Anyone who knows anything about music knows assuredly
that Webern is one of the greatest composers of all time. More than
most his music has the essential ingredient of greatness namely originality.
But he is maligned by some who claim to be musicians
and music lovers.
It has been said that ignorance makes poor composers
to be regarded as great composers and ignorance treats great composers
with contempt and disdain so that they are not accepted as great composers
whereas, in fact, they are.
Many people dismiss Webern because his music is difficult
to perform. Others because it does not have pretty tunes that one
can easily hum, which attitude shows a totally wrong concept of music.
There are composers who wrote nothing but pretty tunes but their music
lacks any sense of purpose or meaning. It is shallow and superficial
music.
His songs are angular containing leaps of sevenths
and ninths which are not easy to perform and yet for all this, his
songs have an original and strange beauty. It is sad to report that
most people who say they dislike his songs are those who cannot perform
them and are unequal to the task. Webern's work can only be performed
by the most skilful of musicians.
Webern believed, and rightly so, that music had to
change and move away from the diatonic system of major and minor keys.
If you take the seven note of the major scale ( the eighth being a
doubling of the first) and arranged them in every possible order to
make a theme the law of mathematics makes it evident that soon you
will run out of original themes. This is why listening to music in
the diatonic system there are so many themes or tunes that should
so similar. There some who assert that an original tune can still
be written in the diatonic system. But consider the total works of
Monteverdi, Handel, Haydn and Mozart. How many themes did they write
between them? How many separate themes are there in a Monteverdi opera
or in a four movement symphony by the great Joseph Haydn? Handel was
acutely aware of this problem in the 1720s which is why he regularly
repeated existing themes.
Themes in the diatonic system over five centuries
must run into thousands if not more. The system must therefore be
exhausted.
I would be glad to hear from any clever mathematician
who gave work out the permutations of the diatonality on the basis
of say a 16 note theme and allowing two accidentals.
The other matter that concerned Webern was the longevity
of music particularly that of the Romantic school much of which was
repetitious and merely musical verbosity. A lot of it was written
to fuel the composer's high opinion of himself but often the music
was substandard and simply time spinning. If we are honest we can
all say that some of the long symphonies have marvellous moments but
a lot of it is less inspiring and perhaps even dull.
We have often heard it said that some people use
a lot of words when a few will do.
Some years ago a stupid expression appeared which
serves as a good example . "At this present moment in time" consisting
of six words whereas one suffices and that one word is "now".
The composers of 55 minutes or more symphonies are
in the' at this present moment in time' composers whereas Webern is
a 'now' composer. However , there are some magnificent moments in
the expansive symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner.
Sir Adrian Boult once discussed Schubert's Symphony
no. 9 with us and said that while the first two movements had too
much repetition the final two movements were a bore, merely melodic
nullity. Schubert was an 'at this present moment in time' composer.
This is ghastly misuse of language. Why six words
when one will do? But take the analogy into music.
Webern believed in direct music.
He also believed that enormous forces were not related
primarily to music but to effect. We can all be thrilled at the sheer
excitement of some full orchestra's blazing away in , say , the finale
of Tschaikovsky's Symphony no. 5 ( the Silvestri performance is electrifying)
and Webern could make a dramatic statement in the Orchestral Pieces
opus 6 and so he cannot be accused of not being able to write for
full orchestra. He certainly could.
He may be a composer's composer. It is probably only
musicians that can fully appreciate his incredible skill and talent.
Through no fault of his a Webern cult sprung up and
then another called post-Webernism, whatever that means.
His tragic death caused the great Igor Stravinsky
to say, " The day of Webern's death should be a day of mourning for
all true musicians. We must hail not only this great composer but
also a real hero. Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance
and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds,
his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge.
Webern was man of his time and the remark of Edgar
Varese is relevant, "It is not that composers are ahead of their time;
it is that listeners to music are, at last, fifty years behind the
times."
To some extent old values were being swept away in
the arts. While Verdi had composed an opera about a prostitute it
was concealed in that she was described a courtesan. Berg wrote a
super opera, Lulu, which dealt with prostitution and sexual perversion.
Webern saw that truth, simplicity and economy of style had an elegance.
Clear lines and a simple utterance was more appealing that sifting
through pays of full score to find the subject. Conformity to fashion
was a hindrance to creative impulses.
Modern parlance uses an expression, "Tell it like
it is" whereas the phrase can be reduced to one word, namely truth.
This spirit of the age was also shown in the works
of artists. Amadeo Modigliani painted a nude in 1917 which is notable
for its simplicity and roundness, its elegance and immediacy. Its
directness is powerful with the curved breasts and pubic hair, the
closed eyes and the elongated body. It states its message immediately
and Webern believed his music should do that.
