Arnold Schönberg(1874-1951)

Arnold Schonberg was born in the Jewish ghetto of Vienna, in 1874. His parents were Ashkenazim, his mother, Pauline was from Prague, and his father, Samuel, was from Bratislava. His mother was a piano teacher, but he had little interest in early childhood. He took violin lessons when he was eight and began composing at the same time.

Later he took lessons in composition from Alexandr von Zemlinsky, who's sister he married in 1910, after his first wife left him in 1908. His earlier sextet Verklarte Nacht (1899) and Symphonic poem Pelleas and Melisande, brought him recognition from Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He became Mahler's apprentice, and considered his master a 'saint'.

It was during the absence of a wife that Schonberg started composing without a key. He created the dodecaphonic (or twelve-tone) method of composition, which later developed into serialism. The innovative String Quartet No. 2, and Pierrot Luniare (1912) incorporated female voice and moved into atonal (or pan-tonal) method, later developed into dodecaphonic (twelve-tone), method, and further grew into serialism. His students Anton Webern, Alban Berg, and Hanns Eisler adopted this technique and thus formed the Second Viennise School. His method of teaching was based on analyzing and transmitting the music of the great classics, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Mozart', and Ludwig van Beethoven. He regarded the music of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler . In 1925 he moved to Berlin to take a master class. He wrote unfinished opera "Moses und Aron", and lived there until the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Schonberg was brought up as a Catholic, converted to Lutheranism in 1898 and remained Litheran until 1933. In 1933 he had to leave Berlin, because Nazis disregarded his conversion to Lutheranism, and treated him as a Jew. He made a stay in Paris where he formally reaffirmed his original faith. After that Schonberg went on his journey to Los Angeles, where he settled in 1934. There he revisited tonal composition and continued development of serialism, which contributed to the complexity of his difficult Violin Concerto. From 1935 to 1945 he taught at USC and UCLA Department of Music. In 1941 Schonberg became a citizen of the United States. He retired after having a heart attack in 1945. His later compositions include String Trio "A Survivor from Warsaw" and religious Choir works. His theoretical writings are still used by students. He used to say: "my music is not really modern, just badly played." He feared the number 13 (triskaidekafobia), but ironically was born on the 13th and died on Friday, the 13th of July, 1951. He was buried in Vienna.