Born in the waning decades of the Romantic era in one of Europe's most musical cities (Vienna), Schoenberg took the expansive harmonic vocabulary of the late Romantic composers to its next stage in pursuit of what he called the "emancipation of dissonance." For centuries, musical dissonance served to emphasize musical consonance and the perception that a piece of music was "going somewhere." In what came to be called atonality, musical dissonance served only the expressive intentions of the composer, conveying serious, often dark, inner moods and feelings that needn't find resolution in a sonically pleasing harmony. Musicologist Jeremy Eichler characterizes Schoenberg's dissonances as "X-rays revealing the profound social dissonance lying beneath the surface."
Composer Arnold Schoenberg
Though he achieved modest success in Europe as both a composer and teacher, Schoenberg's career was disrupted when European educational institutions began excising Jews from their ranks. He left Europe for the U.S. in 1933, stopping in Paris to formalize his "reconversion" to Judaism (he had converted to Christianity in 1898). Painter Marc Chagall served as one of the witnesses at the ceremony, which was reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The late British musicologist O.W. Neighbor depicts faith—though not necessarily Judaism—as central to Schoenberg's artistic journey: "The path that had been pointed out to him was unmarked, to be followed blindfold and often with anguish, in the knowledge that it would be lost the moment faith faltered." It was a journey that required immense conviction and tenacity, both of which Schoenberg possessed in spades. He was unflinching in the face of adversity and so stubborn it was said that he could only learn something if he taught himself.
Though little of Jewish content permeates Schoenberg's early output, both Judaism and Jewish peoplehood consumed him later in life, particularly in the wake of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. His most well-known and performed piece in this realm is A Survivor from Warsaw, a cantata with narration, chorus, and orchestral accompaniment. Schoenberg himself wrote the libretto, which depicts daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto and culminates with the singing of "Sh'ma Yisra'el" to an original melody. The 1938 Kol Nidre, commissioned by Los Angeles' Fairfax Temple, displays Schoenberg's penchant for treating any subject matter in his own way—less an arrangement or interpretation of the centuries-old liturgical staple than a complete reinvention, with scant reference to its traditional musical motifs.
In between Kol Nidre and A Survivor from Warsaw, Schoenberg was one of seven composers commissioned for Genesis Suite, an ambitious musical interpretation of the Book of Genesis with orchestra, chorus, and multiple speaker-narrators that premiered in 1945 at Los Angeles' Wilshire Ebell Theater. Schoenberg's "Prelude," which depicts the pre-Creation world, shows that the atonal method he had devised to reflect inner moods and feelings is equally suited to depicting external and imaginary events.
1999 Milken Archive recording session footage in London, includes Arnold Schoenberg's Kol Nidre.
After immigrating to the U.S. Schoenberg settled in Los Angeles in 1934 and remained there until he died in 1951. He taught at both USC and UCLA (where the music building still bears his name), influencing such future musical luminaries as John Cage and Oscar Levant while struggling to fit into the city's entertainment-oriented culture. A recent opera by MIT's Tod Machover explores what might have happened if Schoenberg had become a "Hollywood" composer, as many of his contemporaries did.
View Arnold Schoenberg's Artist Page
In the Jewish calendar, few events loom as large as the High Holy Days, which begin with S’lihot on September 28 and culminate with Yom Kippur on October 11. Our album of High Holy Day liturgical settings, including those by Lazare Saminsky, Samuel Adler, Sholom Secunda, and others, illustrates how sacred Jewish music’s openness has helped it flourish in America.
Composer David Schiff shares the inspiration and development of his opera, Gimpel the Fool, in an interview taken at the Milken Archive’s recording of the work in 2001.
In gratitude to the Milken Archive for highlighting his work in the final episode of the podcast series, David Amram shared a newly resurfaced video clip of himself on the David Letterman Show demonstrating myriad musical instruments from around the world. Enjoy!
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