Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American innovative composer, music theorist, teacher, and writer. He was among the first modernists who changed how harmony was used in 20th-century classical music. A key part of his music was its use of musical ideas to create unity. He introduced concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of dissonance, and the "unity of musical space."

Schoenberg's early works, such as Verklärte Nacht (1899), combined styles from Brahms and Wagner, which he later expanded. He taught Anton Webern and Alban Berg, becoming the central figure of the Second Viennese School. He worked with visual artists, published in Der Blaue Reiter, and wrote atonal, expressionist music, which gained attention and sparked debate. In works like his String Quartet No. 2 (1907–1908), Erwartung (1909), and Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg explored intense emotions. While working on Die Jakobsleiter (1914) and Moses und Aron (1923), he returned to Judaism and developed his twelve-tone technique. He used all notes from the chromatic scale in his twelve-tone music, often using specific note groupings and sometimes including tonal elements.

Schoenberg left the Prussian Academy of Arts (1926–1933) and moved to the United States as the Nazis came to power. The Nazis banned his music and that of his students, calling it "degenerate." He taught in the U.S., including at the University of California, Los Angeles (1936–1944), where facilities are named in his honor. He experimented with film music and wrote more tonal music, completing his Chamber Symphony No. 2 in 1939. After gaining U.S. citizenship (1941) and with the U.S. entering World War II, he satirized fascist leaders in Ode to Napoleon (1942), using Beethoven's fate motif and the Marseillaise. Post-war Vienna offered him honorary citizenship, but he was ill, as shown in his String Trio (1946). As the world learned about the Holocaust, he honored its victims in A Survivor from Warsaw (1947). The Israel Conservatory and Academy of Music named him honorary president in 1951.

Schoenberg's music was among the most influential and controversial in 20th-century classical music. At least three generations of composers used his formal methods. His ideas about music and history influenced musicologists Theodor W. Adorno and Carl Dahlhaus. The Arnold Schönberg Center preserves his archival materials.

Biography

Arnold Schoenberg was born into a Jewish family from a middle-class background in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna, Austria, at Obere Donaustraße 5. His father, Samuel, was born in Szécsény, Hungary, and later moved to Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia) and then to Vienna, where he worked as a shoe shopkeeper. He married Pauline Nachod, a woman from Prague whose family belonged to the Altneuschul synagogue. Arnold learned music mostly on his own. He took only one class in counterpoint from composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who later became his brother-in-law.

In his twenties, Schoenberg earned money by arranging operettas while also writing his own music, such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") in 1899. He later created an orchestral version of this piece, which became very popular. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg’s talent as a composer. Strauss noticed it after hearing Gurre-Lieder, and Mahler after listening to some of Schoenberg’s early works.

After 1909, Strauss shifted to a more traditional style of music and no longer supported Schoenberg. Mahler, however, took Schoenberg under his wing and continued to support him, even after he could no longer understand Schoenberg’s later style. Mahler worried about who would care for Schoenberg after his death. Schoenberg, who once disliked Mahler’s music, changed his mind after hearing Mahler’s Third Symphony, which he called a masterpiece. Afterward, Schoenberg spoke of Mahler as a "saint."

In 1898, Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the Lutheran church. This decision was partly to connect more with Western European traditions and partly to protect himself during a time of rising anti-Semitism. In 1933, after much thought, he returned to Judaism, realizing he could not escape his heritage. He identified as Jewish for the rest of his life.

In October 1901, Schoenberg married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, who had been his teacher since about 1894. They had two children, Gertrud (1902–1947) and Georg (1906–1974). Gertrud married Schoenberg’s student, Felix Greissle, in 1921.

Between 1907 and 1908, Schoenberg wrote the String Quartet No. 2. The first two movements used traditional musical keys but included chromatic notes. In 1908, Mathilde left Schoenberg for painter Richard Gerstl, who later committed suicide. The last two movements of the quartet expanded the musical language and set poems by Stefan George to music for soprano and string quartet. Both ended on the tonic, but the final movement, "I feel the air of other planets," avoided traditional tonality.

During Mathilde’s absence, Schoenberg composed "You lean against a silver-willow," the thirteenth song in his Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten, Op. 15 (1907–09). This was his first piece without a key reference.

