![]() He would self-identify as a member of the Jewish religion later in life. According to MacDonald this was partly to strengthen his attachment to Western European cultural traditions, and partly as a means of self-defence “in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism.” In 1933, after long meditation, he returned to Judaism, because he realised that “his racial and religious heritage was inescapable,” and to take up an unmistakable position on the side opposing Nazism. In 1898 Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the Lutheran church. Afterward he “spoke of Mahler as a saint.” Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahler’s music, was converted by the “thunderbolt” of Mahler’s Third Symphony, which he considered a work of genius. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death. Mahler adopted him as a protégé and continued to support him, even after Schoenberg’s style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909, and at that point dismissed Schoenberg. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg’s significance as a composer Strauss when he encountered Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder, and Mahler after hearing several of Schoenberg’s early works. He later made an orchestral version of this, which became one of his most popular pieces. ![]() In his twenties, Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating operettas, while composing his own works, such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”). ![]() He took only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law. Arnold Schönberg in Payerbach, 1903Īrnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish ghetto) of Vienna, at “Obere Donaustraße 5.” His father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper, and his mother Pauline was native of Prague. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |