Arnold Schoenberg quotes

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer and music theorist, renowned for developing the twelve-tone technique. His groundbreaking innovations transformed 20th-century classical music and influenced generations of composers. He is remembered as a pioneer whose work challenged and expanded the boundaries of musical expression. Here are 23 of his quotes:

Although our "gentle air" cannot improve the way hate and envy look, it does seem not to encourage firmness and decision. All is compromise; caution and refinement are everywhere. Everything has to "make a good impression" - whether or not it is any good: the impression is the main thing. (Arnold Schoenberg)

My music is not modern, it is merely badly played.

Arnold Schoenberg

My work should be judged as it enters the ears and heads of listeners, not as it is described to the eyes of readers.

Arnold Schoenberg

My music is not lovely.

Arnold Schoenberg

I have never seen faces, but because I have looked people in the eye, only their gazes.

Arnold Schoenberg

There are no more geniuses, only critics.

Arnold Schoenberg

I was never revolutionary. The only revolutionary in our time was Strauss!

Arnold Schoenberg

...if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.

Arnold Schoenberg

Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value. ... Unqualified judgment can at most claim to decide the market-value - a value that can be in inverse proportion to the intrinsic value.

Arnold Schoenberg

I find above all that the expression, "atonal music," is most unfortunate - it is on a par with calling flying "the art of not falling," or swimming "the art of not drowning."

Arnold Schoenberg

An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker - the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art. (Arnold Schoenberg)

If music is frozen architecture, then the potpourri is frozen coffee-table gossip... Potpourri is the art of adding apples to pears...

Arnold Schoenberg

I owe very, very much to Mozart; and if one studies, for instance, the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart. And I am proud of it!

Arnold Schoenberg

I believe that he (Strauss) will remain one of the characteristic and outstanding figures in musical history. Works like Salome, Elektra and Intermezzo, and others will not perish.

Arnold Schoenberg

There is a great Man living in this country - a composer. He has solved the problem how to preserve one's self and to learn. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives.

Arnold Schoenberg

I have just read your book [On the Spiritual in Art] from cover to cover, and I will read it once more. I find it pleasing to an extraordinary degree, because we agree on nearly all of the main issues..

Arnold Schoenberg

I am delighted to add another unplayable work to the repertoire.

Arnold Schoenberg

Hauer looks for laws. Good. But he looks for them where he will not find them.

Arnold Schoenberg

Now we will throw these mediocre kitsch-mongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God.

Arnold Schoenberg

I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.

Arnold Schoenberg

"My works are 12-tone compositions, not 12-tone compositions. (Arnold Schoenberg)

I see the work as a whole first. Then I compose the details.

Arnold Schoenberg

I see the work as a whole first. Then I compose the details. In working out, I always lose something. This cannot be avoided. There is always some loss when we materialize. But there is compensating gain in vitality.

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg - Image

Occupation: American Composer
Born: September 13, 1874
Died: July 13, 1951
Quotes count: 23
Wikipedia: Arnold Schoenberg

Related authors

Anton Webern 4

Austrian Composer

Alban Berg 5

Austrian Composer

Igor Stravinsky 45

Russian Composer

Gustav Mahler 51

Austrian Composer

Claude Debussy 49

French Composer

Pierre Boulez 3

French Composer

Béla Bartók 5

Hungarian Composer

Johannes Brahms 16

German Composer

Richard Strauss 51

German Composer

Paul Hindemith 4

German Musician