In 1910, Schoenberg wrote Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony), a highly influential music theory book. Around 1911, he joined a group of artists and intellectuals that included Lene Schneider-Kainer, Franz Werfel, Herwarth Walden, and Else Lasker-Schüler.

In 1910, Schoenberg met Edward Clark, an English music journalist working in Germany. Clark became Schoenberg’s only English student and later helped introduce Schoenberg’s music to Britain through the BBC. Clark also helped Schoenberg move from Vienna to Berlin in 1911.

One of Schoenberg’s most important works from his atonal or pantonal period is Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (1912), a set of expressionist songs based on poems by Albert Giraud. The piece uses Sprechstimme, a technique where a singer speaks melodramatically, paired with a small ensemble of five musicians. The ensemble, now called the Pierrot ensemble, includes flute (with piccolo), clarinet (with bass clarinet), violin (with viola), violoncello, speaker, and piano.

Wilhelm Bopp, director of the Vienna Conservatory from 1907, wanted to change the conservatory’s direction, which he associated with Robert Fuchs and Hermann Graedener. In 1912, he offered teaching positions to Schoenberg and Franz Schreker. Although Schoenberg lived in Berlin, he had taught a private theory course in Vienna the year before. He considered the offer but declined, writing to Alban Berg that his "aversion to Vienna" was the main reason. A few months later, he wrote to Schreker that accepting the position might have been a mistake.

World War I disrupted Schoenberg’s work. At 42, he was drafted into the army, and his life became unstable. He could not focus on his music for long periods, leaving many works unfinished.

At one point, an officer asked if he was "this notorious Schoenberg." Schoenberg replied, "Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me." This quote is often linked to Schoenberg’s role as the "Emancipator of Dissonance."

Schoenberg compared Germany’s attack on France to his challenge to traditional artistic values. In August 1914, he criticized the music of Bizet, Stravinsky, and Ravel, saying, "Now comes the reckoning! Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God." Alex Ross called this statement an "act of war psychosis."

As relationships between composers and the public worsened, Schoenberg founded the Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna in 1918. He aimed to create a space where modern music could be prepared and performed without interference from trends or commercial pressures.

The Society held 353 performances for paying members, sometimes weekly, until it dissolved due to Austria’s hyperinflation. In its early years, Schoenberg did not allow his own works to be performed, instead showcasing difficult pieces by composers like Scriabin, Debussy, Mahler, Webern, Berg, Reger, and others.

Later, Schoenberg developed the most influential version of the dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) method of composition. This technique, called serialism in French and English, was later

Music

Arnold Schoenberg created many important pieces of modern music over more than 50 years. His work is often divided into three time periods, though the music in each period is very different. The idea that his twelve-tone period represents a single, unified style is not supported by the music itself. Important musical features, especially those connected to how musical ideas develop, appear in all of his periods.

The first period, from 1894 to 1907, shows influences from late 19th-century Romantic composers and expressionist movements in poetry and art. The second period, from 1908 to 1922, is marked by moving away from traditional keys, a style sometimes called "free atonality." The third period, starting in 1923, begins with Schoenberg’s creation of the twelve-tone method. His most famous students, Hanns Eisler, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern, followed Schoenberg through each of these changes, though they also experimented with their own approaches.

Schoenberg’s early works, such as his songs and string quartets around the turn of the 20th century, combined ideas from Brahms and Wagner, two composers often seen as very different. His Zwei Gesänge, Op. 1, written in 1903, set poems to music that pushed the boundaries of the Lied genre. His Six Songs, Op. 3, show clear tonal organization similar to Brahms and Mahler, but also use bold chromaticism, a technique associated with Wagner.

Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, is a programmatic piece for string sextet that uses themes resembling leitmotifs. These themes replace one another, with only elements that are constantly changed and recombined persisting. Schoenberg called this technique "developing variation," a method found in Brahms’s music. His work combines Wagner’s narrative style with Brahms’s approach to musical development and harmony.

Joseph N. Straus highlighted the importance of "motivic coherence" in Schoenberg’s music, as noted by Berg and Webern. Berg said that even small musical phrases and accompaniment are meaningful, praising Schoenberg’s "excess unheard-of since Bach." Webern noted how Schoenberg created accompaniment figures from small musical fragments, stating that "everything is thematic" in his music.

Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, written in 1906, shows early use of whole-tone and quartal harmony, as well as unusual ensemble arrangements. These features became common in 20th-century chamber music.

