Arnold Schoenberg: Quotes about art

Arnold Schoenberg was Austrian-American composer. Explore interesting quotes on art.

Arnold Schoenberg: 40 quotes2 likes

“…if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”

from New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea (1946); as quoted in Style and Idea (1985), p. 124
1940s

“I have just read your book [On the Spiritual in Art] from cover to cover, and I will read it once more. I find it pleasing to an extraordinary degree, because we agree on nearly all of the main issues..”

Arnold Schoenberg

In a letter to Wassily Kandinsky, 18 Dec. 1911; as quoted in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa Group company), 2003, p. 15-16 note 49
1910s

“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

"Hauer's Theories" (Notes of November 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 210
1920s

“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

"An Artistic Impression" (1909) in Style and Idea (1985), p. 189
1900s

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

Arnold Schoenberg

quote from Glosses on the Theories of Others (1929); also in Style and Idea (1985), p. 313-314
1920s