The names of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are so frequently
linked as a trinity that the casual listener might presuppose a basis for stylistic
identity among the masters of the modern Viennese school. It is true that a certain
spiritual affinity emanated from their common culture and that the teacher-student
relationship stimulated a unity of purpose based upon a shared concept of musical
evolution. In fact, this concept provided the impetus for the creative activity of these
men in so far as each sought to construct his work as a logical development of the
conditions which constituted his heritage. But the growing experience of musical
consciousness of the composers caused each to emphasize particular aspects of the
traditional elements of art, reactivating and channeling them in a course consistent with
the dictates of his own genius. One has only to compare any of the works of Schoenberg,
Berg and Webern written at the same period, to recognize that we are dealing with musical
personalities, intensely complex and fundamentally distinct. Rather than attempt to trace
the course of each of these personalities in these necessarily limited notes, I have
confined myself to a few remarks about the most controversial and most easily
misunderstood of this trio, Anton Webern. There is common
to most musicians who have come under the influence of the Schoenbergian universe an
approach toward music, classic as well as contemporary, which attempts through analysis,
to reduce all sound forms to the lowest possible denominator. That is, to search for
motivic units which in some way contort and evolve themselves, and which thus can be
considered embryonic organisms which formulate the totality of the structure. The
development of this philosophy coincided with the decline of tonality in the nineteenth
century, and in fact, constituted a replacement of the architectural functions of the
decaying harmonic language. When one considers that during the first decade of
Schoenberg's work, his increasing use of chromatic resources steadily dissolved the
bulwarks of tonality, and the precipitous collapse of triad harmony threatened an
unregulated state of chaos, it is not surprising that the development of the detailed
minutiae of the motivic complexes on a two-dimensional level became part and parcel of an
artistic credo.
Webern's approach to the problem of unifying the musical
idea reveals an impeccable conscience. Even in his earliest works, he seems almost
reluctant to write a single note which is not an indispensable participant in the
totality, and which, one might almost say, cannot justify itself by an intellectual
explanation of its presence. Obviously, the overall dimensions of such music must display
a brevity consistent with their internal compactness. Schoenberg once remarked that Webern
has the gift of reducing a novel to a sigh. Possibly this extreme condensation within the
formal mould of his structures has been the greatest stumbling-block to most listeners. No
matter how radical may be the stylistic divergencies of Berg or Schoenberg, their
architectural designs, (the time element in their music) may, with few exceptions, be
classed among the predertemined patterns of rococco and early romantic art. Webern allows
his materials to create their own formal structures. It is significant that during the
years following the cessation of the tonal impulse in their music and predeceding the
arrangement of the laws governing the new atonal resources into the twelve-tone technique,
that is 1908-1924, when Berg produced such works as his epic, "Wozzeck", Webern
was content to experiment with this new world of sound in such a cautious manner that,
until the most discriminating intellect of twentieth century music had been satisfied with
the sureness of his craftmanship, he wrote only a series of works for various chamber
combinations, many of which lasted but a few seconds, and none more than a couple of
minutes. That one informed critic should have labeled a master with such indominitable
integrity and honesty, a "parsimonious composer" shows the regrettable lack of
understanding awarded Webern throughout his life.
The string quartet pieces of Opus 5 are one of his first
essays in atonal writing. Though nothing could display a less extrovert emotionalism,
there is a strikingly sensual quality manifest not only in the treatment of the strings
themselves, but also in the manner by which Webern frequently isolates an individual tone
or short interval-group, and, by alternating dynamic levels and instrumental timbres,
succeeds in immobilizing a particular pitch level around which the oblique shapes of his
half-counterpoints seek to fulfill their evolutionary destinies. It seems to me that the
expressionistic qualities of this music such as the above mentioned isolated tone
procedure - (Klangfarbenmelodie) carries to its zenith the very essence of the romantic
ideal of emotional intensity in art. Personally, I can never hear the mystical, opiated
quality of the brief fourth movement without recalling one or other of the series of
"Improvisations" with which Wassily Kandinsky, whose career closely parallels
Webern's, began his essays in abstraction in this same year. Almost more than any other
music this work symbolizes, for me, the instability of its period, the close of an epoch,
and the over-lapping of ideals from a new era.
