Sprechgesang ("speech song"), a blend of speech and song. About 1920 Schoenberg began to formulate his twelve-tone technique and to draw on classical musical forms to structure his compositions. All his styles, however, are distilled in his most massive attainment, Moses und Aron. Schoenberg occasionally returned to tonal composition, but in the majority of his works of the 1930s and '40s he attempted to synthesize the twelve-tone technique with the formal principles he had employed during his expressionist period. This synthesis can be heard in his one-movement Piano Concerto (1942) and in the monumental String Trio. Through Schoenberg and his students, the twelve-tone method became a dominating force in mid-20th century composition and exerted a profound influence on the course of Western music....
