Hauer, Josef Matthias

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies

(yō´zĕf mätēäs hou´ər), 1883–1959, Austrian music theorist and composer. Primarily self-taught, Hauer devised a method of atonal composition that used the 12 tones of the scale divided into 44 melodic patterns, or “tropes.” He also developed a new system of musical notation for twelve-tone music. Hauer, a prolific composer, wrote music in all the major forms.