Schoenberg and Mythic Conception

Abstract

This article considers certain aspects of Schoenberg’s music and thought in light of non-European frameworks, with a focus on three such aspects: Schoenberg as a mythic mediating force linking the “new art” with the “old art” through prophecy; the ritual-like rebirth of the old art as the new art, aspects of which appear in Schoenberg’s theories and music; and the correspondence between ritual secrecy (such as in shamanism) and the intentional incomprehensibility of Schoenberg’s music. The relevant period of Schoenberg’s biography can be presented as a spiritual and creative transformation from a collapsed state, analogous to a mythic archetype of rebirth actualized in the traditional ritual of initiation. Schoenberg’s theoretical writings reveal such particulars of mythic consciousness as mediation of opposites, secrecy, and incomprehensibility. Several similarities exist between Schoenberg’s conception and the non-European cultures based on active mythological models.