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Donald Macleod explores Schoenberg's life from five different viewpoints. Part of Radio 3's season: Breaking Free - the minds that changed music.

Today he celebrates Schoenberg's sheer inventiveness, including the development of the 12-tone compositional method.

Schoenberg, seen by many as the inventor of modern music, is perhaps best known as the creator of the twelve-tone method of composition. But it was an idea whose development he kept secret, until revealing it to his students in the 1920s. Donald traces the origins of the method which came to define the composer for many, from Schoenberg's early imitative work, through his exploration of the fullest possible romanticism, to the method's maturation during the 1930s.

Ei, du Lütte
Simon Joly Chorale
Robert Craft, Conductor

Gurreleider, Final Part: Behold, the Sun.
Bergen Philharmonic Choir
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, Conductor

Jane Grey, Op 12 No 1
Melanie Diener, Soprano
Urs Liska, Piano

Five Piano Pieces, Op 23 (Sehr Langsam; Waltzer)
Maurizio Pollini, Piano

Variations for Orchestra, Op 31
CBSO
Simon Rattle, Conductor

Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment, Op 47 (Scherzando)
Ulf Wallin, Violin
Roland Pontinen, Piano

Part of Radio 3's "Breaking Free - the minds that changed music", exploring the music of the Second Viennese School.