Othmar Steinbauer

Othmar Steinbauer (6 November 1895 – 5 September 1962) was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He progressed developments in twelve-tone composition . His own teachers included Joseph Marx, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Josef Matthias Hauer.

Life Othmar Steinbauer was born in Vienna. His father was a bank employee, originally from Styria. Steinbauer attended teacher training college on the northwest side of Vienna. On passing his exams here he volunteered for military service in 1915. propounded by Othmar Spann, of whose teachings Steinbauer was an enthusiastic adherent between 1925 and 1930.

In February 1928 Steinbauer set up a chamber orchestra, the "Wiener Kammer Konzert Vereinigung" which performed successfully under his direction for the next three years in Germany and Austria. Hauer was able to instruct Steinbauer on the basis of his Divertimento for smnall orchestra Op.61 which he dedicated to him. and said to be particularly suitable for making music in the home.

From 1952 Steinbauer taught the violin at the Vienna Music Academy (today the University for the Music and Presentational Arts). Between 1959 and his retirement in 1961 he also provided special courses on twelve-tone composition. Composers who received certificates after completing one of these course included , Kim Dal-Sung, Heinz Kratochwil, Hans Herbert Müller, Norbert Nowotny, , Otto Sulzer und Günther Theil. In 1961, after his retirement, he founded the Institute for Twelve-tone Composition in Vienna" which he headed till his death the next year. Others involved with the institute included who still teaches and composes, according to Steinbauer's precepts. During the final year of his life Steinbauer also gave violin lessons to members of the Vienna Boys' Choir.

Steinbauer died on 5 September 1962 while taking a summer break at Altenburg (Wilhelmsburg) in the Lower Austrian countryside to the west of Vienna. The teaching book he had been writing on twelve-tone composition was unfinished at the time of his death. Later it was completed by former student Helmut Neumann, and published in 2001.