«Il nuovo, se non il vero, è comunque il bello». L'idea del bello in Arnold Schönberg = "The new, if not the true, is nevertheless the beautiful". The idea of beauty in Arnold Schönberg

Abstract

While the artistic avant-garde, from its very beginnings, made the refusal of beauty its characteristic feature (and so will the post-Webern avant-garde), in Arnold Schönberg's aesthetic beauty retains its importance. But it's an idea of beauty that wants to be completely new. The concept of beauty proposed by Schönberg is deeply related to an intellectualist vision of the musical idea, which is based on notions like "form" and "structure"; to the concept of novelty, to be pursued as the deepest expression of subjectivity, too often restricted by tradition; and most of all to the idea of truth. These are all classic items, in relation to beauty, but they gain new strength in Schönberg's quest for a new language.