the difficult
Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1934/36), the ''
Kol Nidre
Kol Nidre (also known as Kol Nidrey or Kol Nidrei; Aramaic: ''kāl niḏrē'') is a Hebrew and Aramaic declaration which is recited in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement"). Strictl ...
'', Op. 39, for chorus and orchestra (1938), the ''Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte'', Op. 41 (1942), the haunting
Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942), and his memorial to the victims of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, ''
A Survivor from Warsaw'', Op. 46 (1947). He was unable to complete his opera ''
Moses und Aron'' (1932/33), which was one of the first works of its genre written completely using
dodecaphonic composition. Along with twelve-tone music, Schoenberg also returned to tonality with works during his last period, like the Suite for Strings in G major (1935), the
Chamber Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 38 (begun in 1906, completed in 1939), the Variations on a Recitative in D minor, Op. 40 (1941). During this period his notable students included
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...
and
Lou Harrison.
In 1941, he became a citizen of the United States. Here he was the first composer in residence at the
Music Academy of the West summer conservatory.
Superstition and death
Schoenberg's superstitious nature may have triggered his death. The composer had
triskaidekaphobia
Triskaidekaphobia ( , ; ) is fear or avoidance of the number . It is also a reason for the fear of Friday the 13th, called ''paraskevidekatriaphobia'' () or ''friggatriskaidekaphobia'' ().
The term was used as early as in 1910 by Isador Cori ...
(the fear of the number 13), and according to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. This possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of the song cycle ''
Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten'' Op. 15. He dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and
astrologer
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...
Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's
horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal.
But in 1950, on his 76th birthday, an astrologer wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 + 6 = 13.
[Nuria Schoenberg-Nono, quoted in ] This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He died on
Friday, 13 July 1951, shortly before midnight. Schoenberg had stayed in bed all day, sick, anxious, and depressed. His wife Gertrud reported in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie the next day that Arnold died at 11:45 pm, 15 minutes before midnight. In a letter to Ottilie dated 4 August 1951, Gertrud explained, "About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold's throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end".
Schoenberg's ashes were later interred at the
Zentralfriedhof
The Vienna Central Cemetery (german: Wiener Zentralfriedhof) is one of the largest cemeteries in the world by number of interred, and is the most well-known cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries. The cemetery's name is descriptive of its ...
in Vienna on 6 June 1974.
Music
Schoenberg's significant compositions in the repertory of modern art music extend over a period of more than 50 years. Traditionally they are divided into three periods though this division is arguably arbitrary as the music in each of these periods is considerably varied. The idea that his twelve-tone period "represents a stylistically unified body of works is simply not supported by the musical evidence", and important musical characteristics—especially those related to
motivic development—transcend these boundaries completely.
The first of these periods, 1894–1907, is identified in the legacy of the high-
Romantic composers of the late nineteenth century, as well as with "
expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
" movements in poetry and art. The second, 1908–1922, is typified by the abandonment of
key centers, a move often described (though not by Schoenberg) as "
free atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a Tonality, tonal center, or Key (music), key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of ha ...
". The third, from 1923 onward, commences with Schoenberg's invention of
dodecaphonic
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
, or "twelve-tone" compositional method. Schoenberg's best-known students,
Hanns Eisler,
Alban Berg, and
Anton Webern, followed Schoenberg faithfully through each of these intellectual and aesthetic transitions, though not without considerable experimentation and variety of approach.
First period: Late Romanticism
Beginning with songs and string quartets written around the turn of the century, Schoenberg's concerns as a composer positioned him uniquely among his peers, in that his procedures exhibited characteristics of both
Brahms and
Wagner, who for most contemporary listeners, were considered polar opposites, representing mutually exclusive directions in the legacy of German music. Schoenberg's Six Songs, Op. 3 (1899–1903), for example, exhibit a conservative clarity of
tonal organization typical of Brahms and Mahler, reflecting an interest in balanced phrases and an undisturbed
hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
of key relationships. However, the songs also explore unusually bold incidental
chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the tw ...
and seem to aspire to a Wagnerian "representational" approach to motivic identity.
The synthesis of these approaches reaches an apex in his ''
Verklärte Nacht'', Op. 4 (1899), a
programmatic work for
string sextet that develops several distinctive "
leitmotif"-like themes, each one eclipsing and subordinating the last. The only motivic elements that persist throughout the work are those that are perpetually dissolved, varied, and re-combined, in a technique, identified primarily in Brahms's music, that Schoenberg called "
developing variation". Schoenberg's procedures in the work are organized in two ways simultaneously; at once suggesting a Wagnerian narrative of motivic ideas, as well as a Brahmsian approach to motivic development and tonal cohesion.
