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During his lifetime, and even—astonishingly—in the half century since his death, the music of Arnold Schoenberg has been influential and controversial out of all proportion to the frequency with which it has ever been performed or otherwise disseminated. His name has been a battle cry, a punching bag, an article of faith, a term of abuse, a finger in the dike, and a symbol for anything and everything: progress, degeneracy, elitism, integrity, disintegration, regeneration, sublimity, ridiculousness. According to some, he is the reason serious music is dying. According to others, he is the only reason it has even lived this long. Nobody in the history of music has been a more dependable whipping boy; but neither has anyone been a trustier stick to beat with.- Richard Taruskin, The Poietic Fallacy, Musical Times 145, no. 1886, 2004