Anton Webern

Anton Webern'', one social-democratic reform of many in the aftermath of World War I abolishing Austrian nobility in the newly declared Republic of German-Austria. He retook his nobiliary particle in the 1930s.}} (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its concision and use of then novel atonal and twelve-tone techniques in an increasingly rigorous manner, somewhat after the Franco-Flemish School of his studies under Guido Adler. With his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core of those within the broader circle of the Second Viennese School. Their atonal music brought them fame and stirred debate. Webern was arguably the first and certainly the last of the three to write music in an aphoristic, expressionist style, reflecting his instincts and the idiosyncrasy of his compositional process.

During and after World War I, he set folk, lyric, and religious texts in texturally dense . Peripatetic and unhappy in his early conducting career, he came to some prominence and increasingly high regard as a vocal coach, choirmaster, conductor, and teacher Hanns Eisler, Arnold Elston, , Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Philip Herschkowitz, Roland Leich, Kurt List, , , Karl Rankl, George Robert (briefly of the First Piano Quartet), , Humphrey Searle, Leopold Spinner, Eduard Steuermann, Stefan Wolpe, , and possibly René Leibowitz.}} in Red Vienna. With a publication contract through Emil Hertzka's Universal Edition and Schoenberg away at the Prussian Academy of Arts, Webern wrote music of increasing confidence, independence, and scale using twelve-tone technique. He maintained his "path to the new music" while marginalized as a "cultural Bolshevist" effectively until his death.

A variety of post-World War II musicians celebrated his music, much of which was first published only then or later still. Among these were many composers influenced especially by his twelve-tone music in a phenomenon known as post-Webernism, linking but not restricting Webern's legacy to serialism. Understanding of his musical semantics or semiotics, performance pratice, and sociocultural contexts was widely fledgling after years of severe disruption. This was gradually improved by musicians and scholars who helped publish and record his works as well as establish his music as modernist repertoire. A (complete edition) is pending. Provided by Wikipedia