Second period: Free atonality
Schoenberg's music from 1908 onward experiments in a variety of ways with the absence of traditional keys or
tonal centers. His first explicitly atonal piece was the
second string quartet, Op. 10, with soprano. The last movement of this piece has no key signature, marking Schoenberg's formal divorce from
diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a ...
harmonies. Other important works of the era include his song cycle ''
Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten'', Op. 15 (1908–1909), his
Five Orchestral Pieces
The ''Five Pieces for Orchestra'' (''Fünf Orchesterstücke''), Op. 16, were composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909, and first performed in London in 1912. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upo ...
, Op. 16 (1909), the influential ''
Pierrot Lunaire'', Op. 21 (1912), as well as his dramatic ''
Erwartung'', Op. 17 (1909).
The urgency of musical constructions lacking in tonal centers, or traditional
dissonance-consonance relationships, however, can be traced as far back as his
Chamber Symphony No. 1
The Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9 (also known by its title in German Kammersymphonie, für 15 soloinstrumente, or simply as Kammersymphonie) is a composition by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Schoenberg's first chamber symphony w ...
, Op. 9 (1906), a work remarkable for its tonal development of whole-tone and
quartal harmony, and its initiation of dynamic and unusual ensemble relationships, involving dramatic interruption and unpredictable instrumental allegiances; many of these features would typify the
timbre-oriented chamber music aesthetic of the coming century.
Third period: Twelve-tone and tonal works
In the early 1920s, he worked at evolving a means of order that would make his musical texture simpler and clearer. This resulted in the "method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another", in which the twelve pitches of the octave (unrealized compositionally) are regarded as equal, and no one note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony. He regarded it as the equivalent in music of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
's discoveries in physics. Schoenberg announced it characteristically, during a walk with his friend
Josef Rufer, when he said, "I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years". This period included the ''
Variations for Orchestra'', Op. 31 (1928);
Piano Pieces, Opp. 33a & b (1931), and the
Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942). Contrary to his reputation for strictness, Schoenberg's use of the technique varied widely according to the demands of each individual composition. Thus the structure of his unfinished opera ''
Moses und Aron'' is unlike that of his Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949).
Ten features of Schoenberg's mature twelve-tone practice are characteristic, interdependent, and interactive:
#
Hexachord
In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six- note series, as exhibited in a scale ( hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial ...
al
inversional combinatoriality
In music using the twelve tone technique, combinatoriality is a quality shared by twelve-tone tone rows whereby each section of a row and a proportionate number of its transformations combine to form aggregates (all twelve tones). Whittall, Arnold ...
#
Aggregates
# Linear
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
presentation
#
Partitioning
#
Isomorphic
In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word i ...
partitioning
#
Invariants
# Hexachordal
levels
#
Harmony, "consistent with and derived from the properties of the referential set"
#
Metre
The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pre ...
, established through "pitch-relational characteristics"
#
Multidimensional set presentations
Reception and legacy
First works
After some early difficulties, Schoenberg began to win public acceptance with works such as the tone poem ''
Pelleas und Melisande
''Pelleas und Melisande'', Op. 5, is a symphonic poem written by Arnold Schoenberg and completed in February 1903. It was premiered on 25 January 1905 at the Musikverein in Vienna under the composer's direction in a concert that also included th ...
'' at a Berlin performance in 1907. At the Vienna première of the ''
Gurre-Lieder'' in 1913, he received an ovation that lasted a quarter of an hour and culminated with Schoenberg's being presented with a laurel crown.
Nonetheless, much of his work was not well received. His
Chamber Symphony No. 1
The Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9 (also known by its title in German Kammersymphonie, für 15 soloinstrumente, or simply as Kammersymphonie) is a composition by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Schoenberg's first chamber symphony w ...
premièred unremarkably in 1907. However, when it was played again in the ''
Skandalkonzert'' on 31 March 1913, (which also included works by
Berg,
Webern and
Zemlinsky), "one could hear the shrill sound of door keys among the violent clapping, and in the second gallery the first fight of the evening began." Later in the concert, during a performance of the ''
Altenberg Lieder'' by Berg, fighting broke out after Schoenberg interrupted the performance to threaten removal by the police of any troublemakers.
