Welcome for The Incoming Modern Master [Schoenberg] 10/28/33

When Schoenberg was forty, the critical contumely was at its peak. He had just completed a European tour with Pierrot Lunaire, “the last word in cacophony and musical anarchy,” as the Berlin correspondent of the Musical Courier characterized it at the time of its first performance. And, in bidding him a sincere farewell to Berlin, a Vienna musician summarized his impressions of the three piano pieces, opus 11, as follows: “First, a child bangs aimlessly on the piano, then a drunk pounds like a madman on the keys, and, finally somebody sits full weight on the keyboard.” In London, after the performance of the Five Orchestral Pieces, the merriment in the press was general. In a letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, that early champion of freedom of musical expression, Dr. Leigh Henry objected to the vulgarity of a writer’s remark that “the long hair which used to be indispensable has now been superseded by the bald head”—an obvious and disgraceful attack on the appearance of Herr Schoenberg, who conducted the performance, Dr. Henry adds indignantly.