Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Arnold Schönberg estate
Inscribed 2011
What is it
The complete collection of composer Arnold Schönberg’s
manuscripts, books, photographs, recordings and other
personal documents.
Why was it inscribed
The Arnold Schönberg estate forms one of the most
extensive 20th-century music legacies of a single
composer, who was widely acknowledged as one of the
most influential and innovative composers.
Where is it
Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna, Austria
Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951) was a pioneering composer,
painter, teacher and theoretician, and one of the most
prominent artistic figures in 20th-century culture.
Schönberg was a leading figure in the rapid development
of music and the arts in Vienna, at a time when Vienna was
regarded the musical capital of Europe. He was considered
the father of the ‘Viennese School’ which explored atonality
and was a hugely influential teacher of many eminent
European and American composers, including Alban Berg,
Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, Nikos Skalkottas, Roberto
Gerhard and John Cage. He taught in Berlin between 1925
and 1933 – a time of intense creative experimentation – and
later worked in Los Angeles, where many key figures from
European Arts had found exile.
Schönberg’s innovations in atonality were a major
landmark in 20th-century musical thought. In the 1920s he
developed the twelve-tone technique, a widely influential
compositional method of manipulating an ordered
series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. Many
of Schönberg’s practices, including the formalization
of compositional method, and his habit of openly
inviting audiences to think analytically, are echoed in
avant-garde musical thought throughout the 20th century.
Although Arnold Schönberg emigrated from Europe in
1933, he was able to keep his work, correspondence and
other elements of his estate together. When he died, his
estate consisted of a huge amount of music manuscripts,
text manuscripts, his complete library, photographs and
other documents. This collection was kept entire and
370 Arnold Schönberg estate
� Page from the Theory on Harmony by Arnold Schönberg.
Arnold Schönberg �
nothing has been added since, making it a uniquely
comprehensive testament to the work, life and legend
of a European composer.
His writings, apart from his compositions, are valuable
documents for the musical, intellectual and cultural
history of the first half of the 20th century, as well as
for exile studies, and thus for contemporary history.
They are evidence of the multifaceted interests of an
eminent artistic personality, and also address questions
of aesthetics, Jewish affairs, politics and religion.
Schönberg worked, socialized and exchanged ideas with
some of the most important intellectuals, composers and
other artists of his era, including Albert Einstein, Wassily
Kandinsky, Thomas Mann, Karl Kraus, Gustav Mahler
and Richard Strauss. The estate attests to half a century
of cultural and intellectual history in Europe and the
United States.