Topic: Webern's Vibe

[karlhenning]

I've been really enjoying the nods in the Cantatas (for instance) to the Flemish contrapuntal masters.

[James]

SYMPHONY
Webern adopted Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition in 1924 in Three Traditional Rhymes, but it was with the Symphony, written three years later, that the change truly registered. Here, in two compact movements, Webern returned for the first time in fifteen years to writing for orchestra, albeit one tailored to this own highly individual needs: strings (no double basses), a harp, pairs of clarinets and horns. There is a distilled clarity to Webern's scoring that was to sustain the rest of his career and, if it is built on a technical mastery that is dauntingly complex, the results are bracing, as if the ear is at last cleansed of the previous century's detritus.



Boulez never allows the music to sag and the performances throughout are superb.

[Cato]

Upon Karl Henning's recommendation I have been reading The Gesualdo Hex which concerns assorted themes, among the connections among Gesualdo, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, especially later in life.

While reading a thought came to me, namely, that the embryonic soul of Webern is found in the opening bars (and elsewhere in the work) of Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

The thought is not original with me by any means, but I believe it needs to be remembered.

Would Mahler have accepted Webern'smore idiosyncratic development?  I believe so, given the former's defense of Schoenberg despite misgivings.

[snyprrr]

BUMP

[karlhenning]

Just listened this morning to Webern's piano quintet arrangement of Schoenberg's Erste Kammerkonzert, great fun!

[snyprrr]

Would anyone like to discuss the Passacaglia Op.1? I just listened to it, seriously, the other day, and noticed some very Modern elements that I hadn't before. Webern is so,...so,...incisive!

[James]

VARIATIONS FOR ORCHESTRA
Webern head very little of his music performed and often overestimated how long it would last: the Variations for Orchestra, he calculated, would take "about twenty minutes". In the event, they last not much more than seven, but those seven minutes are packed with incident. Webern derives the whole piece from the briefest four-note phrase heard at the work's beginning. That fundamental material is then shaped and reshaped in six variations, as if one were to examine a tiny gem from every angle to see the light it cast. The composer described the work as an "overture", which suggests its dramatic potential, but for the composer it was all but a finale, and its 1943 premiere in Switzerland was the last time Webern heard his own work performed.

Abbado finds a restless tension in the score that makes Boulez's otherwise excellent version with the BPO seem demure.

[James]

STRING QUARTET OP.28
Webern wrote comparatively often for string quartet, although he only allowed four such works into his official oeuvre. None is more quintessentially Webern than the last, Op.28 completed in 1938 to a commission from Elisabeth Sprague Coolidge. Its austerity is at first abrasive, yet the work grew from Webern's reflections on his daughter's pregnancy, and in the right hands there is a warm eloquence as well as astringency in its three movements. As usual, the music grows from the smallest seeds (the metaphor appropriate here) as Webern manipulates rhythm, tempo and duration into mercurial patterns that shift even as we think we've managed to fix them in our mind.

The Ardittis, doughty champions of twentieth-century music, here present Webern's complete string trios and quartets (with and without opus numbers) in a typically authoritative survey. It's possible to imagine warmer performances, but the clarity of execution is exquisite. Yet again, and particularly the Opus 28 quartet, Webern's musical miniatures prove to embrace a world of expression.

[Brahmsian]

Well, last night and this morning, after listening to Disc 1 of the 6 Disc Webern complete Edition (Boulez), I am in total awe and swept away!     I expected something really, really unique (which I got), but I did not expect such beauty in the music as well, such incredible beauty.

On this Disc 1 were the following pieces (which I had only ever heard the Passacaglia beforehand, so everything else was brand new to my ears, even the arrangements - which were also incredibly gorgeous):

Passacaglia for Orchestra, Op.1
5 Movements for String Orchestra, Op.5
6 Pieces for Orchestra, Op.6
Orchestral arrangement of Bach's Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci from 'The Musical Offering'
Orchestral arrangement of Schubert's German Dances, D820
Im Sommerwind, Idyll for Large Orchestra

Blown away.  I was blown away (perhaps it was the sommerwind).   

[Brahmsian]

Did I mention I was blown away?  Just making sure!   

[karlhenning]

Well done, Ray!

[Opus106]

Well done, Ray!

Ray or Webern?

[karlhenning]

Tangent: Interesting, the German Überlebender is literally equivalent to the source Latin for survivor.

[Brahmsian]

Tangent: Interesting, the German Überlebender is literally equivalent to the source Latin for survivor.

 

[karlhenning]

Just noticed it on the Abbado disc that James was listening to, from the Schoenberg.

[snyprrr]

Was it Midori (or the other one) who just played in DC and leavened her Beethoven program with Crumb(!) and Webern? My curiosity was piqued, and I pulled out the 'Kremerata Musica' cd of works by the Big 3.

All of Webern's music for violin/piano and cello/piano seem to last less than 10mins., but my!, what compactness. The 2 Pieces (1899) for cello/piano still have a Brahmsian autumnal quality, but the 4 Pieces (1910) for violin.piano are a real find. These are dark and enigmatic pieces pulled from the unconscious. There is one section of a strangely rocking minor third repeated almost in minimalist fashion. I could barely hear the inward Langsam.

Frankly, the 3 Small Pieces (1914) for cello/piano, and the Cello Sonata (1914; 1:45) both go by so quickly that I can barely remember what just happened. The Cello Sonata is one arch, very dark.

I do believe this represents Webern's music for 'Piano Trio', and, I don't recall him writing anything else like this. The sax Concerto is the next step up, no? (of course, not considering his other 'string' music)

I would have liked to hear Midori (or the other lady) play these epigrams. The review was much more favorable to her Webern than her LvB (played 'too easy' or something).


Does anyone have a better grasp on these pieces who would like to comment?