# Schoenberg to me is essentially germans , judeophobic were wrong he had a german soul



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

The legacy of early schoenberg show a devoted german sounding music, but i wont use the word antisemite since ''old fashion or obsolete nowaday'' let's says in a more intellectual way judeophobic, who whit me on this?

To me Schoenberg his has german has Brahms or whatever , Verklarte Natch show disctinctive germanic music, to my hear, askenazi or not, did you know Schoenberg wanted real bad to be consider a full blown german , and found of christianity , but when 3rd reich came into power he renew whit judeophilia if you will.

So i think to lump Schoenberg into a jewish composer only and sole is , not cool, to me he remain german of jewish ancestry or not , do we care, im not a nazi.But i would like to had im against violence and dont beleive in beating up nazi, violence is not salvation think of our lord.

Who agree whit me, and i love deeply Verlarte natch (transfigurated natch,: stark ,dramatic, melancolic, beautifull.

I want comment from german, jewish peopple themselve , other , intellectual please spracheuzi?

p.s at first i hated schoenberg le pierrot lunaire , i was buggled by it, but after getting into his piano works, and this masterpiece of a work, i give to mister Schoenberg is laurel.

:tiphat:


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Let's say yes, the rise of the Nazis made Schoenberg confront his Jewishness. Not that he was unaware of it. When his old pal Kandinsky started pumping out anti-Semitic theory Schoenberg questioned him and he supposedly replied: 'men of genius like you aren't my target.' 

I think Schoenberg was keenly aware of his realities. Prior to the Nazis - I'm thinking more turn-of-the-century up to the 20s, it was not unusual for Germans of Jewish descent to identify as German and with German culture.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

I'm thinking more turn-of-the-century up to the 20s, it was not unusual for Germans of Jewish descent to identify as German and with German culture.

I absolutly agree no doupt here.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Schoenberg is a great soul german or not jewish or not, an inovator, yet not straight foward modern , clearly romantic era, and his frasques le pierrot lunaire opus27 well this is for experience schoenbergian fan.Im Having a hard time getting into the gurrelieder myself , but Transfigurated night, is in 3 evocative words i would says : striking melodramatic, dark but not sinister there light at the end of the tunnel , this is how i perceived this gem of classical sphere of all time, same level of brilliance as Gesualdo, or Solage and yaka di yaka di yah!
:tiphat:

I have a hudge respect for schoenberg, even if i dont get or understand all is music yet , it's normal, he complex startling intriiging, mezmerizing...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

deprofundis said:


> I'm thinking more turn-of-the-century up to the 20s, it was not unusual for Germans of Jewish descent to identify as German and with German culture.


I think this is true. To quote Schoenberg once again: "Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God."

He probably felt somewhat differently in later years.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Regardless of ethnicity he was a great composer who both could make music like no other but was also beautiful.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Regardless of ethnicity he was a great composer who both could make music like no other but was also beautiful.*
Last edited by Sloe; Today *at 18:47.

Yah indeed so


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

eugeneonagain said:


> I think Schoenberg was keenly aware of his realities. Prior to the Nazis - I'm thinking more turn-of-the-century up to the 20s, it was not unusual for Germans of Jewish descent to identify as German and with German culture.


Yes, one of my favourite historical anecdotes is Karl Marx (obviously a German Jew) in a London pub rounding on the philistine English by asserting the superiority of German music:



> Edgar Bauer, hurt by some chance remark, turned the tables and ridiculed the English snobs. Marx launched an enthusiastic eulogy on German science and music - no other country, he said, would have been capable of producing such masters of music as Beethoven, Mozart, Haendel and Haydn, and the Englishmen who had no music were in reality far below the Germans who had been prevented hitherto only by the miserable political and economic conditions from accomplishing any great practical work, but who would yet outclass all other nations. So fluently I have never heard him speak English.


It's important to recognise that Germans around the turn of the 20th century strongly believed that the culture of Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven etc. was the glory of the world, and it was the destiny of those nations within German-speaking lands which did not have such a highly developed culture to adopt it for their own good. This applied to Jews and also Poles and Czechs, Dvorak was ostracised from the Viennese music scene for his compositions using Slavic folk melodies. To a liberal Austrian/German Jew like Schoenberg or Mahler, Jewishness smelled of the Ghetto and of backwards religious superstition as opposed to the rational, refined, fully participatory Christian German, and so it was best forgotten. It was incredibly difficult for Jews to get teaching posts at German universities, so why make things more difficult for yourself?

In fact it was this conscious effort of German Jews to assimilate into German culture which provoked dedicated anti-Semites such as Wagner into adopting a relatively new form of race-based bigotry against Jews, see his attacks on Mendelssohn's Jewishness despite the composer having been baptised Protestant.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

An argument could be made that Schoenberg's development of the 12-tone method was a rejection of the Germanic tradition, or a sort of "revenge" for being marginalized for his Jewishness.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Assimilation in the Habsburg Empire was a bit of a double edged sword. It was on the terms of the majority, so Jews like Schoenberg had to convert to Christianity if they wanted to get anywhere in their careers. Something granted by the majority to a minority could easily be revoked, as it was during the 1930's. Anti-Semitism already existed, but the emphasis went from religion to race. Aspirational Jews of Schoenberg's kind, who truly believed themselves to have complete equality, had the rug pulled from under them. They could be as educated as they like, and musically literate and listen to Wagner in the opera houses (many did). They could even serve in the army (as Schoenberg did during WWI), but it meant no difference to the Nazis and their proxies once they where in charge. Assimilation meant you could be one of _us_, but at_ our _discretion. So it was basically a sham.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

*I want comment from german, jewish peopple themselve , other , intellectual please spracheuzi?*

Well, as a German _Citizen _ myself, to me it begs the question of exactly what is it to be _German_? Was Schoenberg a German or a German Citizen? Just how did his _Jewishness_ make him less German than those who patriotically fought for Germany in WWI or those who later joined the SS?

