Theory of Harmony

Arnold Schoenberg was a music theorist, a composer, and a music teacher. In his teaching, as in his composing, he aimed at furthering what he saw as the superior tradition in music: the German tradition. Schoenberg's text, Harmonielehre, reflects his belief that a musician who wishes to create truly new and great music must first study classical music: the text deals with classical harmony and does not investigate more modern harmony, despite having been written in the modernist era of music. Schoenberg's aim as a teacher, to further the German tradition in music, was actually met by his Harmonielehre. The curriculum of this text raises, as we will see, interesting questions about Schoenberg's opinion of himself as a composer.