Arnold Schoenberg, famed for developing the highly celebrated twelve-tone technique, was an Austrian-American composer, teacher and music theorist, who left a lasting influence on the musical scenario of the twentieth century. Born as Arnold Franz Walter Schönberg into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the later part of the nineteenth century in Vienna, he was mostly an autodidact, having rudimentary formal training only in violin. Later on, he received instruction from Alexander Zemlinsky in harmony, counterpoint, and composition. Initially his music was rejected as too radical both by the critics and audiences. Consequently, he began to rely more on teaching as the major source of his income and this resulted in the formation of what later became known as the Second Viennese School. In the early 1930s, with the rise of Nazi power, he was forced to flee to the USA, where he was engaged as a professor at the UCLA. Concurrently, he continued to compose, creating many masterpieces. Today, his legacy remains preserved at Arnold Schönberg Center Privatstiftung in Vienna.