Russel Berg wrote:

>Why is Schoenberg an important composer?

You will get longer, more informative, and more impassioned replies than
this, but I will say this.

Schoenberg wrote several great works, thought I'm sure my list of what I
consider great will differ and be shorter than that of many others.  In any
case, were our considerations limited to a judgment of quality of works, I
doubt Schoenberg would be considered as important as he is.

The quality of his works aside, then, I believe it is his influence on
music theory (of which others can write more informatively than I) and on
composers that we must look at.  Schoenberg's pioneering advocacy of the
12 tone system is seminal in its influence, but to my knowledge, it wasn't
"12-tone" per se, that tells the story as much as the effect that the
system and Schoenberg had on freeing music of its reliance on conventional
tonality.  Composers like Debussy had done some of this (as had others),
but as I understand theory (not much), Schoenberg went further and had far
more influence and disciples.  These disciples may be the real source of
Schoenberg's influence because in their works, writings and teachings, they
spread the gospel of atonality (and later serialism) that so dominated a
huge portion of the twentieth century.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it
think it was Schoenberg's teachings and his disciples that set him off from
the other atonalists like Berg (who I think was a better composer) and
Webern.  Whether intended or not, Schoenberg was at the head of a powerful,
radical movement, something another important composers like Stravinsky
really were not (though certainly many composers were influenced by
Stravinsky).

This next part is only theory, but I have always believed that the death of
Mahler prematurely robbed music of a very powerful advocate, and possibly
a balancing influence to Schoenberg.  Schoenberg was only 14 years younger
than Mahler but he lived some forty years deeper into the century.  I've
written before on how I think Mahler died far too soon, and that his Ninth
and Tenth Symphonies showed signs that Mahler was embarked upon new paths
that might have had a tremendous on the music of the century.  There were
others going this way, Zemlinsky, Schreker, Schoeck, etc., but, as much as
I loved their music, they didn't have the status and influence of Mahler.
It is important, too, that Schoenberg escaped the Nazis in relatively
timely fashion to the US, in a way that Zemlinsky (not soon enough) and
Schreker did not.  Korngold might have been a balancing influence, had he
not fled the Nazis to Hollywood where he wrote film scores, though I doubt
it.

In the end, I would guess that the answer lies in a timely combination
of quality of composition, effective advocacy of a radical new system of
composition, and the effect of that advocacy on a large number of important
composers.

This is off the top of my head so I beg correction and elucidation.  It is
an interesting topic.

Roger Hecht