Twelve-tone period
According to Ethan Haimo, understanding of Schoenberg's twelve-tone work has been difficult to achieve owing in part to the "truly revolutionary nature" of his new system, misinformation disseminated by some early writers about the system's "rules" and "exceptions" that bear "little relation to the most significant features of Schoenberg's music", the composer's secretiveness, and the widespread unavailability of his sketches and manuscripts until the late 1970s. During his life, he was "subjected to a range of criticism and abuse that is shocking even in hindsight".
Schoenberg criticized
Igor Stravinsky's new neoclassical trend in the poem "Der neue Klassizismus" (in which he derogates
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism ...
, and obliquely refers to Stravinsky as "Der kleine Modernsky"), which he used as text for the third of his ''Drei Satiren'', Op. 28.
Schoenberg's serial technique of composition with twelve notes became one of the most central and polemical issues among American and European musicians during the mid- to late-twentieth century. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing to the present day, composers such as
Pierre Boulez,
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...
,
Luigi Nono and
Milton Babbitt have extended Schoenberg's legacy in increasingly radical directions. The major cities of the United States (e.g., Los Angeles, New York, and Boston) have had historically significant performances of Schoenberg's music, with advocates such as Babbitt in New York and the Franco-American conductor-pianist
Jacques-Louis Monod
Jacques-Louis Monod (25 February 1927 – 21 September 2020) was a French composer, pianist and conductor of 20th century and contemporary music, particularly in the advancement of the music of Charles Ives, Edgard Varèse, Arnold Schoenberg, A ...
. Schoenberg's students have been influential teachers at major American universities:
Leonard Stein at
USC
USC most often refers to:
* University of South Carolina, a public research university
** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses
** South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program
* University of ...
,
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
and
CalArts; Richard Hoffmann at
Oberlin;
Patricia Carpenter at
Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...
; and
Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. Musicians associated with Schoenberg have had a profound influence upon contemporary music performance practice in the US (e.g.,
Louis Krasner,
Eugene Lehner
Eugene Lehner (1906 – 13 September 1997) was a violist and music educator.
Lehner, as he preferred to be addressed, was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1906. Originally named Jenö Léner, he performed as a self-taught violinist from th ...
and
Rudolf Kolisch
Rudolf Kolisch (July 20, 1896 – August 1, 1978) was a Viennese violinist and leader of string quartets, including the Kolisch Quartet and the Pro Arte Quartet.
Early life and education
Kolisch was born in Klamm, Schottwien, Lower Austria and r ...
at the
New England Conservatory of Music;
Eduard Steuermann and
Felix Galimir
Felix Galimir (May 20, 1910, Vienna – November 10, 1999, New York) was an Austrian-born American violinist and music teacher.
Born in a Sephardic Jewish family Vienna; his first language was Ladino.
Allan Kozinn,"Felix Galimir, 89, a Vi ...
at the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely ...
). In Europe, the work of
Hans Keller, , and René Leibowitz has had a measurable influence in spreading Schoenberg's musical legacy outside of Germany and Austria. His pupil and assistant
Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with Arnold Schönberg and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he ...
, who later became a professor of music, was also a conductor. who made a recording of three "master works" Schoenberg with the
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, released posthumously in late 2013. This recording includes short lectures by Deutsch on each of the pieces.
Criticism
In the 1920s,
Ernst Krenek criticized a certain unnamed brand of contemporary music (presumably Schoenberg and his disciples) as "the self-gratification of an individual who sits in his studio and invents rules according to which he then writes down his notes". Schoenberg took offense at this remark and answered that Krenek "wishes for only whores as listeners".
Allen Shawn
Allen Evan Shawn (born August 27, 1948)''Vermont, Marriage Records, 1909-2008'' is an American composer, pianist, educator, and author who lives in Vermont.
His music
Shawn began composing at the age of ten, but dates his mature work from 1977. ...
has noted that, given Schoenberg's living circumstances, his work is usually ''defended'' rather than listened to, and that it is difficult to experience it ''apart'' from the ideology that surrounds it.
Richard Taruskin asserted that Schoenberg committed what he terms a "poietic fallacy", the conviction that what matters most (or all that matters) in a work of art is the making of it, the maker's input, and that the listener's pleasure must not be the composer's primary objective. Taruskin also criticizes the ideas of measuring Schoenberg's value as a composer in terms of his influence on other artists, the overrating of technical innovation, and the restriction of criticism to matters of structure and craft while derogating other approaches as vulgarian.
