> Some composers came very close to complete atonality, particularly Scriabin and Stravinsky, but Schoenberg was the first to dive into completely atonal music.

> Some composers came very close to complete atonality, particularly Scriabin and Stravinsky, but Schoenberg was the first to dive into completely atonal music. Atonality can already be found in some late piano pieces of Liszt, e.g. "Nuages gris", which is largely based on augmented triads (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKl41e_hoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKl41e_hoU). Before that, the music of Wagner already shook the foundations of Western tonality with its excessive chromatisism where any notion of a tonal center is often lost. Schönberg just continued where others have left and went to the extreme. It is also worth pointing out that he first composed in the so called "free atonal" style and only then, after a long hiatus, he developed his twelve-tone-system. By the way, there have been other people who developed similar systems around the same time, notably Josef Matthias Hauer. Fun fact: Stranvinsky turned towards twelve-tone-technique in the fifties.