Schoenberg
Name: Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg
Achievements: 12-tone music
Born: September 13, 1874; Vienna, Austria
Died: July 13, 1951; Los Angeles, California (Aged 76)
Field & Discipline: Music; Composer
Language: German; English
Father: Samuel Schoenberg
Mother: Pauline Nachod.
Siblings: Ottilie; Heinrich.
Spouse: 1) Mathilde von Zemlinsky (m. 1901); 2) Gertrud Kolish (m. 1924)
Children: by Zemlinsky: Gertrud; Georg. By Kolish: Nuria; Rudolf Roland; Lawrence Adam
Education: School in Vienna (until 1891)
Major Work:
“Pierrot Lunaire” (1912)
Life & Times:
In 1896, Schoenberg began earning his living by scoring other composers' operettas. In the autumn of 1897, he wrote his “String Quartet in D Major.” Highly influenced by the style of [influenced by] Brahms*, it was well received.
Schoenberg composed the string sextet “Verklärte Nacht” in 1899, a romantic piece based on the poem by Richard Dehmel. Performed in 1903, it was violently rejected by the public.
1901 was an eventful year for Schoenberg. He completed the composition of “Gurrelieder” in April and married in October. The couple moved to Berlin, where he was appointed musical director at the Uberbrettl, a small artistic cabaret that formed part of Ernst von Wolzogen's Buntestheater. He wrote many songs for the group, among them, “Nachtwandler,” despite the fact that his employment there lasted only until the following summer.
Through the recommendation of the German composer [helped by] Strauss*, he obtained a job as composition teacher at the Stern Conservatory, Berlin and while there he wrote his only symphonic poem for large orchestra, “Pelleas und Melisande” (1902-03), after the drama by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck, in which he expanded the chromatic style established by [influenced by] Wagner*.
Schoenberg returned to Vienna with his wife and first child, Gertrud, in July 1903 with the completed score of “Pelleas” and there, he began teaching private classes. During the autumn he met the composer [met] Gustav Mahler* during a rehearsal of his “Verklarte Nacht.”
Zemlinsky and Schoenberg launched their own musical society in 1904, with Mahler as honorary President, which staged the first performance of “Pelleas und Melisande,” conducted by Schoenberg, in January 1905.
His activity as a teacher became increasingly important, and the young Austrian composers Alban Berg and Anton Webern (who in turn became an important influence on [indirect influence on] Stravinsky*) began studying with him.
In the same year he completed his next major work, “String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor,”
Opus 7, and then his “Chamber Symphony in E Major” in 1906. At this time, Schoenburg’s melodies became more complex, as heard in “Second String Quartet” 1907. In 1908, he abandoned tonality completely.
His first freely dissonant works, in which he completely abandoned tonality, were written in 1908: a set of piano pieces (op. 11), the “Five Orchestral Pieces” (op. 16) and the song cycle “Das Buch der hangenden Garten,” set to the poems of [set poems of] Stefan George*, were presented in January 1910 and met with almost universal incomprehension.
At this time Schoenberg also turned to painting, and in October 1910 mounted a one-man exhibition. The following January he received a letter from the expressionist painter [a pal of] Kandinsky*, which initiated a lasting friendship, and Schoenberg exhibited with the group Der Blaue Reiter, founded by Kandinsky. He decided to move to Berlin in the autumn of 1911 to lecture at the Stern Conservatory.
After arriving in Berlin, he published his masterly theoretical work “Harmonielehre,” the Theory of Harmony. He followed this with “Pierrot Lunaire,” first heard in October 1912. When composing it during the summer, he used “Sprechstimme,” a kind of rythmic recitation first devised by the opera composer [influenced by] Humperdinck* and it caused a sensation.
With the outbreak of the war, he was called to Vienna to be examined for military service, but was rejected on account of a goitre. He was re-examined in December 1915 and accepted as a one-year volunteer during 1916, but developed asthma during training and was finally discharged, so he began his large-scale religious work, the oratorio “Die Jakobsleiter” in 1917, although it remained unfinished.
Meanwhile, he began working on the “Piano Suite,” the first composition using his revolutionary twelve-tone technique, which he later used on his opera, “Moses und Aron.” In October 1923, his first wife died after a long illness and a year later he married Gertrud Kolisch. His success as a teacher continued to grow and in 1925 he was invited to direct the master class in musical composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, where he moved in January 1926.
For the next seven years, Schoenberg enjoyed the peak of his career but, as a Jew, political events in Germany in 1933 led to him emigrating to America and a post at the Malkin Conservatory in Boston. A year later he moved to California to teach at UCLA, where he later became Professor.
During the period 1934 to 1936, he composed the “Violin Concerto,” Opus 36 and, after becoming an American citizen in 1941, completed the “Piano Concerto” (1942), and “Prelude to the Genesis Suite” (1945).
In February 1944, he began to suffer from diabetes. On reaching his 70th birthday, he had to give up his professorship at the University of California and, to supplement his small pension, he continued teaching privately until 1946.
In August of that year he suffered a serious heart attack, following which he composed his “String Trio” (1947) and the “Fantasia for violin with piano accompaniment,” Opus 47 (1949). In 1950 he revised a small selection from his accumulation of unpublished essays and articles and published it under the title “Style and Idea.”
During the last year of his life he worked on a series of meditations which he called “Modern Psalms,” with his last composition being an incomplete setting of the first of these.
Extra Connections: [sculpted by] Anna Mahler* sculpted his bust.
He was a friend of [a pal of] Loos*, and [a pal of] Kokoschka*
He influenced the work of [influenced] Bartok* and [influenced] Shostakovich*
Assessment: Schoenberg's melodic style takes rhythm and form to their greatest extremes..
Oneliner: Arnold Schoenberg, 12-tone modern composer
Bibliography:
- Neighbour, Oliver, "Arnold Schoenberg,” in The New Grove Second Viennese School, London: Macmillan, 1983.