Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, and painter who pioneered atonality and developed the twelve-tone technique.

Tonal music: Music organized around a central pitch or key, with harmonic relationships shaped by tonal hierarchy. Schoenberg began within tonality before seeking alternatives to its organizing force.
Tone row: An ordered arrangement of the twelve pitch classes used as the basis of a twelve-tone composition. Schoenberg’s rows supply recurring pitch material without assigning a tonal center.
Verklärte Nacht: Schoenberg’s 1899 string sextet, a late-Romantic work inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmel. Its rich chromatic harmony shows Schoenberg before his turn to atonality.
Alban Berg: Austrian composer and Schoenberg pupil who became a leading figure of the Second Viennese School. Berg extended Schoenberg’s methods while retaining expressive ties to tonality.
Theory of Harmony: Schoenberg’s 1911 treatise tracing the development of harmonic practice and tonal relationships. The book presents his account of tonality’s historical expansion and changing possibilities.
Atonality: Music that does not establish a governing tonal center. Schoenberg became one of atonality’s foremost pioneers.
Serialism: A compositional approach that organizes musical parameters through ordered series. The twelve-tone method became a foundation for later serial techniques.
Gurre-Lieder: Schoenberg’s vast cantata for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, composed across the turn of the twentieth century. The work exemplifies the scale and orchestral richness of his early period.
Anton Webern: Austrian composer and Schoenberg pupil known for concise, highly organized works. Webern carried Schoenberg’s serial ideas toward exceptional compression and influence.
Structural Functions of Harmony: Schoenberg’s posthumously published study of harmonic function and tonal structure. It reveals how deeply he analyzed the tonal system he later left behind.

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