Arnold Schoenberg Quotes

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

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Music, Art, Ifs

  Arnold Schoenberg (2014). “Style and Idea”, p.49, Open Road Media

  125 Copy quote

• Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one's head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Music, Morning, Fall

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.180, Univ of California Press

  104 Copy quote

• There is still plenty of good music to be written in C major.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Stills, Plenty, Written

  91 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Fall, Swimming

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.210, Univ of California Press

  77 Copy quote

• 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

  Feelings, Vices, Way

  70 Copy quote

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

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Modern, Music Is

  "Immanence and Transcendence" by Gérard Genette, 1997.

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Eye, Ears, Should

  "Schoenberg‎". Book by Merle Armitage, p. 143, 1971.

  49 Copy quote

• Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Writing, Ideas, Enough

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.439, Univ of California Press

  42 Copy quote

• I am the slave of an internal power more powerful than my education.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Powerful, Slave, Internals

  45 Copy quote

• The principal function of form is to advance our understanding. It is the organization of a piece which helps the listener to keep the idea in mind, to follow its development, its growth, its elaboration, its fate.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Fate, Organization, Ideas

  43 Copy quote

• Great art must proceed to precision and brevity. It presupposes the alert mind of an educated listener who, in a singleact of thinking, includes with every concept all associations pertaining to the complex.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Education, Art, Mind

  "Style and Idea".

  43 Copy quote

• My music is not lovely.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Lovely, Music Is

  "Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius". Book by Detlev Claussen, Harvard University Press, p. 387, "Art and the Arts", 2009.

  36 Copy quote

• Lucidity is the first purpose of color in music.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Color, Purpose, Firsts

  28 Copy quote

• You cannot expect the Form before the Idea,For they will come into being together.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Ideas, Together, Being Together

  39 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Proud, Way

  Arnold Schoenberg, Christian Meyer, Therese Muxeneder, Arnold Schönberg Center (2005). “Arnold Schönberg: catalogue raisonné”

  45 Copy quote

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

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Music, Eye, People

  "Expressionism". Book by Norbert Wolf, p. 92, 2004.

  35 Copy quote

• There are no more geniuses, only critics.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Genius, Critics

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.203, Univ of California Press

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Two, Giving

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.189, Univ of California Press

  36 Copy quote

• 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

  Unqualified, Judgment, Claims

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.190, Univ of California Press

  32 Copy quote

• Rests always sound well.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Music, Sound, Wells

  17 Copy quote

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

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Art, Coffee, Apples

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.313, Univ of California Press

  40 Copy quote

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

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Revolutionary, Our Time

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.137, Univ of California Press

  23 Copy quote

• In Spring! In the creation of art it must be as it is in Spring!

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Art, Spring, Creation

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Hate, Air, Envy

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.196, Univ of California Press

  20 Copy quote

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