Anton Webern on Music Theory Print

Concerto for Nine Instruments (Webern)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

By the late 1920s, Webern had developed an extraordinary application of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique in works like String Trio (1927), Symphony (1928), and Quartet (1932). Webern began sketching an orchestral work on January 16, 1931. In early February, Webern began attempting to create a melodic equivalent of a Sator Square. Webern had long been enamored of the square. In addition to writing “tenet” in his first sketch for the Concerto, he ended his lectures about new music by quoting it to his audience. Webern ended up turning to a three-note musical germ (C–C–E) he had used in his 1905 String Quartet to generate the row. It is analogous to Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Muss es Sein (Must it be)?” motif. : \override Score.TimeSignature #‘stencil = ##f \override Score.SpacingSpanner.strict-note-spacing = ##t \set Score.proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment 3/2) \relative c \cadenzaOn b1 bes d es, g fis aes e f c’ cis a In this tone row, the opening trichord is a descending minor second (m2: B–B) followed by an ascending major third (M3: B–D). The second trichord reverses and inverts (RI) the intervals: M3↑ (E–G); m2↓ (G–F). The third trichord reverses (R) the original pattern: d4(M3)↓ (A–E); m2↑ (E–F). The final trichord inverts (I) the original pattern: m2↑ (C–C); M3↓ (C–A). In the 1931 sketches, Webern was still conceiving of the piece as an orchestral work with programmatic movements titled “Einersdorf, Schwabegg, and Annabichl”. The ensemble would include tympani, harp, and glockenspiel. Once he settled on the scheme for the piece, it came rushing out in 1934. Although Webern finished the Concerto in time for Schoenberg’s 60th birthday, it would take another year before its first performance. The composer was scheduled to conduct the premiere at the International Society for Contemporary Music Music Days in Prague, but he decided not to attend because of the festival’s removal of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck from its 1934 program.

Langsamer Satz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Webern was from 1904 a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna. He composed for string quartet in June 1905, three years before his first work with an opus number, the Passacaglia for orchestra. The same year, he finished his first year as Schoenberg’s pupil and also completed his dissertation in musicology about Heinrich Isaac. In the spring of 1905, Webern had hiked with his cousin Wilhelmine Mortl, and future wife, outside Vienna, and fallen in love with her. The music is believed to have been inspired by his feelings for her. Webern’s string quartet in one movement was also written this year. . The work was lost but rediscovered in the early 1960s when Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer found manuscripts in an attic in Perchtoldsdorf. It was published by Carl Fischer.

Passacaglia (Webern)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Webern’s Passacaglia (1908) was his first major orchestral work since Im Sommerwind (1904). He wrote several preliminary sketches, including three short movements in A minor for orchestra.

Form#

As the title suggests, the work adopts the passacaglia form, in which a ground bass pattern, the ostinato, supports changing melodies above it, typically in eight-bar phrases. Webern’s approach honored this tradition while pushing it forward in a manner recalling the passacaglia finale of Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. According to Hans Moldenhauer, these passacaglias of Brahms and Webern share a somewhat restrained decorum punctuated by outbursts. Webern wrote in time, not conventional triple meter. In an increasingly modernist idiom, he used silence structurally and wrote for small groups of instruments, creating more diaphanous textures as in chamber music. The main theme of the Passacaglia is an eight-bar phrase in D minor on pizzicato strings marked . Webern described its 23 variations in program notes from a 1922 Düsseldorf concert. There are eleven variations in minor keys, four in major keys, and then eight more in minor, followed by a coda with some development.

String Quartet (Webern)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

It is in three movements: The string quartet is atonal and uses twelve-tone technique. The tone row on which the piece is based (B, A, C, B, D, E, C, D, G, F, A, G) is based on the BACH motif (B, A, C, B) and is composed of three tetrachords: : \override Score.TimeSignature #‘stencil = ##f \override Score.SpacingSpanner.strict-note-spacing = ##t \set Score.proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment 3/2) \relative c \time 4/1 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 1 = 60 bes1 a c b! dis e cis d ges, f aes g The first four notes of the row are the BACH motif itself, followed by its inversion, followed by same motif transposed up a minor sixth. A special property of this row is that its inversion (G, A, F, G, D, C, E, D, B, C, A, B) is equivalent to its retrograde.

Symphony (Webern)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Historical background#

In 1926, Webern was pleading for financial assistance from his publisher, Emil Hertzka at Universal Edition (U.E.). By the end of 1927, however, he was pointing to a steady increase in performances of his works as evidence of growing recognition. Though still struggling financially, he viewed this gradual success as more meaningful than rapid fame and grew increasingly confident that his music would find its audience. He was an alpinist whose favorite mountain was the Schneealpe, and he climbed it and the Hochschwab twice while writing the Symphony, summiting the former that July. He loved the quiet otherworldliness of the altitude and referred to these landscapes as “up there”, a spiritual, utopian realm. He continued Mahler’s practice of portraying Alpine stillness and spaciousness in his music. After finishing the Symphony, Webern wrote to the poet Hildegard Jone on 6 August 1928. Replying to her suggestion that “progress is made only “, he concurred, “I understand ‘Art’ to mean the faculty of bringing a thought into the clearest, simplest, i.e. ‘most comprehensible’ form.” Pointing to previous masters like Beethoven, he continued, " I have always only endeavoured to do exactly as they did: to represent as clearly as possible that which is given to me to say.”

Variations for piano (Webern)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History of composition#

By the early 1930s, Webern was one of the composers and artists criticised by the Nazi Party, which was rapidly gaining power. By 1934, Webern’s conducting career, a major source of income for the composer, was practically over, and he earned his living by teaching composition to a few private pupils. Despite the considerable financial disadvantages of this situation, the lack of a stable job provided Webern with more time to compose. * Third movement: begun 14 October 1935, completed 8 July 1936 * First movement: begun 22 July 1936, completed 19 August 1936 * Second movement: begun 25 August 1936, completed 5 November 1936 The piece is the only work for piano solo that was published by the composer and assigned an opus number. It was also the last work by Webern to be published by Universal Edition during his lifetime.