Two decades separate these pieces from the Saxophone
quartet, Opus 22. Those decades witnessed a most decisive step in the evolution of the
musical language - a step which was the outcome of many years of experimentation for which
the composers of the Viennese school were largely responsible. The formulation of the laws
of the twelve-tone technique was a logical, though one would hesitate to say permanent,
solution toward the problem of disclipining the resources of atonality. Its prime
manifestation is the principle of the tone row, a sort of super motive which is considered
not as a theme but rather as an embryonic complex within which are contained the various
interval groups from whose consecutive movement melodically, and conjunct subdivision
harmonically, is assembled the composition at hand. The results of this coercive and
arbitrary procedure are off-set by the endless number of possibilities from which the
principles of perpetual variation can draw. Though it would be a waste of time to defend
the work of some adherents to the twelve-tone system who have proven themselves
inextricably ensnared by the fatal fascination for mathematical wizardry, the fact remains
that the essential idea is a grand one. Attached to the thought of the oneness of the
musical conception is an aura of quite romantic evocation, allying itself with the
preordained vision of the work of art on which much argument was spent in Schopenhauer's
Germany.
However, putting idealism aside it must be admitted that
the twelve-tone technique has produced in its more extreme examples an end result which
resists comparison with the traditional genre of romantic art. And it is precisely in the
consideration of the extreme divergencies as exhibited in the works of Webern that we are
forced to re-examine our own methods of musical evaluation. Of the three pre-eminent
masters of modern Viennese music, Webern stands alone in that he seems to have been born
to the system, to have lacked his natural element until he adopted it, and to have
established its devices as the rhetoric at the base of his musical consciousness.
Webern began to use the twelve-tone technique
consistently after 1925 and, subsequently the solidity and assurance which were absent in
many of the works of his transitional period, are felt in the more forceful and extended
treatment, of his ideas. The Saxophone Quartet is one of the longer of his early
twelve-tone works (it lasts almost eight minutes). The first movement is ternary in shape
and canonic in texture. It opens with a five-bar introduction which lays bare the interval
properties of his row in four three-tone groups which are echoed in inverted canon by a
row transposed down two semi-tones. The canon is rhythmically altered to display subtle
relationships between these two rows;
A B C D
|-------| |-----| |----| |-------|
Db Bb A C B Eb E F F# G# D G
B D E C C# A G# G F# E Bb F
|-------| |-----| |----| |-------|
B A D C
Without reproducing the score it would be impossible to
describe the ingenuity of this wonderfully placid prologue. Whereas in the opening of most
of Schoenberg's twelve-tone works, that composer makes his original row forms into a
recognizable melody, in most cases harmonized by the subdivision of its tones vertically,
and plunges us precipitously into the composition proper with as orthodox a beginning as
anything of Mozart or Spohr. Webern's course pursues the opposite path. He detaches each
significant factor in his row presentation, isolating it by a pause, as organically
rhythmic and as expressively variable as the sound pattern. The use of silence as the
frame of sound is, of course, as old as music itself. But Webern's utilization of it, not
as punctuation, but as an integral part of the phrase gives to his melodic delineation the
effect of a diagram in alternating patches of black and white. Compared to the virile
symphonism of Schoenberg the fragility of Webern's texture may seem almost puerile but
those who are willing to adjust themselves to the plane of receptive sensitivity which
Webern's musical thoughts demand, will find his works the product of the perfect
raconteur, who possesses the sense of mystery which stimulates the telling of his
narrative. And thus, in this wonderful opening of the "Saxophone Quartet", he
carefully prepares us for the adventure in variation which constitutes the work.