From 1908 onward, Schoenberg’s music explored the absence of traditional keys. His first explicitly atonal piece was the second string quartet, Op. 10, with soprano. The final movement of this piece has no key signature, marking his departure from diatonic harmony. Other important works from this time include Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten, Op. 15, Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21, and Erwartung, Op. 17. Webern argued that Schoenberg’s music created new expressive values that required new ways to express them.

Analysts like Allen Forte focused on the importance of motivic shapes in Schoenberg’s "free atonal" music, leading others to suggest calling it "motivic music." Schoenberg described his use of a motif that could be varied and developed in many ways in Four Orchestral Songs, Op. 22. Straus noted that the term "motivic music" could also apply to twelve-tone music.

After World War I, Schoenberg sought a way to simplify his music. He developed the twelve-tone method, which treats all 12 pitches of the octave equally, without emphasizing any single note or key. Schoenberg compared this system to Albert Einstein’s discoveries in physics. He believed this method would ensure German music’s dominance for the next century.

Examples of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone works include Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Op. 34, Piano Pieces, Opp. 33a & b, and the Piano Concerto, Op. 42. Though the twelve-tone method is often seen as strict, Schoenberg adapted it to fit each composition’s needs. His unfinished opera Moses und Aron and Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47, show different structures.

Ethan Haimo identified ten features common in Schoenberg’s mature twelve-tone practice:
1. Hexachordal inversional combinatoriality
2. Aggregates
3. Linear set presentation
4. Partitioning
5. Isomorphic partitioning
6. Invariants
7. Hexachordal levels
8. Harmony derived from the referential set
9. Metre based on pitch-relational characteristics
10. Multidimensional set presentations

Reception and legacy

Arnold Schoenberg faced early challenges but began gaining public approval with works like the tone poem Pelleas und Melisande, performed in Berlin in 1907. At the 1913 Vienna premiere of Gurre-Lieder, Schoenberg received a long round of applause lasting 15 minutes, and he was given a laurel crown as a sign of honor.

However, not all of Schoenberg’s works were well received. His Chamber Symphony No. 1 was performed in 1907 without much notice. But when it was played again in 1913 during the Skandalkonzert concert (which also included works by Berg, Webern, and Zemlinsky), the audience reaction was disruptive. Some people made loud noises, and fights broke out in the crowd. Later in the concert, during a performance of Berg’s Altenberg Lieder, fighting began again after Schoenberg warned that police would remove troublemakers.

According to Ethan Haimo, people have had difficulty understanding Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system because it was very different from his usual methods. Early writers spread incorrect information about the system, and Schoenberg kept many details private. His sketches and manuscripts were not widely available until the 1970s. During his lifetime, Schoenberg faced harsh criticism and abuse that shocked people even in later years.

Schoenberg criticized Igor Stravinsky’s new musical style, called neoclassicism, in a poem titled Vielseitigkeit. He used this poem as the text for one of his Drei Satiren works. Another Drei Satiren piece, Der neue Klassizismus, also criticized neoclassicism as a whole.

Schoenberg’s use of the twelve-tone technique became a major topic of debate among musicians in the mid-20th century. Composers like Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, and Milton Babbitt expanded on his ideas in new ways. Major U.S. cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston hosted important performances of Schoenberg’s music. Advocates like Babbitt in New York and conductor Jacques-Louis Monod helped promote his work. Schoenberg’s students taught at major American universities, including Leonard Stein at USC, UCLA, and CalArts; Richard Hoffmann at Oberlin; Patricia Carpenter at Columbia; and Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard. Musicians connected to Schoenberg, such as Louis Krasner and Rudolf Kolisch at the New England Conservatory, influenced how music is performed today. In Europe, people like Hans Keller and René Leibowitz helped spread Schoenberg’s ideas beyond Germany and Austria. Schoenberg’s student Max Deutsch later recorded three of his major works with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, released after his death in 2013. These recordings included short explanations by Deutsch about each piece.

In the 1920s, Ernst Krenek criticized a type of modern music (likely Schoenberg’s) as the work of someone who creates rules and writes music for personal satisfaction. Schoenberg responded by saying Krenek wished for listeners who were "whores."

Allen Shawn noted that Schoenberg’s music is often defended rather than enjoyed, and it is hard to experience it without considering the ideas around it. Richard Taruskin argued that Schoenberg believed the most important part of a work of art was its creation, not the listener’s enjoyment. He also criticized the idea of judging Schoenberg’s value only by his influence on others or his technical innovations.

