Arnold Schönberg
1922
Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien
In February 1918, Schönberg moved into an apartment at Bernhardgasse 6 in Mödling, a village near Vienna, where he dwelled until some months after the death of his wife Mathilde (October 1923). The decisive reason for moving to Mödling was the rent, lower than in Vienna. Very shortly after Schönberg, Anton Webern joined the neighborhood at Neusiedler Straße 58. Some of Schönberg’s pupils made their way to Mödling on foot, to save the money for train tickets. Today,
the house is often called the “cradle of the 12-tone method,” since Schönberg first presented his “method of composing with twelve tones related only to one another” in Bernhardgasse to a close circle of friends and pupils. He composed the Five Piano Pieces, op. 23, the Serenade, op. 24, the Suite for Piano, op. 25 and the Wind Quintet, op. 26 during long stretches of his summer holiday,
completing them in Mödling.