36 Quotes by Arnold Schoenberg

Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one's head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.

My music is not modern, it is merely badly played.

I find above all that the expression, atonal music, is most unfortunate – it is on a par with calling flying the art of not falling, or swimming the art of not drowning.

An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker – the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art.

Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener.

I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don’t know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.

My music is not lovely.

Although our “gentle air” cannot improve the way hate and envy look, it does seem not to encourage firmness and decision. All is compromise; caution and refinement are everywhere. Everything has to “make a good impression” – whether or not it is any good: the impression is the main thing.

Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one’s head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.