Relationship with the general public
Writing in 1977,
Christopher Small observed, "Many music lovers, even today, find difficulty with Schoenberg's music". Small wrote his short biography a quarter of a century after the composer's death. According to
Nicholas Cook
Nicholas Cook, (born 5 June 1950COOK, Prof. Nicholas (John)’, Who's Who 2012, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2011 ; online edn, Nov 201accessed 9 April 2012/ref>) is a British musicologist and writer born in Athe ...
, writing some twenty years after Small, Schoenberg had thought that this lack of comprehension
Ben Earle (2003) found that Schoenberg, while revered by experts and taught to "generations of students" on degree courses, remained unloved by the public. Despite more than forty years of advocacy and the production of "books devoted to the explanation of this difficult repertory to non-specialist audiences", it would seem that in particular, "British attempts to popularize music of this kind ... can now safely be said to have failed".
In his 2018 biography of Schoenberg's near contemporary and similarly pioneering composer, Debussy,
Stephen Walsh takes issue with the idea that it is not possible "for a creative artist to be both radical and popular". Walsh concludes, "Schoenberg may be the first 'great' composer in modern history whose music has not entered the repertoire almost a century and a half after his birth".
Thomas Mann's novel ''Doctor Faustus''
Adrian Leverkühn, the protagonist of
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
's novel ''
Doctor Faustus'' (1947), is a composer whose use of twelve-tone technique parallels the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg was unhappy about this and initiated an exchange of letters with Mann following the novel's publication.
Leverkühn, who may be based on
Nietzsche, sells his soul to the Devil. Writer
Sean O'Brien comments that "written in the shadow of Hitler, ''Doktor Faustus'' observes the rise of Nazism, but its relationship to political history is oblique".
Personality and extramusical interests
Schoenberg was a painter of considerable ability, whose works were considered good enough to exhibit alongside those of
Franz Marc
Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of '' Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later ...
and
Wassily Kandinsky. as fellow members of the
expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
group
Der Blaue Reiter.
He was interested in
Hopalong Cassidy films
From 1935 to 1948, 66 American Western (genre), Western films were produced featuring the character Hopalong Cassidy, played in all the films by actor William Boyd (actor), William Boyd. The films were at the time collectively known as "Hoppies" ...
, which Paul Buhle and David Wagner (2002, v–vii) attribute to the films' left-wing screenwriters—a rather odd claim in light of Schoenberg's statement that he was a "
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. ...
" turned
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalis ...
.
Textbooks
* 1922.
Harmonielehre', third edition. Vienna: Universal Edition. (Originally published 1911).
* 1943. ''Models for Beginners in Composition'', New York: G. Schirmer, Inc.
* 1954. ''Structural Functions of Harmony''. New York: W. W. Norton; London: Williams and Norgate. Revised edition, New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company 1969.
* 1964. ''Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint'', edited with a foreword by Leonard Stein. New York, St. Martin's Press. Reprinted, Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers 2003.
* 1967. ''Fundamentals of Musical Composition'', edited by Gerald Strang, with an introduction by Leonard Stein. New York: St. Martin's Press. Reprinted 1985, London: Faber and Faber.
* 1978. ''Theory of Harmony'', English edition, translated by Roy E. Carter, based on ''Harmonielehre'' 1922. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* 1979. ''Die Grundlagen der musikalischen Komposition'', translated into German by Rudolf Kolisch; edited by
Rudolf Stephan. Vienna: Universal Edition (German translation of ''Fundamentals of Musical Composition'').
* 2003. ''Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint'', Reprinted, Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers.
* 2010. ''Theory of Harmony'', 100th Anniversary Edition. Berkeley: California University Press. 2nd edition.
* 2016. ''Models for Beginners in Composition'', Reprinted, London: Oxford University Press.
Writings
* 1947. "The Musician". In ''The Works of the Mind'', edited by Robert B. Heywood, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* 1950. ''
Style and Idea
''Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg'' (in German: ''Stil und Gedanke'') is the name for a published collection of essays, articles and sketches by Arnold Schoenberg, that has appeared in various forms.
The earliest may date ...
: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg'', edited and translated by
Dika Newlin. New York: Philosophical Library.
* 1958. ''Ausgewählte Briefe'', by B. Schott's Söhne, Mainz.
* 1964. ''Arnold Schoenberg Letters'', selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.
* 1965. ''Arnold Schoenberg Letters'', selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. New York: St.Martin's Press.
