“Employs a compositional syntax drawn from” somewhat obscures the fact that first thing most people hear is the dodecaphony, what many would describe as the atonality of Schönberg’s work.

This comment, “It sounds as if someone had smeared the score of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde while the ink was still wet!”, is somewhat cruel, but not entirely off the mark — and not entirely unfunny.

But the fact that Verklarte Nacht shocked so many is a tribute to its originality and boldness.

The antisemitism is sadly predictable. Luckily, it looks up for him later — Schönberg spent his last eighteen years as a respected scholar and composer in the United States.