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English Language : Classical Music : Blog Sunday 7 December 2008 : Arnold Schoenberg, his poverty and the exodus to the U.S. |
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About famous composers The various readings of the book by René Leibowitz on Arnold Schoenberg have changed my way of thinking about the attitude that the reader needs to take towards biographies: René Leibowitz himself is rather a passionate admirer of the art of Arnold Schoenberg, and a similar book that speaks for the life of Anton Webern (the one of Kathryn Bailey entitled "The life of Webern") refers in a rather negative way on the behavior of the great innovative composer and teacher. Who is right after all? Hard to say. However, according to René Leibowitz, Schoenberg by a small child lived in an environment with limited economic opportunities and the time his career had really begun to be raised, in the first case, the compulsory joining the army in a relatively large age because of the 1st World War halt diverted his course, while in 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power he was finally forced to leave Germany (he was Jewish) and to go in the U.S. where he had to solve the same pressing life-earning problems.  Comparable damage also happened to the career of Webern Anton (as a maestro and a composer alike), but he himself remained in Austria at those difficult times facing a critical situation and died under unusual circumstances shortly after the end of the 2nd World War. If one casts a critical eye to Schoenberg's work and its in-depth study to which it refers, he can only be indignant for games played from his fate: he was often forced to work in the minimum free-time compositions which were hardly performed and was even more difficult to be accepted. The eras in which he lived were very difficult and the two world wars have created too much of his problems (in both cases, career and financial situation received strong blows). The problems had to face was not just financial, recognition was difficult and slow and the only comforting element was the circle of fanatical students. This circle that, in the book of Kathryn Bailey referred to above, gave rise to wryly comments against the behaviour of the Arnold Schoenberg to his students. Attention! All of the text comes from a Google Translation of the original Greek text, improved on only basically. |
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