Anton Webern

Webern, an Austrian composer and conductor of what is known as the Second Viennese School, attended Vienna University beginning in 1902 and studied musicology with Guido Adler. He also there became acquainted with Arnold Schoenberg and the circle of Schoenberg’s disciples. Webern’s first notable composition was his Passacaglia Op. 2, followed by an Op. 2. He was already fighting at this time for twelve-tone music. Thereafter he continued to compose even while taking inferior positions as a conductor and coping with what he considered the poor repertories, boorish managers, and philistine public that involved. Each successive year the Schoenberg circle, of which Webern was now an important part, advanced, though Webern’s music was denounced by the rising Nazi movement as “cultural Bolshevism” and “degenerate art.” Soon after the end of the war, on September 15, 1945, during the Allied occupation of Austria, Webern was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier when he stepped outside for a smoke.