Judge Dennis Davis
Schönenberg: A Musical Revolutionary?
Summary
Judge Dennis Davis discusses the life and work of Arnold Schöenberg (1874–1951), an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.
Judge Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.
I don’t think it does stretch the argument. And I think that if we, if I’d had time, and maybe when I revisit Mahler, I can talk about this. If you look at the Mahler’s ninth, he foreshadowed to a large degree, not just his own death, but the death of tonal music. And he foreshadowed, in a sense, the breakup of the world as he saw it. Of course, which gave rise to the First World War. There’s a real sense of apocalypse coming there, and I suppose it’s not so hard to believe that people like Schöenberg and others were battling with the dismantling of the structures. Which ultimately, with the governing structures in which music had been located for so long. So it’s a really fine question to ask.