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The Second Viennese School was a group of composers made up of Arnold Schoenberg and those who studied under him in early 20th century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by post-romantic expressionism and, later, atonality and Schoenberg's serial technique, though Schoenberg's teaching (as his various published textbooks demonstrate) was highly traditional and conservative, and did not include discussion of his serial method.

The principal members of the school, besides Schoenberg, were Alban Berg and Anton Webern, although there are lesser known composers who perhaps ought to be covered by the term, such as the Greek Nikolaos Skalkottas.

The 'First Viennese School', which is rarely referred to as such except in comparison to the Second, is generally taken to consist of Vienna-based composers working in the late 18th and early 19th century, particularly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert.

External links

• ronsheim.org: Audio Lectures: The Contemporary Era in European Music

• 20th century classical composers
• Modernist composers