the Life and Works of Arnold Schoenberg

The Life and Works of Arnold Schoenberg

Introduction

The lives and works of people vary according to the way that people have lived and what they have accomplished . Some individuals manage to create a lasting impact on the world , while many try and fail to do so . Those that do create a last impact are ones are individuals who are remembered specially . Arnold Schoenberg is one individual who is remembered for his works to this day . In addition to his works that have had a lasting impact , his life has been eventful

, and is worth taking note of

Arnold Schoenberg 's surname was Schtznberg before he left Germany in 1933 , and converted back to Judaism . He was born on September 13th 1874 , was Austrian , and later became American , and was renowned for becoming an American composer . He came to be associated with the expressionist movements in the early 1900s German poetry and art . Among many of Arnold Schoenberg 's work , he is perhaps most popular for his twelve-tone technique , which is an approach that makes use of tone rows (Schoenberg , 2006 , 89-95 . Aside from this , Schoenberg was known as an artist , a theorist of music , and a composition mentor

As mentioned earlier , Arnold Schoenberg was born in the home of an Ashkenzai Jew in Vienna . Although Schoenberg 's mother [Pauline] was a pianist and piano teacher , he was a talented self-taught individual . The only lessons Schoenberg did take were from composer Alexander von Zemlinsky , who later became his first brother-in-law . By the time Arnold Schoenberg was in his 20s , he orchestrated operettas along with composing famous pieces of work like the Verkldrte Nacht [Transfigured Night] (1899

In to comprehend how and why Arnold Schoenberg composed his music in the manner that he did , it is worth beginning with his own words "Had times been 'normal (prior and after 1914 ) then the music of our time would have been very different " Clearly this meant that he believed that it was situations and periods that people went through that triggered their creativity . From this , one might say that he was a man who adhered to ideas . Schoenberg is known as a Jewish intellectual who firmly believed in the idea of an inexpressible God . He also adhered to pursuing truth (Shawn , 2002 , 34-45

Schoenberg witnessed music develop through exquisite works of the greats like Strauss , Wagner and Mahler . He listened to these greats and reached a state of saturation . He resolved that to refresh the simplicity in music , there was need to introduce a new language . This was around the time when abstract art developed and flourished in the western world (Bailey , 1999 , 928-928

These were the same years when the Western world developed abstract art as well as psychoanalysis . In fact , many people at this point in time felt that thought and reason had developed to a point where there would be no return . They further thought that there was no more room for repetition of what had been achieved earlier...