This online event sees Harvey Sachs discuss his biography of Arnold Schoenberg, a New Yorker Book of the Year, restoring the Austrian-American composer to his rightful place in the pantheon.

Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg was an international icon in his own time, with his 12-tone system considered the future of music itself.

Today, leading orchestras rarely play his works and his name is met with apathy, if not antipathy. A New Yorker Book of the Year, Harvey Sachs’ lyrical Schoenberg: Why He Matters rescues him from notoriety and restores his rightful place in the pantheon of 20th-century composers. In this online event the Beethoven and Toscanini biographer reveals his legacy, his battles with antisemitism that eventually precipitated his flight from Europe to Los Angeles and his defiance of critics, including the Nazis labelling his music degenerate.

Buy a copy of Schoenberg: Why He Matters by Harvey Sachs from Blackwells.

This event will last approximately 1 hour, without an interval. 

Digital events will take place over Zoom, with an event link sent to bookers 24 hours in advance of the event and a reminder email 30 minutes before the event starts. Ticket holders for digital events will also be sent a link to a recording of the event, available to watch until the end of March.

Book Week 24 Digi-Pass gives access to all 16 online streaming events for £39.50.

About the speakers:

Harvey Sachs is the author or coauthor of eleven books, including Toscanini and Music in Fascist Italy. He lives in New York City and is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Dennis Davis was educated at the Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge. One of South Africa’s most respected legal minds, he was appointed to a personal chair of Commercial Law in 1989, in 1998 he became a Judge of the High Court, and the President of the Competition Appeal Court in 2000.