Schoenberg was musically self-taught and learned sonata form from an encyclopedia

Evidence

Arnold Schoenberg left secondary school before taking his examinations. When he lost his job as a bank employee when the company went out of business, it was a relief to him, and he was able to devote himself completely to music. Born in Vienna in 1874, the son of the Jewish owner of a small shoe business, Schoenberg started to play the violin at the age of eight. At nine he began to compose short pieces. A friend taught him the elements of harmonic theory, and he learnt how the first movement of a string quartet was supposed to be constructed from the article Sonata' in Meyer's Konversationslexikon, which he and his friend bought in instalments. The only concerts he heard were by military bands in the public gardens. After losing his job, he met Alexander von Zemlinsky, who was two years older than him, in the amateur orchestra Polyhymnia’. Zemlinsky became his friend and teacher. He familiarized the Brahmsian' Schoenberg with Wagner, and organized the first performance of a work by Schoenberg in 1898. It was a great success. But, when some of Schoenberg's songs were performed in concert in the same year, the first scandal’ occurred. From then on,' Schoenberg later told one of his pupils, the scandal never stopped!’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 292 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Schoenberg was largely self-taught and reached music mostly outside formal institutions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 292

Broader Connections

• Schoenberg was largely self-taught and reached music mostly outside formal institutions #corroborates (0.92) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 292