Webern's conciseness is admirable. The Six Bagatelles
for string quartet, Opus 9 have been called melodies in one breath.
Arnold Schoenberg wrote of them, " Think of the concision which expression
in such brief forms demands! Every glance is a poem, every sigh a
novel in a single gesture, a great joy and every trace of sentimentality
correspondingly banished."
One cannot say that Webern's music is slushy or schmaltzy.
Henry Cowell, also bowled over by Webern's genius,
wrote, "His music is an almost frightening concentrated interest in
the possibility of each individual tone."
The serious flaws in the works of other composers
are not in Webern's work. He does not repeat to a tiresome tedium
as does Schubert, Franck and Borodin where main themes are done to
death. He is not pompous or arrogant, seeks no praise, never bombastic
or showy. His music is directly to the point and bitter sweet.
There are those who say that his music lacks emotion
and is merely cerebral and clinical. While I can see how this point
of view is arrived at, if his music is listened to with the same level
of concentration that is presents in itself, the sheer content that
can touch both the heart as well as the brain will be felt.
As previously said, we all like to see and hear an
orchestra in full flight like a big powerful locomotive. But in Webern
there is music that is nothing more than a whisper as if a lover is
telling you something very private in your ear. It is this intimacy
that has a great appeal to many of us. His music is aphoristic and
could only further develop into silence. He was aware of this and
by his opus 17, the Three Sacred Folksongs for voice, clarinet, bass
clarinet and violin his form became more extensive.
Twelve note music or serial music is ridiculed. It
is dismissed as a system as if it was something decadent and merely
mechanical. Some foolish person said it was music without a heart
and yet Berg's sumptuous Violin Concerto has a heart and is serial.
To add to the dilemma there are those who do not
know the difference between serial music and atonal music.
Instead of taking the seven notes of a diatonic scale
and perhaps a few accidentals to make a tune or theme, the serial
composer takes all twelve notes of the chromatic scale and arranges
them in an order and an initial rhythmic pattern to form his tone
row, or note row, or series, and that could be called the theme. Each
note is used once and no note has preference and so no key is indicated.
The series can be played backwards, known as the retrograde version,
it can be played upside down, known as the inversion and be transposed.
But each time the twelve notes appear.
As to harmony this is usually based on the row.
Let me quote an example. In Act 1 scene 4 of Berg's
Wozzeck there is a passacaglia based on this row:
E flat, B, G, C sharp, C, F sharp, E,
B flat, A F, A flat and D
If the 'melody' first note is E flat and the composer
wants four part harmony he may select the next three notes to make
up the chord which will be E flat, B, G and C sharp. If the next melody
note is C the four part harmony would be F sharp, E , B and A flat
and so on. It makes for unconventional chords which someone beautifully
called crunchy chords.
Therefore the music avoids predictability.
In the hands of a great composer this form of composition
can produce masterpieces such as Humphrey Searle's Symphony no. 1,
the first four notes of the series are the musical letters for BACH
and then he transposes them twice to make up a twelve note row and,
in a brilliant and dramatic symphony, he develops that slight music,
only four notes, into a towering work of indisputable genius.
Anton Webern was born in Vienna in 1883. His first
music lessons were from his mother to whom he was especially devoted.
Many of his works are dedicated to her or her memory. His next tutor
was Edwin Komauer in Klagenfurt and he composed his first works around
1888-9. He went up to Vienna university in 1902 and had the distinction
of studying with Guido Adler who is probably most remembered for being
a critic and musicologist. He had been a professor at Prague University
and then joined the faculty in Vienna and succeeded Hanslick as professor
in 1898 and remaining in that post until 1927. In 1904 he wrote a
book on Wagner to counter Hanslick's deflection from his original
admiration of Wagner to his later absurd hatred of him. Adler also
wrote a book on Mahler.
Webern studied with Hans Pfitzner but felt that he
was somewhat anachronistic in his approach and so from 1904 to 1908
he studied with Arnold Schoenberg.
It is wrongly assumed that 'modern' composers are
against the 'ancient' composers. Webern was not. He spent years editing
and reviving the works of a 15th century Dutch composer Heinrich Isaak.
Neither was he a sour puss. He conducted operettas at various venues
from 1908 to 1917.
He formed Kunstelle, an excellent amateur choir
At the time he began his studied with Schoenberg,
Webern was having an illicit affair with his cousin Wilhelmina which
was ingeniously kept secret until she was found to be pregnant with
Anton's child.
Like his pupil Humphrey Searle, Webern had a wonderful
capacity for friendship. He and Berg were close friends for over thirty
years until Berg's untimely death in 1935.
