What is Anton Webern?
[[File:Anton Webern in Stettin, October 1912.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Anton Webern in [[Stettin]], October 1912]] '''Anton Webern''' (born [[Vienna]] 3 December 1883; died Mitterill 15 September 1945) was an [[Austria]]n [[composer]]. Webern and [[Alban Berg]] were the most famous pupils of [[Arnold Schoenberg]], the composer who had invented the [[twelve tone system]]. This style of composition is often called the “Second Viennese School”. Webern was probably Schoenberg’s first pupil, and Berg joined them a few weeks later. Webern used the rules of the twelve tone system very strictly in his music. His compositions had a lot of [[influence]] on composers of the mid-[[20th century]] who were interested in [[serialism]], especially [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]] and [[Pierre Boulez]]. Most of Webern’s compositions are very short. ==Life == === Early years === Anton was born Anton von Webern. Webern’s father was a [[mining]] [[engineer]] who later got an important [[government]] job. The family had belonged to the [[nobility]] which is why they had “von” before the family name. In 1918 a law was made in Austria to stop people from using “von” as part of their name, and so from then onwards he was always known as “Anton Webern”. Anton learned to play the [[cello]] and the [[piano]]. They had a country house where the family spent the summer, and the young boy spent a lot of time composing, especially [[song]]s to the [[poem]]s of famous [[Germany|German]] poets such as [[Stefan George]] and [[Richard Dehmel]]. Together with his friend and cousin Ernst he read the [[philosophy|philosophical]] books of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], studied modern [[painting]]s and listened to the music of [[Richard Wagner]]. His father took him to the [[Bayreuth Festival]]. He went to study at the University of [[Vienna]] where he continued to compose a lot of music. By 1906 he had been given a [[doctorate]] for writing about the composer [[Heinrich Isaac]]. === Influence of Schoenberg === When Webern became a pupil of Schoenberg he was joinin