Every week I post a little about someone who I believe has changed the world. This week’s focus is my favourite modernist composer, Schoenberg.
Arnold Schoenberg, UCLA, Los Angeles (1939) - Arnold Schoenberg Centre, Vienna
Now I am fully aware, Schoenberg’s work is of a Marmite-like nature; either you love it or you hate it. My first discovery of his work was during my music GCSE course; I studied Peripetie and rapidly found myself falling in love with Schoenberg’s oft-bizarre works. The same cannot be said of my classmates, who cowered in corners, covered their ears and begged our teacher to stop the tape. Have a listen to Peripetie below and maybe you’ll understand...
Schoenberg's Peripetie (1909)
Unsurprisingly then, his work was even more polarising when he first premiered it. His early shows resulted in harshly negative reviews, hissing from the audience and even mass walkouts (12, p. 17-19). His completely atonal Three Piano Pieces bewildered even the most accepting of audiences. Critic Arthur Hahn, who actually enjoyed the universally despised Second String Quartet said of Three Piano Pieces, “One can only shake one’s head in astonishment at the cheek of this sort of thing being taken for what has always been understood as music” (12, p. 20). Even reviewers at the concerts of Anton Webern and Alban Berg, two of Schoenberg’s composition students, used the opportunity to attack Schoenberg’s teaching ability, threatening his only source of income at the time (6, p. 19-20).
So, as is often the case when you’re earth-shaking, Schoenberg stirred things up and received his fair share of criticism for it. But that wasn’t to say his work was completely unappreciated. One journalist titled Schoenberg both “wildest of the moderns” and “a genius” (12, p. 19), and his following was one of the most devout in the music world, showing “uncommon degrees of loyalty” (2) to the composer. His public persona and infamy gained him the respect of such innovators as Wassily Kandinsky, with whom he formed the artistic group ‘The Blue Rider’ (12), allowing Schoenberg’s once-private paintings to finally be exhibited (12, p. 30).
Leopold Godowsky, Albert Einstein and Arnold Schoenberg (1934) - Arnold Schoenberg Centre, Vienna
But the question remains to be answered: why was Schoenberg so ‘Marmite’?
Well, simply put, Schoenberg was a rebel. Schoenberg was unlike the composers that came before him. He followed the same path that Wagner had walked before him, alienating critics, causing controversy but all the while gaining himself super-fans. He ignored the hatred of much of the mainstream media, and even the disdain of his home country – as a Jew, his music was referred to as “degenerate” (1) once the Nazi party came into power despite his feeling that he was part of the "great German musical tradition" (7) – to become one of the best-known 20th century composers. He didn’t care that people associated him “with horror” (8) and recognised his gifts to the discipline of music; his distinctive use of dynamic range, atonality and his invention of dodecaphony cemented his place in history, shaping a musical identity that was destined not to be forgotten by people or academic institutions.
His most enduring legacy is the 12-tone technique, created for composition. It was a revolt against classical ideas, yet ironically inspired by “Bach for counterpoint, Mozart for phrasing but also for handling of motifs, Beethoven but also Bach for development, Brahms… for varied and complex treatment” (11, p. 146-147), after all, he believed “no new technique in the arts is created that has not had its roots in the past” (8, p. 76). The technique avoided “almost everything that used to make up the ebb and flow of harmony” (10, p. 207) and was a stark contrast to the melodic symphonies and sonatas of the Romantic period before it. For much of his life, dodecaphony was only used with the Second Viennese School, but by Schoenberg’s death in 1951, Igor Stravinsky, the great Russian composer, was attempting work in the same style (4). Benjamin Frankel even used the technique in the film scores ofThe Curse of the Werewolf and The Prisoner, which you can listen to below.
Nowadays, most music degrees include a module focused on serialism, often highlighting Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic style. One friend of mine, studying music at City University, has the opportunity to study a module called “Wagner, Mahler and Schoenberg” (3), which traces the development of classical music into the 20th century. And, as I mentioned before, one of his pieces was a twelfth of my Music GCSE. Schoenberg’s influence is clearly still felt in musical education today!
Schoenberg knew his work was (and still is!) difficult to palate – he once called it a “challenge that cannot yet be met at a first hearing” (9, p. 104) – yet he never shied away from his innovative and obviously controversial concepts. Despite backlash against his work, and lessened interest in it with the rise of jazz and popular music, Schoenberg’s legacy has lived on. We should all try to be more like Schoenberg, take more risks and believe in our work, no matter who disagrees with us! Who knows? We could be the innovators who, like Schoenberg, change the world...
Self-portrait (c. 1910) by Arnold Schoenberg - Arnold Schoenberg Centre, Vienna
WORKS CITED
(1) Anon. A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust: “Degenerate” music [Internet]. 2003. [Accessed 28 October 2014]; Available from: http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/musdegen.htm
(2) Botstein L. Schoenberg and the Audience: Modernism, Music, and Politics in the Twentieth Century [Internet]. [Accessed 28 October 2014]; Available from: http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/music/botstein.pdf
(3) City University London. Wagner, Mahler & Schoenberg [Internet]. [Accessed 28 October 2014]; Available from:http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/modules/wagner-mahler-and-schoenberg
(4) Craft R. Assisting Stravinsky: On a misunderstood collaboration. The Atlantic Monthly. December 1982. Available from: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/82dec/craft82.htm
(5) Donat M. Second Viennese School? Tempo. 1972; 1972 (99): p. 8-13. [Accessed 28 October 2014] Available from: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=6253528&jid=TEM&volumeId=-3&issueId=99&aid=6253524&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=
(6) MacDonald M. Schoenberg. London: Dent; 1976.
(7) Tonietti T. M. Albert Einstein and Arnold Schönberg Correspondence. NTM International Journal of History & Ethics of Natural Sciences, Technology & Medicine. 1997; Vol 5 (1): p. 1-22 [Accessed 28 October 2014] Available from: http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/212/art%253A10.1007%252FBF02913641.pdf?auth66=1414684490_7a2dc889d98e7a831e8072b42d34537e&ext=.pdf
(8) Schoenberg A. A Self-Analysis (1948). In: Stein L, editors. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, London: Faber & Faber; 1975. p. [p. 76-79]
(9) Schoenberg A. New Music: My Music (c. 1923). In: Stein L, editors. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, London: Faber & Faber; 1975. p. [p. 99-106]
(10) Schoenberg A. Twelve-Tone Composition (1923). In: Stein L, editors. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, London: Faber & Faber; 1975. p. [p. 207-208]
(11) Schoenberg A. E Stein. Letters/selected and edited by Erwin Stein/translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. London: Faber; 1964.
(12) Wasserman F. Schoenberg and Kandinsky in Concert. In: da Costa Meyer E. and Wasserman F, editors. Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider. London, New York: Jewish Museum under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Scala Publishers; 2003. p. 17-36.
