There was a time in American academia when, if you wanted to attain a bachelor’s degree in musical composition, you had to display a basic competence in the music of the Second Viennese School—of the ...

I always considered Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone, atonal music pretentious noise. But I’ve been forced to change my mind after reading Mark Swed’s enlightening analysis (“Driven to Express Himself,” ...

Among several historic musical anniversaries celebrated this year—including the centenary of “Rhapsody in Blue”—an easily overlooked one especially deserves mention, since it marked an artistic ...

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of composer Arnold Schoenberg who devised a means of composing using each of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale as equals. It transformed the ...

Editor’s note: Arnold Schoenberg was born on this day in 1874. 145 years later, we look back at the genius of the Austrian Jewish composer. What happens in the mind of a genius? Mozart’s mind was ...

What happens in the mind of a genius? Mozart’s mind was puerile; if his extraordinary sophistication with music extended to other aspects of his psyche, he didn’t show it. Van Gogh was subject to ...