Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (German: [ˈaːʁnɔlt ˈʃøːnbɛʁk]; 13 September 1874  13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. With the rise of the Nazi Party, by 1938 Schoenberg's works were labelled as degenerate music because he was Jewish (Anon. 1997–2013); he moved to the United States in 1934.

Schoenberg's approach, both in terms of harmony and development, has been one of the most influential of 20th-century musical thought. Many European and American 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 art 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.

Podcasts:

Arnold Schönberg

ALBUMS

Schoenberg: Herzgewächse / Pierrot Lunaire / 4 Lieder / Kammersymphonie No. 1 (Philharmonia Orchestra of London feat. conductor: Robert Craft)

Released 2007

Early and Unknown String Works

Released 2006

Sämtliche Werke für Klavier zu Zwei Händen

Released 1997

The Glenn Gould Edition: Schönberg: Lieder

Released 1995

15 Poems from Das Buch der hängenden Gärten / Eight Songs, op. 6

Released 1979

Born: 1874-09-13

Died: 1951-07-13

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Latest News for: arnold schoenberg

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The Emperor’s New Score

Quillette 25 Mar 2025
Arnold Schoenberg changed the terms of that struggle ... In its place, Schoenberg introduced the twelve-tone system, which ensured that no note was ever prioritised over another ... kids humming Schoenberg.
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How Gustavo Dudamel’s Mahler festival grooves for young and old

The Los Angeles Times 07 Mar 2025
precedence and panache ... 1, 3 and 4 ... They included conductors (Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter), composers (notably Arnold Schoenberg) and writers (Thomas Mann), as well as Mahler’s widow, composer Alma Mahler, and their daughter, sculptor Anna Mahler ... .
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