A Study On The Music Of Schoenberg From A Perspective Of Judaisam

Arnold Schonberg,as one of the most important composers of 20th-Century,founded the branch of modernist music and became essential figure leading the transition from romantic to modernist style in the West.His unique free atonality and twelve-tone series of music widely spread in Europe that younger generation performed active to imitate.He made a great contribution to musical composition in the both West and East,and led a new era of musical development.As a Jewish,Schoenberg was deeply disseminated in racial and religious sentiments,and he chose to leave the Judaism shortly in order to gain a deeper understanding of the Jewish spirit,which made the music of this excellent composer with a mysterious religious veil.Even so,the Zionism was kept in Schoenberg’s mind and never gone away.He incorporated the Zionism into his artistic creation throughout his life.This paper tries to explain the influence of religion thought on musical creation and art spirit of Schoenberg from the perspective of religion.Thus we can better understand Schoenberg’s music and its effects on modern musical development both in the West and China.The first chapter is based on social and cultural events happing at the turn of the century in Austria,so as to understand Schonberg’s life of music and the essential person for Schonberg’s musical creation.From the end of 19 th century to 1950’s,the continuous concession made Austria lose more political autonomy,and the conflicts between mass and local culture became more and more intense.Both politics and culture was under chaos,resulting in an unstable environment for Schonberg’s musical creation,which also indicated the ups and downs of Schonberg’s lifetime.The Polyphonic Hymn led Schoenberg to step on the road of music.As the only mentor in Schoenberg’s career life,Alessandra Von Zemlinsky helped him a lot in music.In addition,as a brother-in-law and best friend,Alessandra gave him endless life support and was his most trusted person.The second chapter started with Schoenberg’s artistic resource,then briefly discussed the cultural background,explained philosophical basis and aesthetic thought of his musical composition from the perspective of religion,and digested the literature inspiration and painting dissemination in his works.The Bible,as the most important composition in Jewish culture,could not be ignored.The holiness and omnipotence of Yahweh controlled the development of Jewish culture.“One God” continued thousands of years in history and became the only support for the exiles.The Zionist flew in every Jewish blood.Strong political Zionism and cultural ideology stimulated the composition desire and provided inspiration for Schoenberg.Schoenberg’s composition combines culture,religion,philosophy and aesthetics.We will talk about the artistic creation and its impacts in this chapter,and continue to explore the interaction between composition and the essential elements.The third chapter summarizes the manifestation of Schoenberg’s religious consciousness in the oratorio,one music genre,and the origin of oratorio in the West.Beginning with specific works,such as Gurrelieder,Die Jakobsleiter and A Survivor form Warsaw,through the analysis of these oratorio works,we will conclude the creation characteristics and divine consciousness in Schoenberg’s oratorio.The religious attribute in oratorio partly proved Schoenberg’s tendency that the music and text has revealed the Jewish consciousness hidden by the composer.Besides,we will make a brief review of the development of Schoenberg’s techniques inatonality and twelve tone series of music,and further discuss their application in his music works.In fourth chapter,we will discuss and demonstrate the presents of Zionist in his creation from musicology and culture standpoint.In this chapter,we carefully choose the musical works after Schoenberg being a Christianity,analyzing the music and text in Der Bilische Weg(drama)and Moses und Aron(opera)in order to prove the Zionism has never been devoid in his thoughts and compositions,even during Schoenberg’s conversion to Christianity.The late cappella chorus work,Modern Psalmen,fully confirms the Zionist dream in Schoenberg’s thought.Meanwhile,further discusses the artistic spirit pursued by Schoenberg’s musical works.The fifth chapter sums up the inspiration for western music from Schoenberg’s musical creation and artistic spirit.Through the discussion of his composing techniques,atonality,twelve tone series of music,repeated off tune,turning tune and dissonant chord in music composition,to analyze the profound influence on musical composition development in Austria,the United States and other European countries.After the analysis of Schoenberg’s artistic spirit,we will continue to explore the deep meaning of his musical thoughts and expressionist music.From the nature revealed in his music and art spirit,re-examine the philosophy and characteristics of modern western music.The sixth chapter analyzes the effects on Chinese modern music from the perspective of Schoenberg’s genre,thought and technique.Through the introduction of religious oratorio,we will discriminate the differences of oratorio development between the West and East,combine Schoenberg’s music thoughts and twelve tone series of music with Chinese modern music,couple with innovation.The development of Chinese modern music is a process of recreation based on Schoenberg’s music techniques and art spirit,but also sublimation on the national music.To sum up,this paper tries to explore the thoughts behind the musical works and analyze the real meaning of the composers through the study of Schoenberg’s music creation and art spirit,with the genre of oratorio,the theme of Zionism,and the composition of atonality and twelve tone series of music.In Schoenberg’s lifetime of artistic creation,he has performed a good interpretation of the Jewish God,Yahweh,from the perspective of culture,philosophy and aesthetics,and involve this spirit in his music with a creative way.Schoenberg’s innovative composing techniques make us feel the creativity and vitality of the music.His interpretation of Jewish culture makes it more speculative with a developing horizon.Not only lay a solid foundation for the development of modern western music,but also enrich the diversity of our national music development.Therefore,modern western music has absorbed Schoenberg’s method of composition and the core idea of his artistic spirit in the process of development.While Chinese modern music introduces oratorio as a creative genre and gains popularity in the research about atonality and twelve tone series of music.Besides,with the combination of innovative techniques and theories,Chinese modern music opens up a new direction.