ts it. Every stronghold is
being assailed, from the "divine" rights of property to the common
chord of C major. With Schoenberg, freedom in modulation is not only
permissible, but is an iron rule; he is obsessed by the theory of
overtones, and his music is not only horizontally and vertically
planned, but, so I pretend to hear, also in a circular fashion. There
is no such thing as consonance or dissonance, only imperfect training
of the ear (I am quoting from his Harmony, certainly a bible for
musical supermen). He says: "Harmonie fremde Toene gibt es also
nicht"--and a sly dig at the old-timers--"sondern nur dem
Harmoniesystem fremde." After carefully listening I noted that he too
has his mannerisms, that in his chaos there is a certain order, that
his madness is very methodical. For one thing he abuses the interval
of the fourth, and he enjoys juggling with the chord of the ninth.
Vagabond harmonies, in which the remotest keys lovingly hold hands, do
not prevent the sensation of a central tonality somewhere--in the
cellar, on the roof, in the gutter, up in the sky. The inner ear tells
you that the D-minor quartet is really thought, though not altogether
played, in that key. As for form, you must not expect it from a man
who declares: "I decide my form during composition only through
feeling." Every chord is the outcome of an emotion, the emotion
aroused by the poem or idea which gives birth to the composition. Such
antique things as the cyclic form or community of themes are not to be
expected in Schoenberg's bright lexicon of anarchy. He boils down the
classic form to one movement and, so it seemed to my hearing, he
begins developing his idea as soon as it is announced.

Such polyphony, such interweaving of voices--eleven and twelve and
fifteen are a matter of course--as would make envious the old tonal
weavers of the Netherlands! There is, literally, no waste ornament or
filling in his scores; every theme, every subsidiary figure, is set
spinning so that you dream of fireworks spouting in every direction,
only the fire is vitriolic and burns the tympani of the ears.
Seriously, like all complex effects, the Schoenberg scores soon become
legible if scrutinised without prejudice. The string sextet, if
compared to the later music, is sunny and Mozartian in its melodic and
harmonic simplicity. They tell me that Schoenberg once wrote freely in
the normal manner, but finding that he could not attract attention he
delibera