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Arnold Schoenberg: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna on the 13th of September 1874, a neighborhood that had once served as a Jewish ghetto. His father Samuel, a shoe-shopkeeper from Szécsény in Hungary, moved the family to Vienna, where Arnold was largely self-taught in music. He took only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who would later 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, which became one of his most popular pieces. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized his significance as a composer, with Strauss encountering Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder and Mahler hearing several of his early works. Strauss eventually turned to a more conservative idiom and dismissed Schoenberg, while Mahler adopted him as a protégé, even after Schoenberg's style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death, and 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.
The Emancipation of Dissonance
In 1901, Schoenberg married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of Alexander von Zemlinsky, with whom he had been studying since about 1894. They had two children, Gertrud and Georg. In 1907, 08, Schoenberg wrote the String Quartet No. 2, the first two movements of which use traditional key signatures but are enriched with chromaticism. In the summer of 1908, Mathilde left him for painter Richard Gerstl, who died by suicide upon her return that November. The last two movements of the quartet extend the tonal language and set Stefan George poems to music for soprano and string quartet. During the summer of 1910, Schoenberg wrote his Harmonielehre, which remains one of the most influential music-theory books. From about 1911, Schoenberg belonged to a circle of artists and intellectuals that included Lene Schneider-Kainer, Franz Werfel, Herwarth Walden, and Else Lasker-Schüler. In 1910, he met Edward Clark, an English music journalist who became his sole English student and later introduced many of Schoenberg's works to Britain. One of his most important works from his atonal 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.
Arnold Schoenberg was born on the 13th of September 1874 in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. He was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in a neighborhood that had once served as a Jewish ghetto.
What major musical technique did Arnold Schoenberg develop?
Arnold Schoenberg developed the most influential version of the dodecaphonic or twelve-tone method of composition. This technique was later given the alternative name serialism by René Leibowitz and Humphrey Searle in 1947.
When did Arnold Schoenberg die and what was the cause of his death?
Arnold Schoenberg died on Friday the 13th of July 1951 shortly before midnight. He had been sick and anxious all day and his death was attributed to his triskaidekaphobia and the stress of his 76th birthday.
Where did Arnold Schoenberg live after emigrating to the United States?
Arnold Schoenberg emigrated to the United States on the 31st of October 1933 and eventually settled in Los Angeles. He bought a Spanish Revival house at 116 North Rockingham in Brentwood Park near the UCLA campus in May 1936 or 1937.
Who were the notable students of Arnold Schoenberg?
Notable students of Arnold Schoenberg included Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Hanns Eisler, John Cage, and Lou Harrison. His students went on to become influential teachers at major American universities such as USC, UCLA, and Harvard.
World War I brought a crisis in Schoenberg's 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. 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, 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 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 until its dissolution amid Austrian hyperinflation, the Society presented 353 performances to paying members, sometimes weekly. 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, Mahler, Webern, Berg, Reger, and other leading figures of early 20th-century music.
The Twelve-Tone Method
Later, Schoenberg developed the most influential version of the dodecaphonic, or twelve-tone, method of composition, which in French and English was given the alternative name serialism by René Leibowitz 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 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, sister of his pupil, the violinist Rudolf Kolisch. They had three children: Nuria Dorothea, Ronald Rudolf, and Lawrence Adam. 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 unfinished piece, Die Jakobsleiter, was prepared for performance by Schoenberg's student Winfried Zillig. 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 for Gertrud Schoenberg in the Suite for septet, Op. 29.
Exile and the American Years
Schoenberg continued in his post at the Prussian Academy of Arts until the Nazis seized 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 emigrated to the United States with his family. He subsequently gave brief consideration to moving again, either to England or the Soviet Union. His first teaching position in the United States was at the Malkin Conservatory at Boston University. He moved to Los Angeles, where he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, both of which later named a music building on their respective campuses Schoenberg Hall. He was appointed visiting professor at UCLA 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, 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. 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, Edgard Varèse, Joseph Achron, Louis Gruenberg, Ernst Toch, and, on occasion, well-known actors such as Harpo Marx and Peter Lorre. Composers Leonard Rosenman and George Tremblay and the Hollywood orchestrator Edward B. Powell studied with Schoenberg at this time. After his move to the United States, where he arrived on the 31st of October 1933, the composer used the alternative spelling of his surname Schoenberg, rather than Schönberg, in what he called deference to American practice.
The Holocaust and the Final Works
During this final period, he composed several notable works, including the difficult Violin Concerto, Op. 36, the Kol Nidre, Op. 39, for chorus and orchestra, the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41, the haunting Piano Concerto, Op. 42, and his memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46. He was unable to complete his opera Moses und Aron, 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, the Chamber Symphony No. 2 in E minor, and the Variations on a Recitative in D minor. During this period, his notable students included John Cage and Lou Harrison. In 1941, he became a citizen of the United States. He was the first composer in residence at the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in Montecito, California. Schoenberg's superstitious nature may have triggered his death. The composer had triskaidekaphobia, 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. He dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and astrologer 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. 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, the 13th of 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 the 4th of 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 in Vienna on the 6th of June 1974.
The Painter and the Theorist
Schoenberg was a painter of considerable ability, whose works were considered good enough to exhibit alongside those of Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky as fellow members of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. From about 1908 to 1910, he would execute approximately two-thirds of a total oeuvre comprising about sixty-five oils. He was interested in Hopalong Cassidy films, which Paul Buhle and David Wagner attribute to the films' left-wing screenwriters, a rather odd claim in light of Schoenberg's statement that he was a bourgeois turned monarchist. 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 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. The third, from 1923 onward, commences with Schoenberg's invention of dodecaphonic, 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.
Legacy and the Shadow of Hitler
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, Luigi Nono, and Milton Babbitt have extended Schoenberg's legacy in increasingly radical directions. The major cities of the United States, such as 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. Schoenberg's students have been influential teachers at major American universities: Leonard Stein at USC, UCLA, and CalArts; Richard Hoffmann at Oberlin; Patricia Carpenter at Columbia; and Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard. Musicians associated with Schoenberg have had a profound influence on contemporary music performance practice in the US, such as Louis Krasner, Eugene Lehner, and Rudolf Kolisch at the New England Conservatory of Music; Eduard Steuermann and Felix Galimir at the Juilliard School. In Europe, the work of Hans Keller, René Leibowitz, and others has had a measurable influence in spreading Schoenberg's musical legacy outside of Germany and Austria. His pupil and assistant Max Deutsch, 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. Adrian Leverkühn, the protagonist of Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus, is a composer whose use of twelve-tone technique parallels the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg. Leverkühn, who may be based on Nietzsche, sells his soul to the Devil and is rewarded with superhuman talent. Schoenberg was unhappy about this and initiated an exchange of letters with Mann following the novel's publication. 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. Thomas Mann was always primarily interested in classical music, which also plays a role in many of his works. He sought and received advice from Theodor W. Adorno on the technical compositional details of Schoenberg's new music, and revised the chapters accordingly. In 2025, hundreds of Schoenberg's scores were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, one of the January 2025 Southern California wildfires, at the time of the fire they were being stored at the house of his son, Larry.