* 1975. ''Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg'', edited by Leonard Stein, with translations by Leo Black. New York: St. Martins Press; London: Faber & Faber. Expanded from the 1950 Philosophical Library (New York) publication edited by Dika Newlin (559 pages from 231). The volume carries the note "Several of the essays ... were originally written in German (translated by Dika Newlin)" in both editions.
* 1984. ''Style and Idea: Selected Writings'', translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: California University Press.
* 1984. ''Arnold Schoenberg
Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures and Documents'', edited by Jelena Hahl-Koch, translated by John C. Crawford. London: Faber and Faber. ,
* 1987. ''Arnold Schoenberg Letters'', selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* 2006. ''The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation'', new paperback English edition. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press.
* 2010. ''Style and Idea: Selected Writings'', 60th anniversary (second) edition, translated by Leonard Stein and Leo Black. Berkeley: California University Press.
* 2020. Kathryn Puffet and Barbara Schingnitz: ''Three Men of Letters. Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, 1906-1921''. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2020.
See also
* ''
Arnold Schönberg Complete Edition''
*
Arnold Schönberg Prize
*
List of refugees
This is a list of prominent people who fled their native country, went into exile and found refuge in another country. The list follows the current legal concept of refugee only loosely. It also includes children of people who have fled. The peopl ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* (Reprint of .)
*
*
* (Reissued in ''The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007, pp. 301–329. ).
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
Adorno, Theodor. 1967. ''Prisms'', translated from the German by
Samuel and Shierry Weber London: Spearman; Cambridge, Massachusetts:
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962.
History
The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...
.
* Anon. 2002.
Arnold Schönberg and His God. Vienna: Arnold Schönberg Center (accessed 1 December 2008).
* Anon. 1997–2013.
. In ''A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust''. The Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida (accessed 16 June 2014).
* Auner, Joseph. 1993. ''A Schoenberg Reader.'' New Haven: Yale University Press.
*
* Berry, Mark. 2019. ''Arnold Schoenberg.'' London: Reaktion Books.
*
Boulez, Pierre. 1991. "Schoenberg is Dead" (1952). In his ''Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship'', collected and presented by Paule Thévenin, translated by Stephen Walsh, with an introduction by Robert Piencikowski, 209–14. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York:
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
.
* Brand, Julianne, Christopher Hailey, and Donald Harris (editors). 1987. ''The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters.'' New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company.
* Buhle, Paul, and David Wagner. 2002. ''Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies''. New York:
The New Press.
* Clausen, Detlev. 2008. ''Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius'', translated by Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
.
*
Byron, Avior. 2006
"The Test Pressings of Schoenberg Conducting ''Pierrot lunaire'': Sprechstimme Reconsidered".''
Music Theory Online
''Music Theory Online'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed open access academic journal covering music theory and analysis. It was established in 1993 and is published by the Society for Music Theory. The initial issues were designated as part of volu ...
'' 12, no. 1 (February).
* Cohen, Mitchell, "A Dissonant Schoenberg in Berlin and Paris," "Jewish Review of Books," April 2016.
* da Costa Meyer, Esther. 2003. "Schoenberg's Echo: The Composer as Painter". In ''Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider'', edited by Fred Wasserman and Esther da Costa Meyer, foreword by Joan Rosenbaum, preface by Christian Meyer. London and New York: Scala.
*
Everdell, William R. 1998 ''
The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*
Eybl, Martin. 2004. ''Die Befreiung des Augenblicks: Schönbergs Skandalkonzerte von 1907 und 1908: eine Dokumentation''. Wiener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte 4. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau.
* Floirat, Bernard. 2001.
Les Fonctions structurelles de l'harmonie d'Arnold Schoenberg'. Eska, Musurgia.
* Frisch, Walter (ed.). 1999. ''Schoenberg and His World''. Bard Music Festival Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (cloth); (pbk).
*
Genette, Gérard. 1997. ''Immanence and Transcendence'', translated by G. M. Goshgarian. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in ...
.
* Gur, Golan. 2009.
Arnold Schoenberg and the Ideology of Progress in Twentieth-Century Musical Thinking. ''Search: Journal for New Music and Culture'' 5 (Summer). Online journal (Accessed 17 October 2011).
* Greissle-Schönberg, Arnold, and
Nancy Bogen
Nancy Bogen (born April 24, 1932) is an American author-scholar, mixed media producer, and digital artist.
