Britannica Sources used in this answer

Why did Arnold Schoenberg search for a new method of musical organization during World War I?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in a suit, seated at a piano and holding a conductor's baton, appears to be conducting music in a wood-paneled room. — Arnold Schoenberg Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg was one of the most influential teachers of music composition of the 20th century. He also was known for his creation of new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row.

During World War I, Arnold Schoenberg sought a new method of musical organization because he had moved away from the traditional basis of tonality, which he felt was being stretched and distorted beyond its capacity as a unifying structural principle.1

Having abandoned tonality in his earlier works, Schoenberg faced the challenge of controlling the vast harmonic and melodic resources at his disposal without a central key to provide structure. During the war years, he spent time meditating on how to resolve these structural problems. He aimed to discover a new principle of unification that would replace the old system, eventually leading him to develop the 12-tone method—a system where all 12 tones are "related only to one another" rather than to a focal point. This innovation provided the new basis for musical structure he had been searching for between 1912 and 1922.21