Arnold Schoenberg’s Musical Imagination

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Table of Contents

Introduction
His major works
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Arnold Schoenberg was a Jewish musician born in 1874 in Vienna, Austria, and he greatly shaped the evolution of the modern German music. At 17 years, Arnold secured a job at a local bank where he saved money to produce his first album. During his time as a banker, he would play music for his colleagues, even though he did not record any album until he celebrated his 20^th birthday. His father owned a shoe shop in Vienna, and none of his parents was a musician.

However, his brother and one of his cousins were musicians. His music career did not flourish in Germany owing to the political turmoil in the country and the racial discrimination against the Jews at the time. Hitler, the then President of Germany, did not like the type of music produced by Arnold, which forced the musician to flee to the United States.

His major works

Schoenberg recorded his first music in 1899, which he branded as the Transfigured Night. The music was based on a romantic poem of the days written under the same name by Richard Dehmel. However, the political situation at the time could not allow the marketing of the music owing to its programmatic nature and harmonies. Consequently, the music was banned from the public until 1903 when Arnold publicly performed it to the citizens for the first time. However, the music was met with high criticism from the political elites and the public at large, albeit the album became the most popular for Schoenberg.

In 1901, Schoenberg made his first visit to the US in search for a better market for his music (Feisst 28). The migration was informed by the view that the political situation in his home country could not favor his music, which led to diminished returns. In the US, Schoenberg secured a job as a music director for the Überbrettl, which was a live performance group. His role in the group revolved around composing and directing the playing of the songs.

During his tenure as the director of this group, he wrote a myriad of songs among them being the Sleepwalker, which was widely accepted by different audiences. However, Schoenberg left the group a year later following his desire to enhance his income and improve his performance. Through the support of Richard Strauss, he secured a job as a music trainer in the Stern Conservatory, which was an American music firm, where he benefited from the Liszt income awarded to German musicians. Through the support of Gustav Mahler, an Austrian musician, Schoenberg’s music gradually started gaining popularity in his home country, and in 1903, he went back to Vienna.

His 1904 band, the String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 7, marked a great turnaround to his music career in his home backyard. The music differed from his traditional music as the new genre could play for almost an hour without interruptions (Cherlin 56). However, the lengthy nature of the music caused comprehension complexities among the fans, thus, leading to his new role as a music trainer. Consequently, the young Australian musicians joined Schoenberg’s group as trainees to benefit from his exceptional music skills. This aspect added to his list of loyal fans, which led to increased popularity for his songs both in the local and international market.

Schoenberg’s works exhibited some form of tonality whereby each music or poem focused on a particular tone. However, owing to the complexity of his melodies and harmonies, he gradually abandoned tonality to integrate different subjects in a single music or poem. His 1907 work, Second String Quartet, exhibited non-tonality significantly and boosted his endeavors to abandon tonality. The work commences by the words, “Ich fühle Luft von Anderen Planeten” interpreted as “I feel another planet’s atmosphere” (Hanning 47).

The modern scholars have interpreted this phrase as symbolic of a change in the music style and sound. His subsequent works revolved around atonality, which is a kind of music whereby the instrumental compositions are often short in length vocal masterpieces and the text serves as a means of unification.

In the year 1915, he joined the military owing to the warfare that characterized his country at the time. He served in the military between 1916 and 1917 when he was discharged on medical grounds (Feisst 62). During the stated period, the musician did little to improve his music apparently due to the tight military schedules. However, following his discharge from the military, he concentrated on the improvement of his music career whereby he sought to unravel new and improved methods of unification. His decision to embark on unification was informed by the growing harmonic and melodic resources that characterized his work. Consequently, he came up with 12-interrelated tones and started working with the Piano Suite, Op. 25, which was the first 12-tone piece.

His entire work after the discovery of the 12-tone method was marked with the continuous improvement of the method, which became popular in the German music industry. His major works based on the new method were Suite for String Orchestra (1934), the Variations on a Recitative for Organ, Op. 40 (1940), and the Theme and Variations for Band, Op. 43A (1943), which was highly accepted by his audiences both local and international.

His career, as a music teacher, also flourished, thus, making him the exclusive trainer of the 12-tone method in Austria. Internationally, the German music evolved as one of the most attractive types of music and the role of Schoenberg as a music teacher gained much acclaim internationally. For example, in 1925, he was offered a job as a music instructor and composer in Berlin. Following the rise of socialism in Germany in 1933, his popularity in the local market diminished owing to the country’s disregard of the Jews. Consequently, Schoenberg permanently moved to the United States where he acquired citizenship and assumed different teaching positions in several American universities.

Conclusion

Arnold Schoenberg was a Jewish musician, and he is known for his role in transforming the face of the German music by making it one of the most attractive music forms around the globe. He was born 1874 in Vienna, Austria, and died in 1951 in the US where he had sought refuge following the political uprisings in his home country. During his music career, he contributed greatly to the evolution of the modern music. The musician served as both a performer and a music trainer in Austria and the US. His work remains popular even today many years after his demise. However, Schoenberg faced numerous hurdles in his career as a musician occasioned by his Jewish background.

Works Cited

Cherlin, Michael. Schoenberg’s Musical Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

Feisst, Sabine. Schoenberg’s New World: The American Years, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Hanning, Barbara. Concise History of Western Music, New York: Norton, 2006. Print.

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Arnold Schoenberg’s Musical Imagination

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