Schoenberg

"""[A]n immensely valuable source for anyone desiring an accessible overview of this endlessly controversial and chronically misunderstood giant of 20th-century music . . . Sachs can be refreshingly candid, sharing his feelings at times as if he were whispering confidentially in your ear during a concert intermission . . . his genuine enthusiasm for those pieces that do stir him is enough to draw the reader in, and in so doing has done a great service to the cause."" -- John Adams, New York Times Book Review, cover review ""In this study of Arnold Schoenberg, the Austrian-born composer who immigrated to the U.S. in 1933, Sachs blends fleet-footed biography with an accessible analysis of Schoenberg’s works."" -- The New Yorker, Best Books of 2023 ""[A] concentrated meditation . . . It may be recommended for anybody with an interest in the work of the Viennese-American composer Arnold Schoenberg—and perhaps especially to those who have never quite been able to “crack” his music . . . Despite his postwar decades in California, Schoenberg—with his rattles and shimmers, his craggy melodies and pervasive angst—never quite escaped the nightmares of what was then a crabbed and bloody Old World . . . Mr. Sachs’s fine study should inspire a fresh understanding of his life and work."" -- Tim Page - Wall Street Journal ""[A]n earnest attempt by an engaging writer and insightful music historian to explain Schoenberg’s significant achievements and understand the lingering resistance to his works . . . compelling."" -- Anthony Tommasini - Atlantic ""Sachs dissects Schoenberg’s complex musical works in an accessible way for the lay reader, thereby encouraging an understanding of the thinking and creative process with which Schoenberg wrote . . . To the end of his days, and beyond, Schoenberg has been misunderstood and underappreciated. Sachs admirably goes the distance in restoring Arnold Schoenberg’s singular position in the musical universe."" -- Judith Finell - Los Angeles Review of Books ""Lucid… Sachs’s book is a succinct guide to Schoenberg’s life and work, one designed in part to make the composer’s music accessible to a wider audience. Much of the book’s appeal lies in that implicit promise to help find the beauty hidden in what can seem, to the uninitiated, a writhing mass of noise. Sachs is neither a hater nor a glassy-eyed enthusiast—[he] is, as he puts it, ‘a writer and music historian who is Schoenberg-curious.’ This is not to say that he doesn’t admire the music—he does. And there’s real pleasure to be found in the way Sachs writes about it. He clearly describes, for instance, the genius of the way in which Schoenberg composes the voice of God in his opera Moses und Aron, which Sachs calls a nearly ideal vehicle for twelve-tone music... The effect is perfectly eerie."" -- Christopher Carroll - Harper’s ""Sachs deftly weaves together biography and informed opinion to give the reader a full portrait framed in musical and historical context . . . In a letter to a new acquaintance, Schoenberg wrote, ‘You can see it isn’t easy to get on with me. But don’t lose heart because of that.’ Sachs makes it easy and enjoyable in this thoughtful and concise work."" -- Carolyn Mulac - Booklist ""A convincing, laymen-friendly reappraisal of a great musical theorist, teacher, and composer."" -- Kirkus Reviews ""Schoenberg: Why He Matters makes the case for Schoenberg’s importance in the avant-garde canon, arguing that anyone who cares about 20th-century classical music needs to care about Arnold Schoenberg."" -- Literary Hub ""I, too, was ambivalent when it came to the works of Arnold Schoenberg. But Harvey Sachs puts everything into perspective, both historically and musically—making the reader want to enter the fascinating mind of this remarkable composer. Written in a style that is thorough but accessible, this book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to have a fuller understanding of a composer who changed the face of music."" -- Leonard Slatkin, internationally acclaimed conductor ""Few authors have written more memorably on music than Harvey Sachs."" -- Simon Williams, author of Wagner and the Romantic Hero ""Finally, an eminently readable book on Arnold Schoenberg’s life and influence, equally accessible for practicing musicians and casual classical music fans. Sachs has threaded the needle perfectly, elucidating one of the great paradoxes of classical music and posing an unanswered question: Will the composer’s monumental influence on the twentieth century return in the twenty-first?"" -- James Conlon, music director of the Los Angeles Opera"