How are you?
This week's lecture is “Arnold
Schönberg”, the 22nd topic of “Classical Music”, which is a summary of the contents of “107.
Classical Music: 22. Arnold Schönberg” introduced on October
21st, 2017.
Arnold Schönberg was an
Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter who
was born on September 13, 1874 and died on July 13, 1951. Regarded as one of
the most influential composers of the 20th century, Schönberg was associated
with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the
Second Viennese School. However, as a composer of Jewish descent, he was
targeted by the Nazi Party, and his works were classified as degenerate music
and banned from publication.
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| Arnold Schoenberg by Egon Schiele (1917) |
Schönberg's approach in
terms of harmony and development shaped much of 20th-century musical thought.
However, while there were many composers who supported and extended his musical
ideas over the generations, there were also those who vehemently rejected his
music.
Early in his career, Schönberg became famous for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed musical styles of Brahms and Wagner. He embodied the innovation in atonality, which became one of the most controversial topics of 20th-century classical music.
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| Schönberg Family by Richard Gerstl (1907) |
In the 1920s, Schönberg developed the 12-note technique, a compositional
method that used all 12 notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term
developing variation and was the first modern composer to embrace methods of
developing motifs without resorting to centralized melodic methods.
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| Self-portrait, Arnold Schoenberg (1910) |
Schönberg was also an influential teacher of composition, and his pupils include Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, Egon Wellesz, Nikos Skalkottas, Stefania Turkewich, and later John Cage, Lou Harrison, Earl Kim, Robert Gerhard, Leon Kirchner, Dika Newlin, and Oscar Levant. Many of Schoenberg's methods, including the formalization of compositional methods and his habit of enticing audiences to think analytically, were reflected in avant-garde musical thought throughout the twentieth century.
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| Alban Berg |
His controversial views of music history and aesthetics were crucial to many significant 20th-century musicologists and critics, including Theodor W. Adorno, Charles Rosen, and Carl Dahlhaus, as well as the pianists Artur Schnabel, Rudolf Serkin, Eduard Steuermann, and Glenn Gould.
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| Schoenberg's grave, Zentralfriedhof, Vienna |
The
legacy of Schönberg, who immigrated to the United States in 1933 and became an
American citizen in 1941, remains at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.
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| Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna, Austria |
Thank you.