In 1977, Christopher Small wrote that many people still find Schoenberg’s music difficult to understand. Twenty years later, Nicholas Cook mentioned that Schoenberg believed people would not fully grasp his music for a long time.

In 2003, Ben Earle found that while Schoenberg was respected by experts and taught to many students, the public did not love his music. Despite efforts to explain his work to non-experts, British attempts to promote his music had not been successful.

In 2018, Stephen Walsh wrote about Schoenberg’s contemporary, Debussy, and questioned whether an artist can be both radical and popular. He concluded that Schoenberg may be the first major composer in modern history whose music did not become widely performed more than 150 years after his birth.

In Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus (1947), the character Adrian Leverkühn uses the twelve-tone technique, similar to Schoenberg. Leverkühn, who may be inspired by Nietzsche, makes a deal with the Devil for talent. Schoenberg was upset by this and wrote to Mann after the book was published. Sean O’Brien noted that the novel, written during the time of Hitler, indirectly reflects the rise of Nazism but does not focus on political history. Mann, who loved classical music, worked with Theodor Adorno to ensure the book accurately described Schoenberg’s techniques.

In 2025, hundreds of Schoenberg’s musical scores were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, part of the Southern California wildfires. At the time, the scores were being stored at the home of his son, Larry.

Personality and extramusical interests

Schoenberg was a very talented painter whose artwork was considered high quality enough to be displayed with those of Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky as part of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. Between 1908 and 1910, he created about two-thirds of his total collection, which included approximately 65 oil paintings.

He was interested in Hopalong Cassidy films, which Paul Buhle and David Wagner (2002, v–vii) say were influenced by the films' left-wing screenwriters. This is an unusual idea, given Schoenberg's own statement that he was a "bourgeois" who later became a monarchist.

Textbooks

• 1922. Harmonielehre, third edition. Vienna: Universal Edition. (First published in 1911).
• 1943. Models for Beginners in Composition. New York: G. Schirmer, Inc.
• 1954. Structural Functions of Harmony. New York: W. W. Norton; London: Williams and Norgate. Revised edition in 1969 by W. W. Norton and Company in New York and London. ISBN 978-0-393-00478-6
• 1964. Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint, edited by Leonard Stein with a foreword. New York: St. Martin's Press. Reprinted in 2003 by Belmont Music Publishers in Los Angeles.
• 1967. Fundamentals of Musical Composition, edited by Gerald Strang and introduced by Leonard Stein. New York: St. Martin's Press. Reprinted in 1985 by Faber and Faber in London. ISBN 978-0-571-09276-5
• 1978. Theory of Harmony, English edition translated by Roy E. Carter, based on the 1922 edition of Harmonielehre. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-03464-8
• 1979. Die Grundlagen der musikalischen Komposition, translated into German by Rudolf Kolisch and edited by Rudolf Stephan. Vienna: Universal Edition. (German translation of Fundamentals of Musical Composition).
• 2003. Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint, reprinted in Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers.
• 2010. Theory of Harmony, 100th Anniversary Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Second edition. ISBN 978-0-52026-608-7
• 2016. Models for Beginners in Composition, reprinted in London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19538-221-1

Writings

• 1947. "The Musician." In The Works of the Mind, edited by Robert B. Heywood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 752682744
• 1950. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited and translated by Dika Newlin. New York: Philosophical Library.
• 1958. Ausgewählte Briefe, by B. Schott's Söhne. Mainz.
• 1964. Arnold Schoenberg Letters, selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.
• 1965. Arnold Schoenberg Letters, selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• 1975. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Leonard Stein, with translations by Leo Black. New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-520-05294-9 This version includes more content from the 1950 edition. Some essays were originally written in German and translated by Dika Newlin.
• 1984. Style and Idea: Selected Writings, translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• 1984. Arnold Schoenberg Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures and Documents, edited by Jelena Hahl-Koch, translated by John C. Crawford. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-13060-7, ISBN 0-571-13194-8
• 1987. Arnold Schoenberg Letters, selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06009-8
• 2006. The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation, new paperback English edition. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-25321-835-3
• 2010. Style and Idea: Selected Writings, 60th anniversary (second) edition, translated by Leonard Stein and Leo Black. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52026-607-0