NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Arnold Schönberg

Arnold Schoenberg, (the anglicized form of Schönberg—Schoenberg changed the spelling officially when he became a U.S. citizen) (September 13, 1874 – July 13, 1951) was a composer, born in Vienna, Austria. He is particularly remembered as one of the first composers to embrace atonal motivic development, and for his twelve tone technique of composition using tone rows. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Harold Charles Schonberg ( November 29, 1915 - July 26, 2003) was a American music critic and journalist, most notably for the New York Times between 1960 and 1980. ... September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ... Events January - April January 1 - New York City annexes The Bronx January 23 - Marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, to Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, only daughter of Emperor Alexander III of Russia. ... July 13th is the 194th day (195th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 171 days remaining. ... 1951 was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... This article is about the city and federal state in Austria. ... Atonality in a general sense describes music that departs from the system of tonal hierarchies that are said to characterized the sound of classical European music from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... In music, a tone row or note row is a permutation, an arrangement or ordering, of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. ...

Biography

Schoenberg was largely self-taught, taking lessons only with Alexander Zemlinsky who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, he lived by orchestrating operettas while composing works such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") in 1899. He later made an orchestral version of this, which has come to be one of his most popular pieces. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg's significance as a composer: Strauss when he encountered Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. Mahler adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and worried about who would look after him after his death. Schoenberg was influenced by Mahler, championed his work, and considered Mahler a "saint". Alexander von Zemlinsky ( October 14, 1871 - March 15, 1942) was an Austrian composer of classical music, a conductor and a teacher. ... Operetta (literally, little opera) is a performance art-form similar to opera, though it generally deals with less serious topics. ... 1899 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Orchestra at City Hall (Edmonton). ... Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 – September 8, 1949) was a German composer of classical music particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. ... Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (July 7, 1860 – May 18, 1911) was best known in his own time as one of the leading Austrian conductors of his day, but is now remembered as an important composer linking the late 19th century with the modern musical period, particularly for his vast symphonies...

Another of his most important works from this period is Pierrot Lunaire of 1912, a cycle of songs set to a text by Albert Giraud that was unlike anything that preceded it. Utilizing the technique of Sprechstimme, or speak-singing recitation, the work pairs a female singer, in a Pierrot costume, with a small orchestra of 5 (nowadays sometimes 6) musicians, who in each of the songs plays a different, and striking instrumental combination. Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot or Pierrot in the moonlight) is an important work of Arnold Schoenberg, a setting of Albert Girauds work of French poems of the same name to music, translated into German. ... 1912 is a leap year starting on Monday. ... Sprechgesang (German for speech song) or Sprechstimme (speech voice) is a technique of vocal production halfway between singing and speaking. ...

Later, Schoenberg was to create the twelve-tone method of composition (which later grew into serialism). This technique was taken up by many of his students, who consistuted the so-called Second Viennese School. They included Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Hanns Eisler, who were greatly influenced by Schoenberg. Schoenberg excelled as a teacher of music, partly through his method of engaging with, analyzing, and transmitting the methods of the great classical composers, especially Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, partly through his focus on bringing out the musical and compositional individuality of his students. 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 still used by musicians and developing composers. Serialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. ... Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 – December 24, Austrian composer. ... Hanns Eisler (July 6, 1898 - September 6, 1962) was a German and Austrian composer. ... Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685[1] (O.S.) – July 28, 1750[2] (N.S.)) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. ... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was one of the most significant and influential of all composers of Western classical music. ... Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827) was a German composer of Classical music, the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. ... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of classical music. ...

He was forced into exile by the Nazis in 1933 and moved to the United States. He worked at the Malkin Conservatory in Boston then at the University of California in Los Angeles. In 1944, he became naturalized citizen. In 1951, he died. The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Alternative meanings: Boston (disambiguation) The 18th-century Old State House in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. ... The University of California (UC) is a public university system within the State of California. ... This article is about the largest city in California. ... 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Naturalization is the process whereby a person becomes a national of a nation, or a citizen of a country, other than the one of his birth. ... 1951 was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...

Music

Works and ideas

To understand why Schoenberg composed the music that he did, it is useful to begin with his own statement: "Had times been 'normal' (before and after 1914) then the music of our time would have been very different." 1914 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Schoenberg, as a Jewish intellectual, was passionately committed to the concept of unshaken adherence to an "Idea" (such as the concept of an inexpressible God) and the pursuance of Truth. He saw the development of music accelerating through the works of Wagner, Strauss and Mahler to a state of saturation. If music was to regain a genuine and valid simplicity of expression, as in the music of his beloved Mozart and Schubert, the language must be renewed. W.A. Mozart at the age of 21 W.A. Mozart at the age of 34 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) is considered one of the greatest composers of European classical music. ... For the crater on the moon, see Schubert (crater) Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828), was an Austrian composer. ...

