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Symphony (Webern)

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Symphony, Op. 21
Symphony (or chamber or miniature symphony)[1] by Anton Webern
Opening with tone rows labeled by Dmitri Smirnov
Opus21[2]
Perioddie Neue Musik (20th-century music)
LanguageGerman
Composed1927–1928
DedicationWebern's youngest daughter Christine Mattl (née Webern)[3]
Duration10–15 minutes[4]
MovementsTwo (1 Mvmt. Ruhig schreitend; 2 Mvmt. Variationen: Thema, Sehr ruhig — 1 Var. lebhafter — 2 Var. sehr lebhaft — 3 Var. wieder mäßiger — 4 Var. äußert ruhig — 5 Var. sehr lebhaft — 6 Var. marschmäßig, nicht eilen — 7 Var. etwas breiter — Coda)[5]
ScoringOrchestra or chamber orchestra of 1 clarinet, 1 bass clarinet, 2 horns, 1 harp, and strings senza bassi
Premiere
Date18 December 1929 (1929-12-18) (world premiere)[6]
LocationTown Hall, New York[6]
ConductorAlexander Smallens[6]
PerformersOrchestra of the League of Composers[6]

Anton Webern's Symphony, Op. 21 (1927–1928),[7] noted for its symmetry,[8] abstraction,[9] and Alpine topics,[10] was his first twelve-tone orchestral work. It is a two-movement chamber or miniature symphony of only 10–15 minutes. Alexander Smallens conducted the world premiere at New York's Town Hall on 18 December 1929.

Composition

Historical background

The years Webern wrote his symphony (1927–1928), he visited his childhood home and mountains with friends and family. In November 1927 he and Norbert Schwarzmann, a physician and patron,[11] attempted the Hochschwab starting at night, but weather turned them back. In May 1928, he and Rudolf Ploderer attempted the Schneealpe (his favorite mountain) in the snow. He revisited in July, reaching the summit with his wife Wilhelmine and their children. Then they celebrated his cousin Ernst Diez's birthday in Vordernberg and visited his sisters Maria and Rosa in Klagenfurt. He visited their former country estate, the Preglhof, and family grave sites in Schwabegg and Annabichl [de]. From the cemetery grounds he collected and kept flowers along with photos as souvenirs. In August he, his son, and Ploderer climbed the Hochschwab; they overnighted in the Schiestlhaus [de] and saw many mountain goats.[12]

Orchestration

Op. 21 was part of a turn to more economic orchestration compared to Webern's early works. Its composition coincided with his revision of Op. 6 (1909, arr. 1920),[a] in which he substantially reduced the wind instrument section, hoping for performances.[14] Webern used only clarinet, bass clarinet, and horns, all featuring relatively wide ranges and each with some rustic, folk topicality.[15][b]

After Webern finished the Symphony, the League of Composers asked him for a chamber orchestra work. He wrote Claire Raphael Reis that the strings could be reduced to soloists for the world premiere, but he wrote in his diary: "Better with multiple strings."[17]

Form

The symphony is in two movements. Among initial sketches were outlines with descriptions, including "I. Rondo: lively—sun / II. Variations: moderately / III. Free form: very calmly—moon" and then "I. Variations / II. Rondo (Scherzo, march-like) / III. Slowly". He later planned the final movement, described to Berg as "an Adagio in canonic form throughout", for the middle. After writing two movements, he began a third but decided against it after much consideration. He cited the example of Beethoven's two-movement piano sonatas and Bach's two-movement orchestral works. Then he placed the slow movement first, opening the symphony with what the Moldenhauers described as "the canonic Adagio" and concluding it with the "variation movement".[18]

Movement I

The first movement is in a concise (quasi-)sonata form with superimposed elements[19] and a rounded binary appearance.[20] In a Classical manner, its exposition and development–recapitulation are repeated; it ends in a stretto (quasi-)coda.[21]

Webern sketched the first several bars painstakingly through many successive iterations.[22] Michael Spitzer described this music, on horn duet, harp, and "rumbling" lower strings, as "evocative of natural expanse" in its timbres and rhythms. The opening has often been compared to that of Gustav Mahler's Ninth.[23] Though Webern had been unable to attend the Ninth's 1912 premiere, he played through it with Alban Berg and Heinrich Jalowetz; he wrote Arnold Schoenberg that it was "inexpressibly beautiful".[24]

Demonstrating Webern's early music studies, the first movement consists of four lines in a double canon (by inversion) with frequent palindromes and fixed register.[25] Anne C. Shreffler noted Webern's reliance on linear, song-like writing,[26] an observation often made of Mahler.[27]

One canon features Ländler-like lilting melodic repetition on legato strings and winds, representing an orderly pastoral topic.

The other canon is more percussive, even accompanimental in texture, qualities which Webern crafted after drafting the canon's melody. To this end, he used ornaments like acciaccature; articulations like staccati; instrumentation with the harp's plucked timbre; and musical techniques like double stops, mutes, pizzicati, string harmonics, and sul ponticello.[28]

Movement II

The second movement comprises nine small sections replete with palindromes:[29] a theme, seven canonic variations, and a coda.[c] The theme is fragmented into motives and the variation developmental. Bailey Puffett noted not only the use of dynamics, register, rhythm, tempi, texture, and timbre for Classical forms of surface-level variation, but also the use of more developmental devices like inversion and retrograde, augmentation and diminution, imitation, and some octave displacement.[d]

Danielle Hood described the fourth variation, identified by Webern as the midpoint, as a "waltz/Ländler double".[32] In the fifth variation's cowbell-like harp octaves and close, stomping string dissonances, Adorno heard the "soulful sound" of the Almabtrieb, delighting Webern.[33]

Proto-serialism

Goeyvaerts noted proto-serial schemes of articulations, dynamics, and register, not time (meter, rhythm, or tempo).[34] Rochberg noted the "objectified, mensural" relation of pitch and time in Webern's later instrumental œuvre as a whole.[35]

The Symphony's tone row comprises chromatic hexachords[e] related inversionally by tritone.[37][f]

Early performances

Alexander Smallens and the Orchestra of the League of Composers gave the world premiere at New York's Town Hall on 18 December 1929, meeting jeers.[40]

At the Vienna Konzerthaus (1930), Webern himself conducted an ensemble including the Kolisch Quartet and members of the Wiener Staatsoper, flanking his Symphony with Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 2 (Eduard Steuermann, piano) and Beethoven's Septet. Josef Reitler [de] wrote in the Neue Freie Presse that "barbaric ... soullessness is foreign [to Webern]", contrasting him with Bartók, Stravinsky, and the Krenek of Jonny spielt auf.[41]

Listeners laughed in Berlin (Apr. 1931).[42] There Otto Klemperer had two weeks to prepare.[43] Heinz Tietjen was defunding the Krolloper ostensibly for its poorly attended modernist repertoire.[44][g]

Hermann Scherchen conducted the London premiere at the summer 1931 International Society for Contemporary Music Festival. Prompted by Schoenberg, Edward Clark had invited Webern to conduct. Webern declined, citing travel fatigue and his desire to focus on composition. There was also low remuneration, recent bad press, and as noted in his diary earlier that year: "Need for quiet and reflection."[52]

Klemperer programmed the Symphony again in 1936 Vienna, likely on Schoenberg's advice, but did not adhere to Webern's desired performance practice.[53]

Notes

  1. ^ Op. 6 was also noted for its abstraction of Alpine topics.[13]
  2. ^ Prior examples of their use in similar topical contexts include Mozart's Symphony No. 39, Beethoven's Sixth, Bellini's La sonnambula, Brahms's Serenade No. 1 or Symphony No. 2, and much of Mahler's music. In 1933, Webern conducted Brahms's Serenade No. 1, Schubert's Rosamunde, and his arrangement of two of Schubert's Six German Dances—"all delightful, friendly music", he wrote Josef Humplik.[16]
  3. ^ Bailey Puffett described these as all nine variations, noting the motivization of the traditional theme.[30] Robert Craft described them as eight, including the coda but not the theme.[citation needed]
  4. ^ She emphasized the latter strategy after Op. 21.[31]
  5. ^ Webern often used chromatic hexachords.[36]
  6. ^ Stockhausen applied its specific row in Klavierstücke VII (1954–1955),[38] IX (1954, rev. 1961), and X (1954, rev. 1961).[39]
  7. ^ Officially the Staatsoper am Platz der Republik, the Kroll was also called "Klemperer's Ensemble",[45] "Klemperer's Kroll" (though Alexander Zemlinsky et al. were engaged),[46] or the "Republikoper" and was an institution borne partly of the socialist Volksbühne.[47] Politics affected programming (e.g., the 1930 German premiere of Janáček's 1927–1928 Z mrtvého domu was canceled amid talkie-inspired anti-German social unrest in Prague).[48] Klemperer barely escaped an attack by Nazis celebrating the Krolloper's 1931 closure.[46] The Reichstag convened at the Kroll after the Feb. 1933 fire.[49] In Mar. 1933, Klemperer prepared his son: "We are Catholics who think in a German-National way ... . ... [T]imes are ... turbulent ... . ... Never talk ... politics, ... quietly ... work ... live privately", Klemperer emphasized.[50] He fled to Switzerland for safety in Apr. 1933.[51]

References

  1. ^ Service 2013.
  2. ^ Webern 1929, 1.
  3. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 480; Webern 1929, 2
  4. ^ Näf 2019, 180–194; Webern 1929, 16
  5. ^ Webern 1929.
  6. ^ a b c d Miller 2022b, "The rule".
  7. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 2; Johnson 1999, 200
  8. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 155.
  9. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 154, 197, 202.
  10. ^ Johnson 1999, 74 106, 205; Morris 2016, 74–81, 119–120, 170–174
  11. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 257.
  12. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 301–302.
  13. ^ Peattie 2015, 65–66, 102–103.
  14. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 128–129.
  15. ^ Spitzer 2020, 350–351.
  16. ^ Kolneder 1968, 184.
  17. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 326–327, 344.
  18. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 324–326.
  19. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 153–154, 163–164; Shreffler 1994, 241–242
  20. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 163; Hiller and Fuller 1967, 61
  21. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 163–169.
  22. ^ Shreffler 1994, 42.
  23. ^ Johnson 1999, 205; Spitzer 2020, 350–351
  24. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 160.
  25. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 165.
  26. ^ Shreffler 1994, 18.
  27. ^ Seldes 2009, 104–105.
  28. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 166; Spitzer 2020, 350–351
  29. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 200–201.
  30. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 98–99.
  31. ^ Bailey Puffett 1991, 196–197.
  32. ^ Hood 2022, 172.
  33. ^ Johnson 1999, 7.
  34. ^ Maconie 2016, 38.
  35. ^ Rochberg 2004, 15.
  36. ^ Babbitt 1987, 48.
  37. ^ Maconie 2016, 195.
  38. ^ Maconie 2016, 127.
  39. ^ Maconie 2016, 195–196.
  40. ^ Miller 2022b, "The rule"; Morgan 1993, 416
  41. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 344.
  42. ^ Heyworth 1983, 246.
  43. ^ Heyworth 1983, 362; Moskovitz 2010, 256
  44. ^ Moskovitz 2010, 249-251.
  45. ^ Moskovitz 2010, 241.
  46. ^ a b Moskovitz 2010, 256.
  47. ^ Heyworth 1983, 246, 368–369.
  48. ^ Moskovitz 2010, 255; Wingfield 1998, 113–115
  49. ^ Moskovitz 2010, 262–264.
  50. ^ Heyworth 1983, 407.
  51. ^ Heyworth 1983, 410.
  52. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 362–364.
  53. ^ Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer 1978, 470–471, 679–680.

