Vienna's fascination with 'serious'
music did not vanish with the end of the 19th century, nor
did the Viennese confine themselves to the classic standards
of Mozart, Beethoven or the Strauss family. At the beginning
of the 20th century the masters of the second Viennese school
(zweite Wiener Schule) started to investigate the principles
of atonal music.
Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), one of Vienna's
major composers, started out as a self-taught post-romantic
performer and composer. More and more he grew interested in
atonal music. His fascination with harmonic strangeness, contrapuntal
density and complexity culminated in the development of twelve
tone music. His music was greatly influenced by contemporary
painting, by Kandinsky and other expressionists. The expressionist
lyric of Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke played a major
role in his oeuvre, too. The lyric of George inspired him
to transcend traditional aesthetics and the cycle "Das
Buch der hängenden Gärten". His ideas were
loosely connected to those of the founders of the "Wiener
Secession".
Being of Jewish origin and an ardent advocate of expressionist
techniques he was forced to flee Austria and Germany in 1933.
Arnold Schönberg emigrated to Los Angeles were he died
in 1951 surviving his famous pupils Anton von Webern (1883
- 1945) and Alban Berg (1885 - 1935), the composer of "Wozzek".
