Schoenberg, Arnold Franz Walter

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Schoenberg, Arnold Franz Walter (1874–1951) Austrian composer. In early works, such as Verklärte Nacht (1899), Schoenberg extended the chromaticism of Romanticism. The song cycle Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908) and the expressionist opera Erwartung (1909) revolutionized modern music by abandoning tonality. Schoenberg's form of serial music, known as twelve-tone music, was first employed in Suite for Piano (1923). His operatic masterpiece, Moses und Aron, remained unfinished at his death.

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