Lot 1218 | SCHOENBERG, ARNOLD. 1874-1951. Autograph Musical Quotation Signed ("Arnold Schoenberg"), 1 p, 103 x 240 mm, n.p., March 1, 1934,
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Autograph Musical Quotation Signed ("Arnold Schoenberg"), 1 p, 103 x 240 mm, n.p., March 1, 1934, from the Wind Quintet, Opus 26, toned and rough at the lower margin, creasing at left and right margins with loss at lower right not affecting signature, float-mounted, framed.
Schoenberg began his composition career producing works in the German Romantic vein á la Brahms and Wagner, but by the early 20th century was experimenting and developing the avant-garde musical style known as the dodecaphonic (or twelve-tone) method of composition, still today one of the most polarizing movements in 20th century music. Schoenberg fled Austria in 1933 after the Nazi party labeled his twelve-tone technique—which involved the manipulation of an ordered series of all twelve tones in the chromatic scalea— form of "degenerate" music comparable to jazz.
In this manuscript, produced just after Schoenberg arrived in Boston to teach at the Malkin Conservatory, he lays out in four bars the twelve-tone sequence ("Anteceding sentence / consequent sentence / retrograde set") that appears in the wind quintet, Opus 26.
