Review of Sabine Feisst, Schoenberg’s New World: The American Years (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Abstract

[1] Sabine Feisst's book, Schoenberg's New World: The American Years, is designed to be a corrective to the commonplace, Euro-centric assertions that Schoenberg's American years were fraught with neglect, poverty, and poor health. To this day, European scholars and performers tend to be biased against Schoenberg's American works, dismissive of his American students, and-although this is changing-neglectful of American scholarship on Schoenberg's compositions and pedagogy.[2] Schoenberg's New World is a chronicle of his years in America, casting a wide net to include critical reception of his works, performances and broadcasts, domicile and immediate family, his friends and extended family at home and abroad, approach to teaching and students, working habits, correspondence, personal quirks, and his strength of personality as well as his foibles. As chronicle, the book shares the strengths and shortcomings of the genre. In addition to original scholarship, principally through interviews with family and friends, the book brings together wide-ranging information that was otherwise scattered and difficult to come by. To choose one example among many, if you are interested in knowing the names and biographical vignettes of American pianists who programmed Schoenberg's music in 1930s, I cannot imagine a better source of information. In a similar way, one can find out which American radio stations were programming which pieces and when during Schoenberg's American years. For data of that sort, the book is really exhaustive. In this sense, Schoenberg's New World is an invaluable resource, a welcome and permanent contribution to Schoenberg scholarship. Given the amount of such data, the book's necessary shortcoming is a lack of in-depth discussions. Again, to choose one example among many, while we can find out which works were performed when and where and by whom, we cannot come away with a good sense of the ways that contemporary art music, Schoenberg's included, was integrated into the fabric of American life during those years. I personally am always saddened to realize how rare an awareness, let alone appreciation of contemporary art music exists among American intelligentsia (not to mention the general public). Even within professional music circles, ignorance of contemporary music is often flaunted as a badge of honor. Was the situation for Schoenberg in the 1930s and '40s better, worse, or the same as it is for, say Elliott Carter in our own time?[3] Within the limits of this review, I cannot hope to do justice to the wealth of information on Schoenberg's American activities, relationships, and reception that are chronicled within the book. Organizing so much material must have been particularly challenging, and Feisst does not always succeed in finding a clean solution. The prose often comprises lists of names (performers, students, publishers, etc.) followed by thumbnail descriptions of the individuals. This gives us lots of information, but not always the most gracious reading. Another difficulty occurs when material fits into more than one of the chapter headings. As a result, there are quite a few instances where material that is presented in one part of the book is presented again in another. The book has a good index, and this will help readers to weave together the disparate and sometimes redundant threads that connect a discussion across chapters. Also noteworthy is the website that accompanies the book. Here one finds, in addition to an annotated timeline of Schoenberg's works, online interviews, home films, photographs, and films of performances. For those of us who are inveterate scribblers within the margins of books, Oxford's scanty margins will prove an impediment. While the margins at outer edge of the page are tolerable at 1 inch, the inner margins are about 1/2 inch, as are the margins at the top and bottom of each page. The many photographs within the book are most welcome, but poorly reproduced. …