This chapter highlights Schoenberg’s encounters with art, literature, politics and religion in Vienna, the city where he spent more than half of his lifetime and where he made his first steps as a composer. With his broad interests, Schoenberg profited from the diverse, international metropolis that affected his world views and artistic work. Social democratic ideas and the workers’ movement were influencing him as well as Jewish culture, embedded in the fall of the Habsburg Empire and rising antisemitic ideas. Vienna’s coffee houses as meeting points for artistic circles, a vivid music scene, as well as the visual arts such as the Secession, Jugendstil and Expressionism, were equally inspiring for his artistic output.