This article is specifically about a style of composition created by composers who attended Darmstadt New Music Summer School late 1950s/early 1960s called Darmstadt School. Initiated in 1946 by Wolfgang Steinecke, the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Darmstadt new music summer courses), held annually until 1970 and subsequently every two years, encompass both the teaching of composition and interpretation and include premières of new works. ...

Coined by Luigi Nono in 1957, 'Darmstadt School' describes the uncompromisingly serial music written by composers such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1956 to 1961, by which time the 'Darmstadt School' had effectively dissolved due to musical differences. Key influences on the 'Darmstadt School' were works such as Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra op.31 and Webern's Variations op.30. Examples of the school's works of total serialism are Boulez's Structures I, Stockhausen's Zeitmasze and Nono's Incontri. Luigi Nono (29 January 1924 - 8 May 1990) was an Italian composer of contemporary music. ... Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez (IPA: /pjɛʁ.buˈlɛz/) (born March 26, 1925) is a conductor and composer of classical music. ... Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a German composer. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1938 Schoenberg redirects here. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was an Austrian composer. ... Serialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. ...

Many musicians, such as the composer Hans Werner Henze reacted against the 'Darmstadt School' ideaologies, particularly the way in which young composers were forced to either write in total dodecaphony or be ridiculed or ignored. In his autobiography, Henze recalls student composers rewriting their works on the train to Darmstadt in order to comply with Boulez's expectations. Franco Evangelisti was also outspoken in his criticism, labelling the 'Darmstadt School' as 'Dodecaphonic police'. Recently the phrase 'Darmstadt School' has come to be a belittling term used to describe any music written in an uncompromising style. Hans Werner Henze (born July 1, 1926 in Gütersloh, Westphalia, Germany) is a composer well known for his left-wing political beliefs. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... Born in 1926, Franco Evangelisti was an Italian composer specifically interested in the scientific theories behind sound. ...

However, there are two sides to this argument. Composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen and Nono were writing this music in the aftermath of World War II, during which many composers, such as Richard Strauss, had their music politicised by the Third Reich. In order to avoid this happening again, and to keep art for art's sake, the 'Darmstadt School' attempted to create a new, anational style of music to which no false meaning could possibly be attached. Recent biographers of Boulez and Stockhausen in particular have interestingly tried to distance their composers from 'Darmstadt School' music, despite the tenable nature of the composers' original ideologies. World War II is the current Good Article Collaboration of the week! Please help to improve this article to the highest of standards. ... Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 – September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...