The Crescendo Music Festival this year celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951). A native of Vienna in both background and music, Schönberg made Berlin his home three times over the course of his life. From 1901 to 1903, he served as conductor at Ernst von Wolzogen’s cabaret Überbrettl. Richard Strauss, then Kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera, helped Schönberg secure a teaching position in composition at the renowned Stern Conservatory, a private institution. Ten years later, Schönberg fled back to Berlin almost in haste, where the premiere of Pierrot Lunaire took place in 1912 at the Choralion Hall. He declined an invitation to join the Vienna Academy of Music, writing, “I simply cannot live in Vienna right now… I am not reconciled,” referring to the opposition his music had encountered in his hometown. He returned only in 1915, during World War I.

His connection to the Berlin University of the Arts is tied to his third and longest stay in the German capital, from 1925 to 1933, as a professor. Schönberg was allowed to hold his master classes at his private residence, though he also gave lectures at the university in 1927 on "The Musical Idea, Its Representation and Development," which were accompanied by analysis exercises. However, his official position was with the Prussian Academy of the Arts, where he led a master school for musical composition. Both institutions were interlinked at the time, with the Berlin University of the Arts operating under the Academy until 1931. Schönberg’s classes, along with those of Hans Pfitzner and Georg Schumann, created a unique interaction between the Academy and the university, with Schönberg’s lectures at the Fasanenstraße campus illustrating this collaboration.

In 1998, Israeli-born musicologist Peter Gradenwitz, who grew up in Berlin, published a book on Schönberg’s Berlin students. This generation faced particularly harsh struggles following the Nazi rise to power in 1933, and Gradenwitz painstakingly researched many of their stories. Schönberg’s students included figures such as the Transylvanian composer Norbert von Hannenheim, who died under unclear circumstances in Nazi Berlin, and Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas, who had studied violin and music theory at the university before joining Schönberg’s master class. During a book presentation in the university’s chamber hall, Gradenwitz shared that he had once listened to Schönberg in the university’s very own halls.

Schönberg’s appointment to Berlin was a distinguished honor, underscoring the international recognition he had gained by the early 1920s. He was highly respected as a teacher and had already published his Harmonielehre in 1911. Nevertheless, like in Vienna, Schönberg was a polarizing figure, and stereotypes had long since been established around him.

After Ferruccio Busoni’s death in 1924, Leo Kestenberg from the Prussian Ministry of Culture considered Schönberg as a possible successor but regarded this as a “long shot” due to Schönberg’s divisive reputation. The following year, however, Schönberg was indeed appointed—a highlight of Weimar-era musical reform. Despite his modern inclinations—his Accompaniment to a Film Scene premiered under Otto Klemperer with the Berlin Kroll Opera Orchestra in 1930—Schönberg was a target of antimodernist animosity.

In 1926, Schönberg finally arrived in Berlin, having delayed due to illness. As anti-Semitism spread, he increasingly took advantage of his contract, limiting his presence in Berlin as much as possible. By the time the Nazis rose to power in 1933, he had already distanced himself mentally and left for Paris even before his official suspension and dismissal. Emigration to the United States soon followed.

After World War II, Josef Rufer, who had assisted Schönberg during his Berlin years, became an ardent advocate of his legacy. In 1946, he founded the International Institute of Music in Zehlendorf, focusing on New Music, and for two decades starting in 1949, he taught twelve-tone music at the Berlin University of the Arts in Fasanenstraße.

Author: Dr. Dietmar Schenk, Head of the University Archive