BIOGRAPHY OF ARNOLD SCHOENBERG

NAME:  Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg

BIRTHDATE: September 13, 1874

HOMETOWN: Vienna, Austria

PARENTS: Samuel Schoenberg and Pauline Schoenberg

WHAT MADE THIS PERSON FAMOUS?

Arnold Schoenberg was known for his works as a composer by way of using newer
methods of composition with atonality, twelve-tone row, and serialism. He was also an
important teacher and self-portrait Expressionist painter.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THIS PERSON:

He 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. He learned how to play the violin, viola, and piano at a very young age. He
is also self-taught and began composing piano pieces and string trios at the age of 10. He
married Zemlinsky's sister, Mathilde Zemlinsky, in 1901. Seven years later, in 1908, she
left him for several months to pursue a relationship with an Austrian painter. This marked
a period of musical discoveries for Schoenberg. During this time, he produced some of his
greatest atonal works, including his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, with soprano. In 1912,
Schoenberg wrote Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, a cycle of twenty-one expressionist songs set to
a recitation of Albert Giraud’s poems. Other notable works from this time include, Das
Buch der Hängenden Gärten, Five Orchestral Pieces, and Erwartung. When World War I
began in 1914, Schoenberg was enlisted in the army. This impeded his ability to compose
music and he produced many unfinished pieces. In 1923, Schoenberg developed what is
commonly known as the twelve-tone method, or serialism. This technique involved all twelve
notes of the chromatic scale. Schoenberg arranged notes into tone rows, where each of
the 12 notes in a chromatic scale must be played before a note can be reused. Schoenberg
wrote many notable works including Violin Concerto, Kol Nidre, Piano Concerto, A Survivor
from Warsaw, String Trio (for Violin, Viola and Cello), and Chamber Symphony No. 2. He
also worked on his famous yet unfinished opera, Moses Und Aron. He died on July 13, 1951.

FAMOUS COMPOSITIONS:

Verklarte Nacht

Three Pieces for Piano, op. 11

Pierrot Lunaire

Violin Concerto

Skandalkonzert, a concert of the Wiener Konzertverein.

HE IS KNOWN AS:

He is known as the one who created new methods of musical composition

involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row.