Arnold Elston

Arnold Elston (September 30, 1907 – June 6, 1971) was an American composer and educator. Though he studied with Anton Webern, he did not himself use the twelve-tone technique.

Early life and career Elston was born in New York on September 30, 1907. He became a private pupil of Rubin Goldmark in 1928, and continued to study with him until 1930, in which year he received his A.B. from the College of the City of New York. Elston himself was later to write, I am clearly in the tradition of the Schoenberg school, probably closer to Schoenberg than to Webern or Berg. But I have never espoused the 12-tone technique. The early works of the Viennese school, such as Schoenberg's Five Orchestra Pieces, or Webern's Op. 6, or Op. 10, have always given me more pleasure than Webern's Symphony or Schoenberg's 3rd and 4th String Quartets. Elston returned to the US in 1935 and began a teaching career, working first at Vassar College and later at the College of the City of New York. He then taught at Cambridge Junior College and gave instruction in composition at Longy School of Music, before securing a position at the University of Oregon in 1941. using the second of the two fragments which comprise T. S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes as its libretto. He completed an orchestral work in three movements, Prelude, Paean, and Furioso, in 1970.

Death Elston died suddenly in 1971, whilst in Vienna.