Bogen has to her credit three serious novels of ideas: ''Klytaimnestra Who Stayed at Home'' (1980); ''Bobe Mayse, A Tale of Washington Squ ...
.
.d.Arnold Schönberg's European Family' (e-book). The Lark Ascending, Inc. (accessed 2 May 2010)
* Hyde, Martha M. 1982. ''Schoenberg's Twelve-Tone Harmony: The Suite Op. 29 and the Compositional Sketches''. Studies in Musicology, series edited by George Buelow. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.
*
Kandinsky, Wassily. 2000. "Arnold Schönberg als Maler/Arnold Schönberg as Painter". ''Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center'', no. 1:131–76.
*
Mahler, Alma
Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite. At 15, she was mentored by Max Burckhard. Musically active from her early yea ...
. 1960. ''Mein Leben'', with a foreword by
Willy Haas
Willy Haas (6 July 1891 – 4 September 1973) was a German editor, film critic, and screenwriter. He wrote for 19 films between 1922 and 1933, and was a member of the jury at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival.
Biography
Willy Haas ...
. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, ''My Life, My Loves: The Memoirs of Alma Mahler'',
St. Martin's Griffin
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...
(1958) Paperback
*
* Orenstein, Arbie. 1975. ''Ravel: Man and Musician''. London: Columbia University Press.
*
* Petropoulos, Jonathan. 2014. ''Artists Under Hitler''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
* Ringer, Alexander. 1990. "Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Jew". Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
* Rollet, Philippe (ed.). 2010. ''Arnold Schönberg: Visions et regards'', with a preface by Frédéric Chambert and Alain Mousseigne. Montreuil-sous-Bois: Liénart.
* Schoenberg, Arnold. 1922.
Harmonielehre', third edition. Vienna: Universal Edition. (Originally published 1911). Translation by Roy E. Carter, based on the third edition, as ''Theory of Harmony''. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978.
* Schoenberg, Arnold. 1959. ''Structural Functions of Harmony''. Translated by
Leonard Stein. London: Williams and Norgate; Revised edition, New York, London: W. W. Norton 1969.
* Shawn, Allen. 2002. ''Arnold Schoenberg's Journey.'' New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux.
* Stegemann, Benedikt. 2013. ''Theory of Tonality: Theoretical Studies''. Wilhelmshaven: Noetzel.
*
Weiss, Adolph. 1932. "The Lyceum of Schonberg", ''Modern Music'' 9, no. 3 (March–April): 99–107.
* Wright, James K. 2007. ''Schoenberg, Wittgenstein, and the Vienna Circle.'' Bern: Verlag Peter Lang.
* Wright, James and Alan Gillmor (eds.). 2009. ''Schoenberg's Chamber Music, Schoenberg's World.'' New York: Pendragon Press.
External links
*
*
Arnold Schoenberg Center in ViennaArchival records: Arnold Schoenberg collection, 1900–1951 Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...
Schönberg. Linking two continents in sound.a web-based exhibition of Arnold Schönberg curated by
Österreichische Mediathek in cooperation with the
Arnold Schönberg Center
The Arnold Schönberg Center, established in 1998 in Vienna, is a repository of Arnold Schönberg's archival legacy and a cultural center that is open to the public.
Activities
Archive and library, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, workshops and ...
Recordingsat
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)videos compiled by
Randol Schoenberg on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schoenberg, Arnold
1874 births
1951 deaths
20th-century American composers
20th-century Austrian composers
20th-century Austrian male musicians
20th-century Austrian painters
20th-century male artists
20th-century classical composers
20th-century American male musicians
American classical composers
American former Christians
American male classical composers
American music theorists
American opera composers
20th-century American painters
Austrian Christians
Austrian classical composers
Austrian emigrants to Germany
Austrian Jews
Austrian male classical composers
Austrian male painters
Austrian monarchists
Austrian music arrangers
Austrian music theorists
Austrian opera composers
Austrian refugees
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
Baalei teshuva
Ballet composers
Berlin University of the Arts alumni
Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery
Composers for piano
Composers for pipe organ
Composers for violin
Composers from Vienna
Converts to Judaism from Christianity
Expressionist music
Jewish American classical composers
Jewish classical composers
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
Jewish painters
Jewish opera composers
Male opera composers
Music Academy of the West faculty
People from Brentwood, Los Angeles
People from Leopoldstadt
Prussian Academy of Arts faculty
Pupils of Alexander Zemlinsky
Second Viennese School
Twelve-tone and serial composers