ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG
A precocious composer, he began his musical studies from the hand of Alexander von Zemlinsky, whose his sister married in 1901, although his formation was mostly self-educated. His first works were evolving to a style between expressionist and naturalist, like his well-known sextett Verklärte Nacht (1899); in 1908 began to expand his spectrum creating atonal works like Erwartung (1909) or Pierrot Lunaire (1912) to, in the twenties decade, create a twelve-note style (twelve semitones with its correspondent retrograde and transposed versions) with prefixed rules on the majority of his works, like in the Variations for Orchestra (1928), which will exert a basic influence on the upcoming in the music of the rest of the century. Survivor of his also famous disciples Alban Berg and Anton Webern, Schönberg flees from Berlin in 1933, being a jew, and settled himself in Los Angeles on the next year. In the United States, although returning to the tonal composition, he stablish complex forms of his twelve-note series which teaches on the UCLA since 1936; a heart attack, at the end of the World War II, reduces his public and creative activity until his decease. The stature of his music has been increased along the century, as his influence and notoriety raise up; today is considered as one of the capital figures of modern music.
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