The Austrian composer Anton Webern (1883-1945), one of the first important disciples of Schoenberg, carried many of that master's ideas to their logical extremes. Webern's music was very influential on postwar European composers.

Anton von Webern was born in Vienna on Dec. 3, 1883, to the mining engineer Karl von Webern and his wife, Amalia. When he was ten years old, the family moved to Klagenfurt. There Webern began his first music lessons; he studied piano, cello, and the rudiments of theory and began to compose songs. At the gymnasium he studied the traditional courses in the humanities.

After graduation in 1902, Webern traveled to Bayreuth to hear performances of Richard Wagner's works. This experience impressed Webern deeply, and on entering the University of Vienna in the fall of 1902, he devoted himself more intensely to studies in harmony and counterpoint, as well as to courses in musicology under Guido Adler. A...