Verklaerte Nacht and Gurrelieder were the masterpieces of his career. 12-tone serialism was an experiment in idealist composition gone horribly awry.
Does anyone familiar with Puccini’s opera Tosca agree with me that the orchestral passage during Scarpia’s aria at the end of Act I bears an uncanny resemblance to the themes in the opening passages of Gurrelieder? Tosca premiered in 1900 and Gurrelieder in 1913.
Gurrelieder was written in 1901. It just wasn’t performed till 1913.