This is the authorized and definitive biography of one of the great composers - one of the most important innovators in musical language and expression - of the twentieth century. It is a biograph of rare breadth and accuracy, based on important discoveries made by Hans Moldenhauer and his wife, Rosaleen, who, working together, recovered a wealth of hitherto unknown manuscripts, letters, diaries, and notebooks. With these materials, Moldenhauer, the eminent musicologist and foremost authority on Webern, has been able, for the first time, to trace all of the crucial elements in the Austrian composer's extraordinary life and work. Every aspect is illumined by the brilliance and range of Moldenhauer's understanding, beginning with the composer's noble linage and his birth in 1883, his formative years, his close association with Arnold Schoenberg, and his pioneering share in the exploration of the revolutionary twelve-tone method, to the time when, at the zenith of his career, the Nazis' castigation of his work as "degenerate art" led him gradually into extreme reclusiveness that culminated in his bizarre death in 1945. The result is a book that adds significantly to our knowledge of Webern - essential reading for everyone interested in the serious music of our era. - Dust jacket.