Arnold Schönberg
The Restless Visionary

He was the founder of a new musical age and the overpowering father figure of musical modernism. With his departure from tonality and the invention of twelve-tone music, Arnold Schönberg left his mark on the music of the 20th century more momentously than any other composer. The founder of the Second Viennese School, whose concerts provoked notorious scandals among audiences in his day, did not see himself as a radical subversive but rather as a staunch upholder of the great German-Austrian musical tradition. On his way into new musical territory, he was guided by an uncompromising desire for the integrity of musical expression.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth, the film “Arnold Schönberg, The Restless Visionary” uses previously unpublished archival material to paint a long overdue, comprehensive portrait of one of the most important, yet also most original and versatile artistic personalities in history. The film also provides surprising insights into lesser-known aspects of his life and personality: the almost compulsive need to create something new, his religious conflicts, his family environment, setbacks such as the disastrous affair of his wife Mathilde with the painter Richard Gerstl, his painful emigration to America, and Schönberg’s enigmatic fear of the number 13.