Arnold Schoenberg

Austrian-Jewish American composer (1874-1951)

Fame65.2
Momentum5.5
Austria rank#61

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Fame65.2
Momentum5.5
Austria rank#61
Wikipedia31.4K

Lived 1874–1951, aged 77Austria

Austria MusiciansSinger / Musician

Wikipedia
73 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Austria
#61
Musicians
Era
1874–1951
Aged 77
Known for
Moses and Aaron
1975

Summary

Updated 2026-07-15

He shattered the gravitational pull of tonality and invented a system where all twelve notes stood equal — no home key, no resolution, just rigorous pattern. Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique divided the music world into disciples and enemies, but it reset the terms of what composition could mean in the 20th century.

Biography

About

Schoenberg began in late-Romantic Vienna, blending Brahms and Wagner in early works like Verklärte Nacht (1899) and Gurre-Lieder (1900–1903). He mentored Webern and Berg as part of the Second Viennese School and pushed into atonal expressionism with pieces like Erwartung (1909) and Pierrot lunaire (1912). Growing antisemitism and a spiritual turn — partly inspired by Mahler — drove him toward a governing principle to replace tonality, and by 1923 he'd codified twelve-tone technique, structuring works like Moses und Aron and the Variations for Orchestra through intervallic cells and combinatori…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

said1936

My work should be judged as it enters the ears and heads of listeners, not as it is described to the eyes of readers.

— As quoted in an interview with José Rodriguez (c. 1936) in Schoenberg‎ (1971) by Merle Armitage, p. 143

Arnold Schoenberg

said1929

If music is frozen architecture, then the potpourri is frozen coffee-table gossip... Potpourri is the art of adding apples to pears…

— quote from Glosses on the Theories of Others (1929); also in Style and Idea (1985), p. 313-314

Arnold Schoenberg

saidNov 1923

I find above all that the expression, "atonal music," is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying "the art of not falling," or swimming "the art of not drowning.

— "Hauer's Theories" (Notes of November 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 210

Arnold Schoenberg

said9 May 1923

Hauer looks for laws. Good. But he looks for them where he will not find them.

— "Hauer's Theories" (Notes of 9 May 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 209

Arnold Schoenberg

said1923

There are no more geniuses, only critics.

— "Those Who Complain about the Decline" (1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 203

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Albums

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The Romantic Music of Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 & Pelleas und Melislande, Op. 5
1994
String Quartets No. "0", No.2 - String Trio
1994
Hindemith: 3 Organ Sonatas / Schoenberg: Variations on a Recitative
1994
Viktor Ullmann / Arnold Schönberg
1994
Das Lied von der Erde (version for chamber orchestra by Schoenberg/Riehn)
1994
Streichquartette I–IV
1994
The Glenn Gould Edition: Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Piano Concerto, etc.
1994
Verklärte Nacht / Kammersymphonie Nr. 2
1994
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht / Bartók: Divertimento / Hindemith: Trauermusik
1994
Pierrot Lunaire / Lied der Waldtaube / Erwartung
1993