MAXING OUT
And yet Berg’s article, written long after the fact, was an anachronistic measure of Schoenberg’s achievement. By 1924, as we shall see, “purely musical” values were staging a strong comeback; but in the heyday of early twentieth-century maximalism, they could never have sustained the kind of claims Schoenberg himself was making for his “pantonality.” The reason why the spiritual or spiritualist element has taken a back seat in discussions of Schoenberg to the seemingly contradictory discourses of “expressionism” and “pure music” (between which it had originally provided the necessary mediating link) has partly to do with changing fashions: occult matters greatly declined, and abstract or “structural” matters greatly surged after World War I as standards for validating or evaluating art. But it also has to do with Schoenberg’s notoriously spasmodic artistic production. The masterwork that would have given supreme expression to his spiritual concerns remained unfinished, and is little known.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006017.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006017.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006017.xml
