The Listening Service Extra 12 of 12 - Schoenberg’s Compositional Vision

Tom explores how Schoenberg hears the music that he is going to write.

'I hear the music which I am going to write. I hear the music and I have acquired a thing which every composer has to acquire in time. I have acquired the capacity of finding out what composes this music which I hear in my mind, in my imagination. And it's a kind of analysis of course but it's possible to mechanically express, if I say analysis, but the process is certainly similar to an analysis. I know, like a good cook would know of what the food is prepared, you know, what is in this food. So the composer knows what is in this sound which he hears.' - Arnold Schoenberg, 1950

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien