Atonality (3)

Schoenberg was himself well aware of the ambiguities and limitations inherent in any analysis of a musical work, especially an atonal composition. In a lecture of 1932 on the Four Orchestral Songs, he cautioned his listeners in a way that the author of this book can only echo: “I would not have you believe, ladies and gentlemen, that with this analysis all aspects of this section have been elucidated.... I state what I see, as far as I am able to express it. Yet in the end, this is still a path on which one must feel one’s way, step by step, with the tip of one’s toes.”

Bryan R. Simms, The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908-1923, 2000