Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg (1874–1951) Biography

Born in Vienna, Schoenberg had little formal musical education, teaching himself to play any instruments at hand; he eventually sought advice about his works from the conductor and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky ( 1872 – 1942 ), whose sister he married in 1901 . During this period Schoenberg was composing mainly large-scale works in a rich chromatic style, influenced by both Brahms and Wagner . Examples of his early work include the monodrama Transfigured Night ( 1899 ) for string sextet (which he later orchestrated), Gurrelieder ( 1900 – 11 ) for solo voices, chorus, and large orchestra, and the tone poem Pelleas und Melisande ( 1902 – 03 ). Although he was forced to work for a period in a bank, he was soon able to earn a living orchestrating theatre music and teaching. In 1910 he became a teacher at the Vienna Academy, where Alban Berg and Anton Webern became his students. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler had by then taken an interest in his work.

Schoenberg's second string quartet ( 1907 – 08 ), ostensibly in F sharp minor, is a landmark in the development of western music as the final movement introduced the concept of atonality. The Three Piano Pieces of 1909 is the first work in which Schoenberg abolished the distinction between consonance and dissonance, while in Pierrot Lunaire ( 1912 ) for voice and five instrumentalists he consolidated his use of these techniques and introduced the device of Sprechstimme, a pitch-notated form of speech. From these experiments Schoenberg gradually evolved a formal system of composition in which all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are of equal importance; a series of up to twelve of these notes could be used horizontally or vertically, starting on any note of the chromatic scale, the complete series of notes being used before any of them appear again. This technique was known as serialism or twelve-tone composition. The third and fourth movements of the Serenade ( 1923 ) for seven instruments and bass voice are the first clear examples of this technique; Variations for Orchestra ( 1927 – 28 ) is a mature serial work.

In 1933 , like so many other Jewish Austrians, Schoenberg left Europe for the USA. He had been previously converted to Catholicism but now returned to his Jewish faith; his unfinished opera Moses und Aron ( 1932 – 51 ), using his own libretto, is an indication of his religious affiliations in this period. In 1936 he became professor of composition at California University, where he remained until his retirement at seventy; he became a naturalized US citizen in 1940 . During these years in America Schoenberg returned to tonal composition from time to time, but also continued to develop his serial techniques, which gradually began to find acceptance by younger composers in the 1960s.