Transparent Sound 2025 | Harvey Sachs: Schoenberg - Why He Matters

24 January 2025. 6:00 pm
Budapest Music Center - Library
1093 Budapest, Mátyás utca 8.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was a Jewish-born Austrian-American composer who was an international icon in his day, and his twelve-tone compositional technique, dodecaphony, was considered by many to be the future of music. Today however, his works are rarely performed and his name evokes indifference at best, and antipathy at worst. Harvey Sachs, the renowned musicologist, attempts to restore Schoenberg to his rightful place as one of the most influential composers and teachers of the twentieth century, who defied his critics, including the Nazis who called his works 'degenerate', and who brought about changes that are still felt today and whose compositions are worthy of study by anyone interested in the past, present and future of Western music.
Harvey Sachs (1946), American-Canadian musicologist and author of many excellent books on music, including a major biography of Toscanini, knows exactly what a good biographer should know: how to write in a readable way and present the facts based on years of research in a way that is interesting to any reader interested in the incredibly rich cultural and musical history of the 20th century.
At the launch of the book, published by & Kiadó translator Judit Rácz will be in conversation with music historian Szabolcs Molnár.

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