At home with Arnold Schönberg

Ping-pong and twelve-tone method, house pets and ideological beliefs, telephone connections and faith-based opera: visits to the homes of Arnold Schönberg (1874 –1951) reveal constellations that illuminate his biography, creativity, and contemporary history in his central position as a major figure in transatlantic cultural history. Schönberg’s way of life was rooted in practical everyday existence and found its counterpart in a consistently functional approach to living. In his artistic work, he employed the properties of his materials as a carpenter would, placing pure craftsmanship above theoretical beliefs, truth above aesthetic sensibility, and artistic impact above the eternal laws of conservative aesthetics. He propagated liberation from systemic constraints as a necessary goal of all intellectual endeavor, devoting himself to the creation of a portable music stand with the same dedication that he applied to the elaboration of musical ideas, always pursuing manageability and comprehensibility. For its dweller, the composition workshop and the crafts room were always closely connected. A body of work spanning many decades is unfolded by domestic stories from Schönberg’s…