The Listening Service Folgen

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s own experience in the new atonal world that he entered, which Schoenberg likened to being dropped in boiling water.‘Personally I had the feeling as if I had fallen into an ocean of boiling water, and not knowing how to swim or to get out in another manner, I tried with my legs and arms as best as I could. I do not know what saved me; why I was not drowned or cooked alive. I have perhaps only one merit: I never gave up! I had fallen into an ocean, into an ocean of overheated water and it burned not only my skin, it burned also internally. And I could not swim. …At least: I could not swim with the tide, all I could do was to swim against the tide--whether it saved me or not…' - Arnold Schoenberg 1947Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Schoenberg’s conception of what the “idea” of a piece of music really was - something even bigger than the sounds it makes.‘I personally believe in "l'art pour l'art." In the creation of a work of art, nothing should interfere with the real idea. A work of art must elaborate on its own idea and follow the conditions which this idea establishes. This does not mean that an artist must have principles for which he obeys...’ - Arnold Schoenberg, late 1940sArchive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom explores what Schoenberg meant by the dissonance and how he broke free from tonality in his music.‘Contemporary music has taken advantage of my adventurous use of dissonances. Let us not forget that I came to that gradually, as a result of a convincing development, which enabled me to establish the law of the emancipation of the dissonance, which I mentioned before already, according to which the comprehensibility of the dissonance is considered tantamount to the comprehensibility of the consonance. I do not say the dissonance is the same as the consonance. I say the comprehensibility of both is tantamount. Thus, dissonances need not be a spicy addition to dull sounds. They are natural and logic substantiation of an organism. And this organism lives as vitally on its phrases, rhythms, motives and also melodies, as ever before.' - Arnold Schoenberg 1949Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien