The situation in the world is becoming increasingly dire, especially in the field of art. And our task is becoming more and more enormous.
A. Webern
The Austrian composer, conductor and teacher A. Webern is one of the most prominent representatives of the New Vienna school. Life path it is not rich in bright events. The Webern family comes from ancient noble family. Initially, Webern studied piano, cello, and the rudiments music theory. The first compositional experiments date back to 1899. In 1902-06. Webern studies at the Institute of Music History at the University of Vienna, where he studies harmony with G. Gredener and counterpoint with K. Navratil. For his dissertation on the composer G. Isaac (XV-XVI centuries), Webern was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Already the first works - the song and the idyll for orchestra "In the Summer Wind" (1901-04) - reveal the rapid evolution of the early style. In 1904-08. Webern studied composition with A. Schoenberg. In the article “Teacher,” he puts as an epigraph the words of Schoenberg: “Faith in the only saving technology should be destroyed, and the desire for truth should be encouraged.” During the period 1907-09. Webern's innovative style was already fully formed.
After completing his education, Webern worked as an orchestra conductor and choirmaster in operetta. The atmosphere of light music evoked young composer irreconcilable hatred and disgust for entertainment, banality, and expectation of success with the public. Working like a symphony and opera conductor, Webern creates a number of his significant works- 5 pieces op. 5 for string quartet (1909), 6 orchestral pieces op. 6 (1909), 6 bagatelles for quartet op. 9 (1911-13), 5 pieces for orchestra op. 10 (1913) - “music of the spheres, coming from the very depths of the soul,” as one of the critics later said; a lot of vocal music (including songs for voice and orchestra op. 13, 1914-18), etc. In 1913, Webern wrote a small orchestral piece using the serial dodecaphone technique.
In 1922-34. Webern - conductor of workers' concerts (Vienna Workers' Concerts symphony concerts, as well as the Workers' Singing Society). The programs of these concerts, which aimed to introduce workers to high musical art, included works by L. Beethoven, F. Schubert, J. Brahms, G. Wolf, G. Mahler, A. Schoenberg, as well as choirs by G. Eisler. The cessation of this activity of Webern did not occur by his own will, but as a result of the putsch of fascist forces in Austria, the defeat of workers' organizations in February 1934.
Webern the teacher taught (mainly private students) conducting, polyphony, harmony, and practical composition. Among his pupils are composers and musicologists - K. A. Hartmall, H. E. Apostel, E. Ratz, W. Reich, H. Searle, F. Gershkovich. Among Webern's works of the 20-30s. - 5 spiritual songs op. 15, 5 canons on Latin texts, string Trio, Symphony for chamber orchestra, Concerto for 9 instruments, cantata “The Light of the Eyes”, the only work for piano marked with an opus number - Variations op. 27 (1936). Starting with songs op. 17 Webern writes only in dodecaphonic technique.
In 1932 and 1933 Webern read two series of lectures in a Viennese private house on the topic “The Path to new music" By new music the lecturer meant dodecaphony novo Viennese school and analyzed what leads to it along the historical paths of the evolution of music.
Hitler's rise to power and the Anschluss of Austria (1938) made Webern's situation disastrous and tragic. He no longer had the opportunity to hold any position; he had almost no students. In an atmosphere of persecution of composers of new music as “degenerate” and “cultural-Bolshevik,” Webern’s firmness in defending ideals high art objectively was a moment of spiritual resistance to the fascist “Kulturpolitik”. IN latest works Webern - quartet op. 28 (1936-38), Variations for orchestra op. 30 (1940), Second Cantata op. 31 (1943) - one can sense a shadow of loneliness and spiritual isolation of the author, but there is no sign of compromise or even hesitation. In the words of the poetess H. Jone, Webern called for the “bell of hearts” - love: “let it stay awake where life still glimmers, in order to awaken it” (3 parts of the Second Cantata). Quietly risking his life, Webern did not write a single note to please the installations of fascist ideologists from art. The death of the composer is also tragic: after the end of the war, as a result of an absurd mistake, Webern was shot by a soldier of the American occupation forces.
The center of Webern's worldview is the idea of humanism, upholding the ideals of light, reason, and culture. In a situation of severe social crisis, the composer shows rejection of the negative aspects of the bourgeois reality surrounding him, and subsequently takes an unequivocally anti-fascist position: “What enormous destruction this campaign against culture brings with it!” - he exclaimed in one of his lectures in 1933. Webern the artist is an implacable enemy of banality, vulgarity, vulgarity in art.
The figurative world of Webern's art is far from everyday music, simple songs and dances, it is complex and unusual. At the heart of it artistic system- a picture of the harmony of the world, hence its natural proximity to some aspects of the teachings of J. V. Goethe on the development of natural forms. Webern's ethical concept is based on the high ideals of truth, goodness and beauty, in which the composer's worldview corresponds with Kant, according to which “the beautiful is a symbol of the beautifully good.” Webern's aesthetics combine the requirements for significant content, based on ethical values (in which the composer also includes traditional religious Christian elements), and ideal polish and richness of artistic form.
From notes in the manuscript of the saxophone quartet op. 22 shows what images occupied Webern in the process of composing: “Rondo (Dachstein)”, “snow and ice, crystal clear air”, the second secondary theme is “flowers of the highlands”, then “children on ice and in the snow, light, sky ", in the code - "a look into the highlands." But along with this sublimity of images, Webern’s music is characterized by a combination of extreme tenderness and extreme sharpness of sound, refinement of lines and timbres, severity, sometimes almost asceticism of sound, as if it were woven from the finest luminous steel threads. Webern does not have powerful “spills” and long-term intensification of sonority is rare; striking figurative contrasts are alien to him, especially the display of everyday aspects of reality.
In his musical innovation, Webern turned out to be the most daring of the composers of the New Viennese school; he went much further than both Berg and Schoenberg. It was Webern's artistic achievements that had a decisive influence on new trends in music in the second half of the 20th century. P. Boulez even said that Webern is “the only threshold of the music of the future.” Art world Webern remains in the history of music high expression ideas of light, purity, moral firmness, enduring beauty.
The composer came from an ancient family with roots in Tyrol, but he was born in Vienna. Professional musicians there was no family member - his father, a mining engineer by profession, served in the Ministry Agriculture- but my mother was an amateur musician and played the piano. Anton studied at a gymnasium in Vienna, and from the age of ten in Klagenfurt. At this time, he began to study music, mastering the piano and cello, his teacher was Edwin Komauer.
After completing his studies at the gymnasium, Webern continued his education at the University of Vienna. Here he studies philosophy, but does not give up music, studying under the guidance of Guido Adler. True, he began his career in this field not as a performer or composer, but as a music theorist (perhaps this is why his music was subsequently characterized by strict rationality). The topic of his doctoral dissertation was the work of Henrik Isak, a Flemish composer XVI centuries.
But at the same time - at the beginning of the twentieth century - Webern tried his hand at composing. Of course, in the first works one can feel the influence of idols. At first this was for Webern, then -, and finally -. The latter’s passion for music determined his further creative path composer, who is now considered one of the founders of the New Viennese school along with Schoenberg and. From 1904 to 1908 he studied with Schoenberg. Already in early works Webern exhibits features that will always be characteristic of his work - for example, reliance on the variation principle in “Passacaglia”. By 1909, Webern could already be spoken of as a composer with an established style.
Over the next two decades, Webern worked as a conductor, and his first place of work in this capacity was the operetta theater. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a worse situation for an innovative composer striving for genuine depth of thought: light music, designed for guaranteed success with an audience not inclined to bother with intellectual efforts, could not help but irritate Webern. Later he also worked as a symphony conductor. For many years he devoted himself to Vienna workers' symphony concerts, the purpose of which was to introduce workers to classical music.
Musicians who had the opportunity to work with Webern remembered him as an unusually demanding conductor. His desire for sophistication sometimes led to breakdowns. So, once he had to conduct Alban Berg's Violin Concerto in Barcelona, he was given three rehearsals, at the second of them Webern was satisfied only with the first bars, and he refused to work. Another conductor, not so scrupulous, had to finish the rehearsal.
He was also involved in teaching activities. As his students later recalled, during classes he could talk continuously for two hours, addressing both himself and the student sitting at the piano.
Webern combines teaching and work as a conductor with composing music. In 1909, Five Pieces for String Quartet and Six Orchestral Pieces were born, and in 1913, Five Pieces for Orchestra. He also creates vocal music. Among the works of 1920-1930 Five spiritual songs, a Concerto for nine instruments, and a Symphony for chamber orchestra, dedicated to his daughter Christina, stand out. Special place occupy Three folk text– the creation of this work becomes the boundary beyond which Webern used only the dodecaphony technique. He not only used it in his composing work, but also gave lectures about it in 1932-1933.
Meanwhile, the situation in the country is becoming increasingly tense. The destruction of workers' organizations in 1934 put an end to the Vienna workers' concerts, but especially Hard times came for Webern with Hitler's rise to power. His music - like the works of other composers close to his style - was declared “cultural-Bolshevik” and “degenerate”, he lost his position as conductor of Vienna Radio, his works were not performed or published, and he lost his students. The only source of livelihood is proofreading other people's scores for the publishing house. One by one, the composer loses close people - his friend Alban Berg died, his son died at the front. It is not surprising that the essays recent years The composer's life is tragic, gloomy - orchestral Variations, Second Cantata.
The composer's life ended in September 1945 in the town of Mittersill near Salzburg, where he and his wife went to live with their daughter and son-in-law. The war has already ended, but the curfew has not been lifted. Webern neglected him one evening by going outside to smoke before going to bed, and was mortally wounded by an American soldier.
Works of Webern French composer Pierre Boulez called it “the only threshold of the music of the future.” His influence is felt in the works of Bruno Maderna, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov and many other composers of the twentieth century.
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Webern's whole life is connected with Austria. And if he left her for a short time, he always mentally remained here - in a cultural environment so close to him. But besides Vienna there is Tyrol, where the ancient Webern family came from. The expanses of the mountains. Unclouded and cold, like crystal, air. Vast meadows and dazzling pure snow. Eternal peace. This is not only Webern’s homeland - here is also the source of his faith in the harmony of the world. Composer Krzenek said about it this way: “... Webern’s music is filled with clean, transparent air and oppressive silence mountain peaks...", it often sounds "like the supernatural, eerie voices of nature itself, like the frightening roar of underground volcanoes or soaring wings from other planets."
Anton von Webern was born into the family of an engineer on December 3, 1883 in Vienna. First, he studied at the gymnasium there, then in Graz (from 1890) and Klagenfurt (from 1893) - the first music lessons took place here, and here - in 1902, he completed his education, after which he entered the University of Vienna, where he studied philosophy and studied musicology under the direction of Guido Adler. At the end of his studies, in 1906, Webern was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his study of a major collection of spiritual polyphonic works by Heinrich Isaac, an older contemporary of Josquin Despres. Webern's research, together with this publication, was published in the series “Monuments musical art Austria." The case of a unique future composer begins as a music theorist, because there are numerous counterexamples! Isn’t this where Webern’s scientific discipline and organized compositional thinking come from? Isn’t this also where his passion for strict polyphonic technique, intervallic-structural composition, rational precision in the relationship between sections of form, and symmetry of construction comes from?
Webern's first compositional experiments date back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. First he became interested in Wagner (his visit to Bayreuth in 1902 made a great impression), then Brahms, and later Mahler; latest hobby - Schoenberg. In the first works, although not yet completely independent, the seeds of his further quest were laid: this is the orchestral Passacaglia, based on the variation principle that Webern used so widely later, and comparatively short play for a mixed choir, written in a strict canonical form - in a polyphonic manner that the composer will further improve in the future. Both works were written in 1908. However, far before the completion of these works, he became one of the students of Arnold Schoenberg, to whom he was introduced by Egon Welles, a composer and scholar who later gained great fame as the greatest authority on Byzantine music. He recalled how “... in October 1904 we began dating and played together on the piano Mahler’s Third Symphony, which was to be performed that season. We attended together all the rehearsals at which Mahler conducted this symphony, and in subsequent years the rehearsals of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies. At Professor Adler’s seminars, we played Beethoven’s last quartets on the piano and analyzed them.”
Gradually, the circle of Schoenberg's students expanded (Webern involved Berg in it). Since 1906, they maintained almost daily contact with the teacher. Welles testifies that in the years when Schoenberg embarked on the path of atonalism (i.e., from 1908) and when he was on the verge of discovering the dodecaphonic method of composition (the completion of these quests occurred in 1921), he often consulted with Webern on issues that worried him. Training sessions with Schoenberg ended in 1908, came new phase relationships - creative communication, close friendship.
Since 1906, conducting - at least for the next twenty years - has become Webern's main source of income. Places of service are predominantly drama and opera theaters. Cities of Prague, Danzig, Stettin.
In 1909, Webern wrote Five Pieces for String Quartet, then a year later Six Pieces for Orchestra, which began the first period of his work - the period of the so-called free atonality. The music is characterized by maximum aphoristic statements. Another one characteristic- predominance of instrumental music. The First Begins World War. In 1915, Webern was mobilized, but the following year he was released due to poor eyesight. He returned to music and in 1917 wrote a new composition - Four Songs for Voice and Piano. This work seems to draw a line under initial period Webern's creativity.
In the next decade he, under great influence"Pierrot Lunaire" by Schoenberg, writes vocal loops with a variety of chamber and instrumental accompaniment. The works are also very short; all twenty-five pieces of the solo cycle last a little over twenty minutes. But Webern's music now appears even more strict and at the same time dramatic. Even then he was distinguished reverent attitude to the sound. The sense of a single sound, its intensity, was not as developed in any of the composers, not only of past times, but also of modern times, as in Webern. For him, sound - in its specific pitch and timbre - is something living, animated. Hence, in Webern’s work, what is called “pointillism” - a dotted sound in which, through a thin line of interval relationships, tones connected with each other appear in isolation, as if born in a vacuum. In 1920, Webern finally managed to conclude the first contracts for the publication of his works - with the Vienna Universal Publishing House. This publishing house also provided him with all possible assistance in later, difficult times. After the war, a revival of conducting activity occurred in connection with the creation in Vienna, on the initiative and under the leadership of Schoenberg, of the Society for Closed (Private) Performances (existed from 1918 to 1922). Since 1921, Webern has directed amateur choirs. He gets close to working orchestral and singing groups, does a lot of work with them; they perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mahler’s Eighth, which the Viennese especially remember, “the symphony of a thousand participants.” Webern was associated with workers music organizations until 1934, when they were crushed by the reactionary government of Austria. In 1924, and then in 1932, Webern was awarded music award city of Vienna. In the same year he composed his new opus - Three folk texts for voice and instrumental ensemble. This is one of the composer's peaks. This is what composer Igor Stravinsky thought, for example. In the depths of this period, the dodecaphonic technique was already maturing.
In 1927, Webern became conductor of Vienna Radio. He is also invited on tour by the London BBC Radio Orchestra. From 1929 to 1935 he traveled to England five times.
At the same time, Webern's work again dominated instrumental music- String trio, Symphony, Quartet with saxophone, Concerto for nine instruments. He moves on to large, large-scale plans, to works of longer duration, of course, in the Webern time system! After all, Webern's music is unprecedentedly laconic. The usual ideas about time duration have shifted, and all of Webern's published works - 31 opuses - require only about three hours to perform. The longest work - the six-movement Second Cantata - lasts about twelve minutes, and the shortest - a few seconds. For example, in Bagatelles the first piece lasts ten seconds, the second and fourth - eight, the third and sixth - nine, the fifth - thirteen seconds. Such aphoristic expression evokes a distant association with the traditional Japanese poetic tercet - hoku.
Webern introduced new time parameters in music. Moreover, he did this so involuntarily that sometimes he was mistaken in determining the temporal extent of his work; it seemed to him that it should last longer than it actually was. So, in the process of composing in 1943 his last work- Webern wrote the second cantata “The duration is half an hour.” Having finished the score, carefully setting the metronome, the composer noted “Duration sixteen minutes.” However, its actual sound lasts no more than twelve minutes. This psychological error is probably explained by the meaningful richness of each sounding moment of music, which violates - not only Webern, but also the listeners! - the idea of the usual countdown of time.
At the turn of the 1920s-1930s, the composer was at the peak of his talent. Its financial situation. The conductor's tour map is expanding, including, in addition to Vienna, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Donau-Eschingen, Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich, Barcelona, London.
In total, he devoted more than thirty years to performing work. Only Webern himself knows for sure how much torment it brought him. rehearsal work How he suffered from false notes, from the rough and dense sound of the orchestra, from the misunderstanding of those whom he had to lead! The listeners were amazed by the unprecedented precision of performance - the result of titanic work. An acquaintance of the composer, Kraft, cites an interesting episode. Webern was invited in 1936 to Barcelona to conduct the premiere of Berg's Violin Concerto. “In the course of two rehearsals - out of the three allotted - he managed to satisfactorily, in his opinion, prepare only the first eight bars. Then a scandal broke out, after which the remaining rehearsal was conducted by a less discriminating conductor.”
Little by little recognition comes to him, though not so much as a composer, but as a competent, serious musician. He is attracted to radio as an adviser, consultant on new music. Sometimes he gives lectures in closed classrooms. But the first (chamber) concert composed entirely of his works took place only in 1931. Since 1929, Webern began giving private lessons. Among those who studied with him from the late 1920s to the early 1940s were K. Rankl and G. Zwarowski, who later became active as conductors, E. Ratz and W. Reich as musicologists, P. Stadlen as pianist, K. A. Hartmann and F. M. Gershkovich, who moved to the USSR in 1940, as composers.
The latter talks about how lessons with Webern were held: “Often the lesson was held with the student sitting near the piano, and Webern spoke for two hours, continuously pacing around the room... It was felt that Webern was speaking, addressing both - the student and himself to yourself. For him, the lesson was something like creative training. Webern, in the presence of a student who played the role of a catalyst, repeated his lesson - the lesson he learned from Schoenberg. But what he repeated was related to what Schoenberg had said decades earlier in the same way that berries are to flowers. That this was so, I could ascertain by comparing Webern’s words with Schoenberg’s books and articles. However, I am not talking about fruits and flowers as a qualitative comparison. The fruit and the flower from which it came are completely different phenomena and at the same time one and the same in essence.”
By the end of the 1920s, symptoms of the fascisation of Austria became more and more noticeable. The pressure to react increases. All this could not but affect Webern’s position; the scope of his activities was narrowed.
At the beginning of 1934, in connection with his recent fiftieth birthday, Webern's friends were trying to award him the title of professor. There was a refusal. Official Vienna did not respond in any way to Webern’s anniversary; only a short, untitled note appeared in one of the newspapers. This attitude, of course, could not but offend Webern, but, in spite of everything, he continues to work. Krzenek writes about Webern's music at that time, "More captivated human tragedy"than with the secrets of nature, Webern's music becomes more complex in texture, more mobile and even more condensed." Since 1934, the composer's interest in vocal music- Webern writes the cantata “The Light of the Eyes”. In general, the composer devoted more than half of his published legacy to vocal music (out of thirty-one opuses, seventeen with text!), and to song itself - one third. In 1936 Webern conducted last time outside Austria - in Winterthur (Switzerland); two years later, Vienna Radio would relieve him of his position. Schoenberg emigrated from Germany to the USA, Berg died - Webern lost his dearest friends. In 1938, he had only one student left; in 1939, he no longer had a single one. The universal publishing house, despite the Nazi regime, still tries to support it financially and involves Webern in reviewing and proofreading other people's and, obviously, alien works. Since 1938 it is no longer performed. Only five years later, in Switzerland, he manages to hear his works, including the orchestral Variations - one of his most tragic works. The life of a hermit begins, a life of wandering. Sad news comes from everywhere. In February 1945, shortly before the armistice, his only son was killed at the front. There are three more daughters left. To the youngest of them, Christina - the composer's only symphony is dedicated to her, he and his wife travel to Western Austria, to the town of Mittersill, about 100 kilometers from Salzburg. Here, on September 15, 1945, Webern was struck by a stray bullet from an American soldier.
A curfew was declared after nine o'clock in the evening; it was impossible to be on the street. Webern left the house so that the cigar smoke would not disturb Christina's children's sleep. Appears in the Vienna Courier newspaper short note“About ten o’clock in the evening he was standing outside his son-in-law’s house, enjoying his last cigar before going to bed, when suddenly shots were heard. Dr. Webern, staggered into the house and told his wife, “I’ve been shot.” Soon after this he died..."
“I understand art,” said Webern, “as the ability to give some thought the clearest, simplest, that is, the most “visual” form... And therefore I never understood what “classical”, “romantic” and etc., and never opposed myself to the masters of the past, but always took their example, that is, I tried to express what I was given to express as clearly as possible.”
Undoubtedly, for all its integrity, Webern’s personality is contradictory. On the one hand, he is an inspired, living, thinking musician, in love with the germination of all that is beautiful in life and art, on the other hand, he is a sober rationalist, not devoid of dogmatism, prone to abstract thinking. Nurtured humanism XIX century, convinced, democrat-educator, long time communicating with the proletarian audience, in his work he chooses paths that are inaccessible to the mass listener. Passionate fan of Beethoven and Mahler - different artists belonging to different historical eras, but actively intruding - each in his own way - into the surrounding reality, Webern turns away from it, from life’s struggles, from burning social problems.
Webern combines unshakable conviction with humble devotion to the cause to which he serves with his whole being, chastity of moral thoughts with an unshakable, sometimes naive faith in the inviolability of the ideal law, which determined order in nature, and thereby, in his opinion, in spiritual life person, in art, including music. And yet, despite these contradictions, spiritual world Webern captivates with its ethical beauty. An artist-thinker, spiritually reverent and modest, filled with high moral motives - this is how he appears both in musical creations and in statements - oral and written.
Father - Karl von Webern, mining engineer, official in the Ministry of Agriculture. Mother - Amalia (née Ger), the daughter of a butcher, was interested in art and was an amateur pianist. In his youth, Anton lived in Vienna, Graz, and attended high school in Klagenfurt (Carinthia). From 1895 he began to study music seriously, studying piano and cello with Dr. Edwin Komauer. After graduating from high school, in 1902-1906 he studied as a musicologist at the University of Vienna under the guidance of G. Adler. In 1904-1908 he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg, which had a serious influence on the formation of his personality and creativity. In Schoenberg's class, Webern met the composer Alban Berg, who became his close friend.
Since 1908, Webern worked as an opera and symphony conductor in cities in Austria and Germany, as well as in Prague. He led the Vienna Workers' Singing Society. In 1928-38 - conductor of the Austrian radio, removed from this position after the establishment of the Nazi regime in Austria.
Webern's life ended tragically in Mittersill, occupied by American troops in 1945. On September 15 at about 10 p.m., leaving the house of his son-in-law Mattel to smoke an expensive American cigar received as a gift from his son-in-law, Webern was shot with a pistol three times at point-blank range by a soldier (cook) of the American army, who mistakenly mistook the flash of a match lit by Webern , for something else. The cook justified himself by saying that he shot in self-defense, being in an excited (or rather, drunk) state. Webern's widow Wilhelmina had to prove to the American authorities in writing that her husband, for health reasons and according to his principles, “could not attack anyone, especially a soldier.”
Among Webern's students is Philip Gershkovich.
Creation
Disciple and follower of the creator of the so-called. Arnold Schoenberg's "atonal" school, Webern took its principles to extreme forms of expression. He used dodecaphonic and serial techniques in his compositions. His music is characterized by extreme aphorism, conciseness, laconicism, economy and concentration of musical expressive means, as well as severity, sublimity and unreality musical images. Extreme sonic refinement is combined in Webern's music with a rigid constructive scheme and abstract thinking.
Author of symphonic, chamber instrumental, vocal and choral works, of which only 31 are marked with opus numbers. Author literary works, poetry, drama “The Dead” (1913), musical studies and articles, analyzes of his own music, a series of conversations “The Path to New Music”, published posthumously in 1960, etc.
Webern's work had a huge influence on the movements of the post-war musical avant-garde in the West, including such composers as Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Maderna, Ligeti and others, as well as on Russian composers Volkonsky, Denisov, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Kneifel, Wustin and many others.
Works marked with opus
- Op. 1 - Passacaglia for orchestra (1908);
- Op. 2 - Escaping on light boats (Entflieht auf Leichten K?hnen) for mixed choir
- Op. 3 - Five songs for voice and piano
- Op. 4 - Five songs for voice and piano
- Op. 5 - Five pieces for string quartet (1909);
- Op. 6 - Six pieces for big orchestra(1909, second edition 1928);
- Op. 7 - Four pieces for violin and piano (1910, final edition 1914);
- Op. 8 - Two songs for voice and ensemble
- Op. 9 - Six bagatelles for string quartet (1911);
- Op. 10 - Five pieces for orchestra (1911);
- Op. 11 - Three small pieces for cello and piano (1914);
- Op. 12 - Four songs for voice and piano (1915-17);
- Op. 13 - Four songs for voice and orchestra (1914-18);
- Op. 14 - Six songs based on poems by Georg Trakl (1917-21);
- Op. 15 - Five spiritual songs for voice, flute, clarinet
- Op. 16 - Five canons for high soprano, clarinet and bass clarinet
- Op. 17 - Three folk texts
- Op. 18 - Three songs for voice, clarinet in Es and guitar (1925);
- Op. 19 - Two songs for mixed choir with instrumental accompaniment
- Op. 20 - String trio in two parts (1926-1927);
- Op. 21 - Symphony in two movements
- Op. 22 - Quartet in two parts
- Op. 23 - Three songs for voice and piano
- Op. 24 - Concerto for 9 instruments
- Op. 25 - Three songs on poems by Hildegard Jone for voice and piano (1934);
- Op. 26 - The Light of the Eyes (Das Augenlicht; another translation of the title: “Sight”) for mixed choir and orchestra
- Op. 27 - Variations for piano in three parts (1935-1936);
- Op. 28 - String quartet in three movements (1936-1938);
- Op. 29 - First cantata for soprano, mixed choir and orchestra
- Op. 30 - Variations for orchestra (1940);
- Op. 31 - Second cantata for soprano, bass, mixed choir and orchestra
Without opus
- Two pieces for cello and piano (1899)
- In the Summer Wind (Im Sommerwind) Idyll for large orchestra based on the poem by B. Wille (1904)
- Slow movement (Langsamer Satz) for string quartet (1905)
- String Quartet (1905)
- Part (Satz) for piano (1906)
- Sonata movement (rondo) (Sonatensatz - Rondo) for piano (1906)
- Rondo for string quartet (1906)
- Quintet for piano and string quartet (1907)
- Pieces for Orchestra (1913)
- Sonata for cello and piano (1914)
- Children's Piece (Kinderst?ck) for piano (1925)
- Piece (Klavierst?ck) for piano (1925)
- Movement (Satz) for string trio (1925)
- Songs (1899-1914)
Arrangements
- Arnold Schoenberg: prelude and interludes from "Songs of Gurre" for 2 pianos 8 hands (1909-1910; unpublished); six songs (op. 8) for voice and piano (1910); five pieces (op. 16) for 2 pianos 4 hands (1912); " Chamber Symphony"for flute (or violin), clarinet (or viola), piano, violin and cello (1922-1923)
- Franz Schubert: romance from the music for the drama "Rosamund", songs "The Wanderer" and "You are my peace" for voice and orchestra (1903; not published); "German Dances" for orchestra (1931)
- J. S. Bach: six-voice ricercar (from "Musical Offering") for orchestra (1934-1935)
Quotes
- “...new music is unprecedented music. In this case, new music is equally both what arose a thousand years ago and what exists today, namely: music that is perceived as never before created or spoken.” (Webern: "The Path to New Music", Lecture February 20, 1933)
- “Obviously, there was some need, some necessity, which brought into existence what we call music. What is the need? The need to say something, to express a thought that cannot be expressed otherwise than in sounds.” (Webern: "The Path to New Music", Lecture February 27, 1933)
- “Man strives to convey to musical sounds something that cannot be said otherwise. Music is a language in this sense." (Webern: "The Path to New Music", Lecture February 27, 1933)
- “Webern! This is the last master of German music."
Anton Webern
Austrian composer, conductor, musicologist, Ph.D., teacher Anton Webern was born in 1883. He began studying music at the age of ten. In 1902 - 1906, Webern studied at the University of Vienna, his mentor in musicology was G. Adler, in harmony and counterpoint - G. Grödner and K. Navratil. And in 1904 - 1908, Anton studied composition with A. Schoenberg, who became his main teacher. During this period the first musical compositions Webern.
Since 1913, the musician worked as a conductor in Vienna, Prague, Danzig, and from 1922 to 1934 he was the conductor of the Workers' Choral Society and symphony concerts of the Vienna Workers' Union. Although Webern began actively writing music quite early, he became widely known after the end of World War II. It was then that his works began to be performed in many European countries, and their author was loudly declared “the apostle of the new art.”
A representative of the new Viennese school, Webern was the most consistent supporter of the dodecaphonic system developed by his teacher A. Schoenberg.
The musician’s composing career began with “Passacaglia” for orchestra (1908). Already in this work, the future direction of Webern’s work is felt, which is manifested in the elements of pointillism: sounds are separated from each other by a pause, by analogy with pictorial pointillism with its dotted colorful strokes. Features of dodecaphony are also noticeable in Schoenberg’s techniques of “timbre-colored” melody. The unusually laconic “Five Pieces for Orchestra” (1913) was written in this style. Despite the obvious abstractness of the structure, the emotionality and coloristic brightness make Webern’s music very expressive and attractive to listeners.
Webern turned completely to the dodecaphonic system in “Three Sacred Songs” for singing, violin (or viola), clarinet and bass clarinet (1924). From that time on, the composer began to independently develop the principles of Schoenberg's method. He strove for a strict separation not only of intervals, but also of rhythmic structures and dynamics, which led to the transformation of music into a calculation of sounds.
Webern's distinctive style was evident in a string trio (1927), a symphony for chamber orchestra (1928), a quartet for violin, clarinet, tenor saxophone and piano (1930), and a concerto for nine instruments (1934). All these works testify to the composer's final rejection of thematic repetitions and his desire to firmly and consistently implement the principles of pointillism. Webern himself wrote: “Once expressed, the theme expressed everything it had to say. We need to continue it with something fresh.”
The abstract nature of constructing the musical fabric is clearly visible in the composer’s later works. These are variations for piano (1936), variations for orchestra (1940), two cantatas for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra (1939 and 1942). Structural complexity and abstraction from traditional system intonation is combined with such qualities as careful finishing of each detail, acquiring independent meaning.
Webern spent the last period of his life in Mödling, where he was exclusively creative. His life ended suddenly: the composer died in 1945 near Salzburg as a result of an accidental shot by an American army soldier.
Webern left few works to his descendants, which indicates his exactingness talented musician to your art. The composer, who sincerely believed in the correctness of his aesthetic beliefs, never sought popularity with the public. Webern's works, rarely performed during his lifetime, enjoyed great success after the death of the composer, who became an idol of representatives of musical avant-gardeism.
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From the book Popular History of Music author Gorbacheva Ekaterina Gennadievna From the author's bookAnton Webern Austrian composer, conductor, musicologist, Ph.D., teacher Anton Webern was born in 1883. He began studying music at the age of ten. In 1902 - 1906, Webern studied at the University of Vienna, his mentor in musicology was G. Adler, according to