Bibliography

  • Babbitt, Milton. 1987. Words about Music: The Madison Lectures, eds. Stephen Dembski and Joseph N. Straus. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-10790-1.
  • Bailey Puffett, Kathryn. 1991. The Twelve-Note Music of Anton Webern: Old Forms in a New Language. Music in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39088-0 (hbk). ISBN 978-0-521-54796-3 (pbk).
  • Heyworth, Peter. 1983. Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, Vol. I: 1885–1933. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Reissued with corrections, 1996. ISBN 978-0-521-49509-7 (ebk). ISBN 978-0-521-39088-0 (hbk).
  • Hiller, Lejaren, and Ramon Fuller. "Structure and Information in Webern’s Symphonie, Op. 21". Journal of Music Theory. 11(1):60–115. Duke University Press. doi:10.2307/842949.
  • Hood, Danielle. 2022. The Viennese Waltz: Decadence and the Decline of Austria’s Unconscious. Lanham: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-1-79-365393-2 (ebk). ISBN 978-1-79-365392-5 (hbk).
  • Johnson, Julian. 1999. Webern and the Transformation of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66149-2.
  • Kolneder, Walter. 1968. Anton Webern: An Introduction to His Works. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Trans. Humphrey Searle. (Translation of Anton Webern, Einführung in Werk und Stil. Rodenkirchen: P. J. Tonger, 1961.) ISBN 978-0-520-34715-1.
  • Maconie, Robin. 2016. Other Planets: The Complete Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1950–2007. Updated edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-44-227268-2 (electronic).
  • Miller, David H. 2022. "Shadows, wraiths, and amoebas: the distinctive flops of Anton Webern in the United States". Transposition. 10. École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and the Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris. (30 May, accessed 19 Jan. 2024)
  • Moldenhauer, Hans, and Rosaleen Moldenhauer. 1978. Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. ISBN 978-0-394-47237-9.
  • Morgan, Robert P. 1993. Modern Times: From World War I to the Present. Man & Music Series; Vol. 8. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-349-11291-3 (ebk). ISBN 978-1-349-11293-7 (hbk).
  • Morris, Christopher. 2016. "Modernism and the Cult of Mountains: Music, Opera, Cinema". Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera. Oxford and New York: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-75466-970-8 (hbk). Reprint from original in 2012 by Ashgate Publishing.
  • Moskovitz, Marc. 2010. Alexander Zemlinsky: A Lyric Symphony. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell. ISBN 978-1-84383-578-3.
  • Näf, Lukas. 2019. "Tempogestaltung in Weberns Sinfonie op. 21." In Rund um Beethoven: Interpretationsforschung heute, eds. Thomas Gartmann and Daniel Allenbach, 180–194. Musikforschung der Hochschule der Künste Bern, Vol. 14. Schliengen: Edition Argus. ISBN 978-3-931264-94-9. doi:10.26045/kp64-6178.
  • Peattie, Thomas. 2015. Gustav Mahler's Symphonic Landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02708-4 (hbk).
  • Rochberg, George. 2004. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music. Revised, expanded, and reprinted from original in 1984. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-02511-4 (ebk). ISBN 978-0-472-03026-2 (pbk).
  • Seldes, Barry. 2009. Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-94307-0.
  • Service, Tom. 2013. "Symphony Guide: Webern's Op 21". Tom Service on Classical Blog. The Guardian.com (17 Dec., accessed 19 Jan. 2024).
  • Shreffler, Anne C. 1994. Webern and the Lyric Impulse: Songs and Fragments on Poems of Georg Trakl, ed. and preface by Lewis Lockwood. Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816224-7.
  • Spitzer, Michael. 2020. A History of Emotion in Western Music: A Thousand Years from Chant to Pop. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-006176-0.
  • Webern, Anton. 1929. Symphonie. Reprinted 1956. Vienna: Universal Edition.
  • Wingfield, Nancy Meriwether. "When Film Became National: 'Talkies' and the Anti-German Demonstrations of 1930 in Prague". Austrian History Yearbook. 29(1):113–138. Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota. Published online in 2015 by Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/S006723780001482X.

Further reading

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