These were the same years when the Western world discovered abstract painting and psychoanalysis in the same city. Many intellectuals at the time felt that thought had developed to a point of no return, and that it was no longer possible honestly to go on repeating what had been done before. Between 1901 (Gurrelieder) and 1910 (Five Pieces for Orchestra) his music changed more rapidly than anyone else's at any other time. When he had written his quartet opus 7 and his Chamber Symphony opus 9, he imagined he had arrived at a mature personal style which would serve him for the future. But already in the second string quartet, opus 10 and the Three Piano Pieces opus 11, he had to admit that the saturation of added notes in harmony had reached a stage when there was no meaningful difference between consonance and dissonance. For a time Schoenberg's music became very concentrated and elliptical, as he could see no reason to repeat and develop. One of Kandiskys most famous paintings Yellow Red Blue (Kandinsky 1925) Abstract art is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses shapes and colours in a non-representational or non-objective way. ... Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods which attempt to elucidate unconscious relations in a systematic way through an associative process. ... 1901 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1910 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

World War I brought a crisis in his development. Military service disrupted his life. 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". After the war he worked at evolving a means of order which would enable his musical texture to become simpler and clearer, and this resulted in the "method of composition with twelve tones" in which the twelve semitonal intervals are regarded as equal, and no one note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony. It was the equivalent in music of Albert Einstein's discoveries in Physics, and Schoenberg announced it characteristically, during a walk with his friend Josef Rufer, when he said "I have today made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years". Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Portrait of Albert Einstein taken by Yousuf Karsh on February 11, 1948 Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. ...

This remark, much misquoted and misunderstood, was probably made with Schoenberg's customary wry and ironic humour, referring to the collapse of the dominant political position of the German-speaking world in previous years, and also emphasising his desire to stand with Mozart and Bach.

In the following years he produced a series of instrumental and orchestral works showing how his method could produce new classical music which did not copy the past. The climax was to be an opera Moses und Aron, of which he wrote over two-thirds but which he was unable to complete, perhaps for psychological reasons. The music ends at the point where Moses cries out his frustration at being unable to express himself. There is little doubt that by this time Schoenberg had come to see himself as a kind of prophet too.

When he settled in California, he wrote several works in which he returned to keyed harmony, but in a very distinctive way, not simply re-using classical harmony. This was in accordance with his belief that his music evolved naturally out of the past. One of his sayings was "my music is not really modern, just badly played." State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Official languages English Area 410,000 km² (3rd) - Land 404,298 km² - Water 20,047 km² (4. ...

Criticisms

However, much of his work was not well received. In 1907 his Chamber Symphony No. 1 was premiered. The audience was small, and the reaction to the work lukewarm. When it was played again, however, in a 1913 concert which also included works by Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Alexander Zemlinsky, some of the audience began to shout out abuse. Later in the concert, during a performance of some songs by Berg, fighting broke out, and the police had to be called in. Schoenberg's music had made a break from tonality, which greatly polarised responses to it: his followers and students saw him as one of the most important figures in music, while critics hated his work, on the whole. 1907 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 – December 24, Austrian composer. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. ... Alexander von Zemlinsky ( October 14, 1871 - March 15, 1942) was an Austrian composer of classical music, a conductor and a teacher. ... This page is about musical songs. ... Tonality is the character of music written with hierarchical relationships of pitches, rhythms, and chords to a center or tonic. ...

Even today Schoenberg's method remains controversial, many people refusing to consider it as music at all. Those who do listen to it unprejudiced sometimes come to love it deeply. Schoenberg himself was said to be a very prickly and difficult man to know and befriend. In one of his letters he said "I hope you weren't stupid enough to be offended by what I said," and he rewarded conductors such as Otto Klemperer who programmed his music by complaining repeatedly that they didn't do more. On the other hand, among those who are considered his disciples he inspired absolute devotion. Even strongly individualistic composers such as Alban Berg and Anton Webern displayed an almost slavish selflessness and willingness to serve him. Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 – December 24, Austrian composer. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. ...

Extramusical interests

Schoenberg was also a painter of considerable individuality, whose pictures were considered good enough to exhibit alongside those of Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, and he wrote extensively: plays and poems, as well as essays not only about music but about politics and the social/historical situation of the Jewish people. Franz Marc (b. ... On White II (Kandinsky 1923) Wassily Kandinsky (Russian: Василий Кандинский, first name sometimes spelled as Vasily, Vassily or Vasilii) (December 16, 1866 - December 13, 1944) was a Russian-born painter and art theorist. ...

Schoenberg suffered from triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number thirteen); it is said that the reason his late opera is called Moses and Aron, rather than Moses and Aaron (the correct spelling with two As) is because the latter spelling has thirteen letters in it. He was born (and, it turned out, died) on the thirteenth of the month, and thought of this as a portent. He once refused to rent a house because it had the number 13, and feared turning 76, because its digits add up to thirteen. In an interesting story, it is believed that he feared Friday, July 13, 1951, as it was the first Friday the 13th of his 76th year. He reportedly stayed in bed that day preparing for what he thought as his death day. After begging her husband to wake up and "quit his nonsense," his skeptical wife was shocked to find that her husband in fact had died that day he had long feared, as he uttered the word "harmony" and died. His time of death was 11:47 p.m., 13 minutes until midnight. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13. ...

Books

Biography

Music

Works and ideas

Criticisms

Extramusical interests

Books

See also

External links

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Music

Works and ideas

Criticisms

Extramusical interests

Books

See also

External links

Biography