Searle wrote," Webern was an idealist. Nothing made
him deviate from his chosen path. As to his personality it was simple,
direct and charming. He had a remarkable ear which led him to produce
effects of extraordinary beauty and subtlety. He had a passionate
love of nature."
For four years after the end of World War One Webern
assisted Schoenberg in his semi-private society devoted to new music
and its performance. From 1922 to 1934 he conducted various orchestras
mainly for the working people of Vienna. He came to England five times
to conduct for the BBC. This was in 1929, 1932, 1933, 1935 and 1936.
He was the conductor of the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra between
1927 and 1938.
In his conducting he presented standard works. He
was a superb conductor of Brahms and when you think how vastly different
his own music was from that Brahms this fact may surprise you. He
gave outstanding performances of Mahler and, again, when you think
of his views on overblown music, he nevertheless did not despise it
but scheduled such works in his concerts. It is wrongly assumed that
a conductor only puts on works he likes but, of course, that is not
true. Webern interpreted Schubert magnificently but often made orchestrations
and arrangements of Schubert's works to correct the mistakes and indiscretions.
But his own music was not liked. The Nazis called
it cultural Bolshevism. In Germany and countries which were German
speaking his music was not allowed to be played and he was forbidden
to teach. He was compelled to be a proof reader for a Viennese publishing
house. But in February 1943 his Variations for orchestra, opus 30
were premiered in Winterthur by the great conductor Hermann Scherchen
a work of simple but profoundly beautiful orchestral effects. The
BBC gave Webern some opportunity but after his death his music fell
into oblivion universally.
It was Humphrey Searle who, when a producer at the
BBC, revived Webern's work under much hostility and unpleasant criticism.
Therefore many composers owe a debt of gratitude to Searle...composers
like Stravinsky, Eimert, Stockhausen, Boulez and the very gifted Bruneo
Maderna.
Webern was a splendid teacher. He did not teach from
his own work or serialism primarily. He would talk and demonstrate
the property of the triad and refer to works of the so-called great
masters. He was a humble man. He did not have a Bayreuth as Wagner
did, or the Three Choirs Festival as did Elgar, or the Aldeburgh Festival
as did Britten to use almost exclusively for their own works. Webern
also dropped his legitimate claim to nobility and wanted to be known
as Anton Webern not Anton von Webern.
He composed Three Studies On a Ground for orchestra
of 1908 as a preparation for his Opus 1, the glorious Passacaglia
for orchestra. The studies are gems and the last is almost a miniature
clarinet concerto. They are very brief pieces but show the composer's
fascination with light and colour. The music is iridescent. The Passacaglia
is a work of tremendous lyrical beauty and often glows ecstatically.
The Three Studies were first performed in 1978.
Very few composers can claim that their opus 1 is
a masterpiece. But it can be truly said of Webern. Of whom else can
it be said?
His opus 2 is a canon Entflieht auf Leichten Kahnen
for unaccompanied four part chorus but there is a later version with
instrumental accompaniment which does not double the vocal lines but
adds new lines and colour. The poet, Stefan George, introduces his
text with the words Take flight in lifeboats and asks man to view
his passions dispassionately. The music, although chromatic, is tonal
and has an ethereal beauty.
The Symphony , Opus 21 of 1928 is constructed on
a four part canon each part of which begins with a statement of the
series in a different form. After the canonic first movement there
is a set of palindromic variations. At one time , Webern considered
a third movement but this did not come to fruition. His love of nature
and the smallness of many flowers coupled with their beauty is the
inspiration for his work. He wrote, "Between the products of nature
and those of art no essential difference prevails."
The Concerto for nine instruments, Opus 24 was intended
to be a cantata based on the poem which begins How can death be so
close to love? It was inspired by the Austrian countryside where his
parents grave was located. It shows the composer's interest in fifteenth
century polyphony and uses very personal aspects such as the number
three which had a great symbolism for him. His notes for this concerto
were not only musical notes but comments about nature and locations
viz:
Dachstein, snow and ice, crystal-clear air, cosy,
warm, sphere of the high pastures, coolness of the first spring
Anninger, first flora, primroses, anemones ( hepatica,
pulsatilla).
The Concerto has been called a twentieth century
Brandenburg.
This work more than any other established him as
the post 1945 Messiah of the avant garde.
He was accidentally shot and killed by a nervous
American sentry. Webern had gone outside his house to smoke a cigarette
and the light was seen by this American trooper who opened fire.
But his music will live on in the hearts of those
who respond to his indisputable genius.
And I feel sure that Webern would approve of my new
aphoristic style of writing rather my loquacious style.
Copyright David C F Wright 1975 renewed
2002.
This article or any part of it must
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