Schoenberg’s father, Samuel, owned a small shoe shop in the Second, then predominantly Jewish, district, of Vienna. Neither Samuel nor his wife, Pauline (née Nachod), was particularly musical. There were, however, two professional singers in the family—Heinrich Schoenberg, the composer’s brother, and Hans Nachod, his cousin. Before he was nine years old, Schoenberg began composing little pieces for two violins, which he played with his teacher or with a cousin. A little later, when he acquired a viola-playing classmate, he advanced to the writing of string trios for two violins and viola. When he learned the cello, he promptly began composing quartets.
Schoenberg’s father died in 1890. To help the family finances, the young man worked as a bank clerk until 1895. During this time he came to know Alexander von Zemlinsky, a rising young composer and conductor of the amateur orchestra Polyhymnia in which Schoenberg played cello. The two became close friends, and Zemlinsky gave Schoenberg instruction in harmony, counterpoint, and composition. This resulted in Schoenberg’s first publicly performed work, the String Quartet in D Major (1897). Highly influenced by the style of Brahms, the quartet was well received by Viennese audiences during the 1897–98 and 1898–99 concert seasons.
A great step forward took place in 1899, when Schoenberg composed the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), a highly romantic piece of program music (unified by a nonmusical story or image). Its programmatic nature and its harmonies outraged conservative program committees. Consequently, it was not performed until 1903, when it was violently rejected by the public.
In 1901 Schoenberg decided to move to Berlin, hoping to better his financial position. He married Mathilde von Zemlinsky, his friend’s sister, and began working as musical director at the Überbrettl, an intimate artistic cabaret. He wrote many songs for this group, among them, “Nachtwandler” (“Sleepwalker”) for soprano, piccolo, trumpet, snadrum, and piano (published 1969). With the encouragement of German composer Richard Strauss, Schoenberg composed his only symphonic poem for large orchestra, Pelleas und Melisande (1902–03), after the drama by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck. Back in Vienna in 1903, Schoenberg became acquainted with the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler , who became one of his strongest supporters.
Schoenberg’s next major work was the String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor , Opus 7 (1904). The composition’s high density of musical texture and its unusual form (one vast structure played without interruption for nearly 50 minutes) caused diffi culties in comprehension at the work’s premiere in 1907. A similar form was used in the more concise Chamber Symphony in E Major (1906), a work novel in its choice of instrumental ensemble: chamber-like group of 15 instruments.
During these years, Schoenberg’s activity as a teacher became increasingly important. The young Austrian composers Alban Berg and Anton Webern began studying with him in 1904; both gained from him the impetus to their notable careers, and Schoenberg, in turn, benefi tted greatly from the intellectual stimulation of his loyal disciples. Schoenberg’s textbooks include Harmonielehre (“Theory of Harmony”; 1911), Models for Beginners in Composition (1942), Structural Functions of Harmony (1954), Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint (1963), and Fundamentals of Musical Composition (1967).
Until this period all of Schoenberg’s works had been strictly tonal; that is, each of them had been in a specific key, centred upon a specific tone. However, as his harmonies and melodies became more complex, tonality became of lesser importance. The process of “transcending” tonality can be observed at the beginning of the last movement of his Second String Quartet (1907–08).
On Feb. 19, 1909, Schoenberg finished his piano piece Opus 11, No. 1, the first composition ever to dispense completely with “tonal” means of organization. Such pieces, in which no one tonal centre exists and in which any harmonic or melodic combination of tones may be sounded without restrictions of any kind, are usually called atonal, although Schoenberg preferred “pantonal.” Schoenberg’s most important atonal compositions include Five Orchestral Pieces, Opus 16 (1909); the monodrama Erwartung (Expectation), a stage work for soprano and orchestra, Opus 17 (1924); Pierrot Lunaire, 21 recitations (“melodramas”) with chamber accompaniment, Opus 21 (1912); Die glückliche Hand (The Hand of Fate), drama with music, Opus 18 (1924); and the unfinished oratorio Die Jakobsleiter (begun 1917).
Schoenberg’s earlier music was by this time beginning to find recognition. On Feb. 23, 1913, his Gurrelieder (begun in 1900) was first performed in Vienna. This gigantic cantata, which calls for unusually large vocal and orchestral forces, represents a peak of the post-Romantic monumental style. The music was received with wild enthusiasm by the audience, but the embittered Schoenberg could no longer appreciate or acknowledge their response.
In 1911, unable to make a decent living in Vienna, he had moved to Berlin. He remained there until 1915, when, because of wartime emergency, he had to report to Vienna for military service. He spent brief periods in the Austrian Army in 1916 and 1917, until he was finally discharged on medical grounds. During the war years he did little composing, partly because of the demands of army service and partly because he was meditating on how to solve the vast structural problems that had been caused by his move away from tonality. Those meditations yielded a method of composition in which 12 tones related only to one another; Schoenberg’s Piano Suite, Opus 25, was his first 12-tone piece.
In the 12-tone method, each composition is formed from a special row or series of 12 different tones. This row may be played in its original form, inverted (played upside down), played backward, or played backward and inverted. It may also be transposed up or down to any pitch level. All of it, or any part of it, may be sounded successively as a melody or simultaneously as a harmony. In fact, all harmonies and melodies in the piece must be drawn from this row. Although such a method might seem extremely restrictive, this did not prove to be the case. Using this technique, Schoenberg composed what many consider his greatest work, the opera Moses und Aron (begun in 1930).
For the rest of his life, Schoenberg continued to use the 12-tone method. Occasionally he returned to traditional tonality, in works such as the Suite for String Orchestra (1934); the Variations on a Recitative for Organ, Opus 40 (1940); and the Theme and Variations for Band, Opus 43A (1943). After World War I Schoenberg’s music won increasing acclaim, although his invention of the 12-tone method aroused considerable opposition. In 1923 his wife, Mathilde, died after a long illness, and a year later he married Gertrud Kolisch, the sister of the violinist Rudolf Kolisch. His success as a teacher continued to grow. In 1925 he was invited to direct the master class in musical composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin.
W. C. Handy
