Arnold Schoenberg

Schoenberg, Arnold (1874–1951), German composer, theorist, and teacher who revolutionized music by introducing serial, or 12-tone, music. His string sextet Transfigured Night (1899), with harmonic clashes, was followed by the declaimed songs of Pierrot Lunaire (1912) and experiments in whole-tone and finally 12-tone music, culminating in his unfinished opera Moses and Aaron (1930–51). Schoenberg emigrated to the United States in 1933.