SCHOENBERG, ARNOLD

Schoenberg, Arnold: translation

(1874-1951)

composer and teacher; leader of the New Vienna School—consisting of Schoenberg and his students Alban Berg and Anton von Webern—and arguablythepioneer in twentieth-century music* composition. Born in Vienna to Jewish parents recently relocated from Slovakia, he mastered the violin as a boy; yet, aside from minor coaching from composer and conductor Alexander von Zemlinsky (his future brother-in-law), he was mostly self-taught. He earned a living in the 1890s by orchestrating operettas and worked in Berlin* during 1901-1903 as conductor of a cabaret* orchestra. Returning to Vienna, he soon became an esteemed composition teacher, in-structing from 1910 at the Vienna Academy.Berg and Webern became his students in 1904.

The leader of musical Expressionism,* Schoenberg claimed that there "is only one great goal to which the artist must strive, [and] that is to express himself." Deciding that the German musical tradition—represented at the time by Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and Richard Strauss*—was too dense and complex, he established his reputation in 1899 withVerklarte Nacht(Transfig-ured night). From about 1908, his goal was to simplify music by expunging consonance and dissonance. The desire for clarity led him to the revolutionary step of challenging the concept of harmony. In 1923, after years of speculation, he wrote a treatise on his twelve-tone technique.

To assume a post with the Stern Conservatory, Schoenberg returned to Berlin in 1911. He was seriously involved with painting (he completed eighty paintings during 1907-1912), and his friendship with Wassily Kandinsky* led him to exhibit with theBlaue Reiterin December 1911. World War I forced him back to Austria.* After serving in the Habsburg army, he instructed private pupils in Vienna. In 1925 he succeeded Ferruccio Busoni* as instructor of the composi-tion master class at the Prussian Arts Academy; deemed "Europe's liberal mu-sical metropolis," Berlin provided a respite from the stifling anti-Semitic* atmosphere of the Austrian capital. Flourishing, Schoenberg composed the comic operaVon Heute auf Morgen, the Third String Quartet, the Variations for Orchestra, the Cello Concerto, and two acts ofMoses und Aron, an opera portraying Israel's struggle for national freedom.

On 20 March 1933, soon after Hitler* seized power, Schoenberg quit the Prussian Academy. He fled Germany in May and soon arrived in the United States. Settling in 1934 in Los Angeles, he became a popular lecturer at UCLA and never returned to Europe. Among those few Jews* foreseeing the Holocaust, he embraced the Jewish faith and sought to organize a rescue mission for German Jews, even producing plans for a Jewish Unity Party designed for self-defense.