Arnold Schönberg

Without Arnold Schönberg, music history would definitely have taken a different course. At a time when the major-minor system that had been in place for centuries was increasingly being dismissed, he took the decisive step towards atonality – and thus finally opened the door to modernism. Now free from all harmonic constraints, around 1920 Schönberg finally developed the form that would have a lasting influence on the music of the 20th century with the »composition with twelve notes related only to each other«, also known as »twelve-tone music«. To mark Schönberg’s 150th birthday in September 2024, some of his most important works from all of his creative periods will be performed at the Elbphilharmonie – the Viennese composer began his career as a (late) Romantic composer.