Object #1

Arnold Schönberg
Self-Portrait
December 26, 1908
Chinese ink in pen and brush on paper
Catalogue raisonné 3

Belmont Music Publishers, Pacific Palisades

On December 21, 1908 the premiere of Schönberg’s String Quartet No. 2, op. 10 took place in Vienna, which led to a scandal of previously unknown proportions in the history of concert life in Schönberg’s native city. For days the culture sections of newspapers both at home and abroad contained reports of the events in the Bösendorfersaal, before music critic Elsa Bienenfeld published a review that endeavored to be objective, paying tribute to the composer’s “fulfillment of superior ideas” and comparing his fate with that of the “heroes of music who are already accepted” (Neues Wiener Journal, December 25, 1908, page 24, page 25). The next day, Schönberg drew his first Self-Portrait that displays a date. A glimpse into his own soul.