Quotes on Schoenberg

You can't expect someone born into a family with no music... to understand when I'm conducting the Schoenberg Variations.

On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came took him away. As he left, he said to another prisoner, This is the end - but for me, the beginning - of life. He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.

I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'

You can't expect someone born into a family with no music...to understand when I'm conducting the Schönberg Variations.