What's New The term "Expressionism" was originally used in visual and literary arts and was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg because like the painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), he veered away from "traditional forms of beauty to convey powerful feelings in his music. Features of expressionism music are as follows: • a high degree of dissonance (dissonance is the quality of sounds that seems unstable) extreme contrasts of dynamics (from pianissimo to fortissimo, very soft to very loud) constant changing of textures distorted" melodies and harmonies angular melodies with wide leaps ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951) Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874 in a working-class suburb of Vienna, Austria. He taught himself music theory but took lessons in counterpoint. His works was greatly influenced by the German composer Richard Wagner as evident in his symphonic poem Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 5 (1903), a counterpoint of Debussy's opera of the same title.​