This discussion is in poor taste in view of its unsavoury racist overtones.

And while we are at it, what defines a German *Soul *exactly? Do please tell...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> An argument could be made that Schoenberg's development of the 12-tone method was a rejection of the Germanic tradition, or a sort of "revenge" for being marginalized for his Jewishness.


What would that argument be? The 12-tone method was created only after 13 years of "free atonal" composition - Schoenberg's "expressionist" period - specifically as a means of adapting atonality to the demands of large-scale form. I've never heard Expressionism called a rejection of the Germanic tradition.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Well, if you put it in those terms, then it would seem unlikely. Expressionism is part of German history.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

KRoad said:


> *I want comment from german, jewish peopple themselve , other , intellectual please spracheuzi?*
> 
> Well, as a German _Citizen _ myself, to me it begs the question of exactly what is it to be _German_? Was Schoenberg a German or a German Citizen? Just how did his _Jewishness_ make him less German than those who patriotically fought for Germany in WWI or those who later joined the SS?
> 
> ...


Germans art and music, is soul of germany this is what i ment , there no racism intend in this post, if io were an antisemite=judeophobic i would not listen to a lot of music, if i count out jewish people, i dont support biggotery neither violence, the only violence i support is trought a symphony or a music band like sludge, im not politic or racist at all, this is why i dont talk about us president, simply because im not american, this is not my buzziness so i spare him, out of ingerance principle, i only think you can be a great germans spare thhe religion, i mean , founded hard to beleive but what caught me was how Schoenberg Verklarte Natch is strikingly germanic in melancolia & sadeness.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The irony of German thought and philosophy, perhaps also related to their incredibility as superb musicians, is that they’ve had an Oswald Spengler, Meister Eckhart, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Engels, Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Martin Heidegger, Hegel, and others, and then threw the wisdom & depth of that out the window and traded it for a spiteful little political fanatic with a mustache who was bent on revenge from the very beginning and no one was strong enough in Germany to philosophically or politically resist him, though some tried... Perhaps that’s the danger when philosophy becomes more head than heart; and one has to stay eternality vigilant to watch out and never give complete personal allegiance to a despot or dictator; there are times when the mind and intellect can justify any horrors... My wish is that those in the US stay vigilant to guard against that very thing: trading one’s own self-determination and allowing an individual with authoritarian power to make all the decisions as a matter of convenience. It can be dangerous... Schoenberg was wise to get out of Germany when he did, and I think the freedom of individuality in his music is somehow a guard against the pull of authoritarian power and fascism. The idea of a democracy is that the collective will of the people can potentially be wiser and smarter than one individual who wants to run the entire show. But of course, if the public is consistently lied to with fake news, they're not really in a position to decide anything. There have to be news resources that the public can trust and not let public education be corrupted by the political cheapskates by undermining the value of our educators and nickel and diming them to death because their salaries are supposedly too high. Perhaps Germany has rediscovered the integrity of its philosophical roots and even a Schoenberg might have felt comfortable there now.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Larkenfield said:


> The irony of German thought and philosophy, perhaps also related to their incredibility as musicians, ... Perhaps that's the danger when philosophy becomes more head than heart; and one has to stay eternality vigilant to watch out for that and never give complete personal allegiance to a despot or dictator; there are times when the mind and intellect can justify anything... Schoenberg was wise to get out of Germany when he did, and I think the freedom of individuality in his music is somehow a guard against the pull of authoritarian power and fascism...


I think that lack of balance between head and heart is an important factor, and probably not only in Germany. It goes back to the failure of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, and the maintenance of authoritarian rule albeit with the rubber stamp of weak parliaments. Window dressing continued until the situation was at breaking point in the 1930's. Versailles Treaty after World War I presented a historic opportunity which was lost, despite the usual victor's justice and yet another rearrangement of the deckchairs of power nothing substantive changed.

I mean you can have all the philosophy, poetry, music and so on that you want, but without rule of law it doesn't amount to much. Its easy to see America in a negative way today. In contrast, for Schoenberg's generation it was seen not only as a place of refuge but where the ideals of the Enlightenment had taken root in a more substantive way compared to the decayed political system in Europe.

Your post reminds me of one of Schoenberg's more important works of his American years: Ode to Napoleon. The composer wrote that this was not meant as an attack on the likes of Hitler in a personal sense. He said it was about tyranny of all kinds, throughout all of human history. Its one of the most powerful works I know, even in terms of its ugliness which is apt. At the end, the piece settles on E-flat - Beethoven's heroic key - as does Strauss' Metamorphosen. It could not have come about had it not been for those tragic times.


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