The main theme of the first movement, if one can still
speak of themes in this music, has been described by Rene Liebowitz as a "cantus
firmus for the saxophone", around which other instruments weave a lovely embroidery
in the form of a two-part canon in contrary motion. The centre section of the movement is
a canonic development of the motives from the introduction. The range and dynamic
intensity are increased by enlarging some intervals an octave, and the development takes
the form of a mirror episode proceeding retrogressively from its axis. The reprise of the
cantus firmus, this time distributed among saxophone, clarinet and violin marks the
recapitulation, with the piano being assigned both parts of the canon. Finally, five
measures of epilogue which present retrogressively the two raw transpositions of the
introduction bring the movement to a close. This andante has the shape of an arc, whose
zenith is attained with the insertion of the mirror image (Spiegelbild) at the point when
the span between the linear patterns has reached its apex, exactly five octaves separating
the highest and lowest tones of the entire movement.
While the first movement is notable for the severity of
its outline, the second derives its effect from the spontaneity of its development. This
is one of Webern's most extended movements and it is very difficult to apply to its one
hundred and ninety-two measures the designation of any preconceived mould associated with
tonality. It can only be described by a detailed analysis of the row technique which
demonstrates the logic and significance of each section, as it evolves in perpetual
variation. This movement, in fact, is one of the most conspicuous successes of Webern's
twelve-tone period, a testament to the unfailing imagination which characterizes his use
of the tone row technique. Moreover, the structural pliancy and lucidity which results
bears witness that Webern is the rare example of a composer who has made the twelve-tone
system serve to magnify the philosophy of aesthetics which all great artists comprehend -
that sorcery lies within the very idea of creation.
If I have a reservation about the "Saxophone
Quartet", it is, that I have always found it difficult to reconcile myself to its two
movements belonging to the same work. While each reveals the undeniable stamp of Webern's
greatness, there is a disunity of mood between them which is accentuated by the diverse
treatment of the tone row. Much the same may be said for the otherwise magnificent
two-movement Symphony, Opus 21. But no such objection can be raised in considering the
succeeding series of twelve-tone works, such as the Concerto for Nine Instruments and the
Piano Variations. Unfortunately, I have not been able to become acquainted with the two
cantatas for chorus and orchestra which Webern produced during the war years and which
culminated his creative activities. Admitting this limitation of perspective, I feel that
the Piano Variations, Opus 27 display, with the highest degree of refinement, those
characteristics which we have already ascribed to Webern's musical development.
The title, "Variations" seems almost ludicrous
and redundant in view of the twelve-tone ideology. One cannot, of course, relate a
twelve-tone work with this title, either to the ground base variation principle of the
baroque, or the theme and melodic-elaborative variation type of the rococco. To be sure,
in the second movement of his Symphony, (also entitled "Variations") Webern
maintains a clearly marked division between his theme and its succeeding variants although
the variations constitute an elaboration of structural elements within the theme itself
and are quite athematic in character. In Opus 27 however, even this barrier of definition
has been removed. The work is in three movements, each of which places specific values on
certain associations within the row forms, the initial presentation of which constitutes
the "theme". Webern is, however, remarkably exact about one detail. The number
of measures which are alloted to theme and variants are maintained intact. Thus, the
ternary first movement consists of three sections of eighteen measures each, the second
movement's row presentation takes five and one-half bars and is followed by three variants
of exactly that proportion, while the third movement's sixty-six measures are divided into
a theme and five variations each of eleven bars.
The first movement utilizes the Spiegelbild principle
which was described in the "Saxophone Quartet." But here it serves not as a
centre of gravity for the movement as a whole, but as the guiding principle within each
segment. A mirror image is inserted at the centre of each phrase causing the consequent
portion to recapitulate retrogressively the antecedent. Webern's use of the row in this
movement is governed by this principle, for in the antecedent portions of each phrase,
tones one to six are accompanied by tones twelve to seven; thus with the mirror image
causing the consequent reflection, the entire phrase will consist of one row in its
original form, accompanied by its retrogressive version. The character of the movement is
also governed by this principle which brings each sentence close to the point of
immobility, and a casual and leisurely expression is the result.
The second movement is a strict canon in contrary motion
which is so devised that between the four pairs of row transpositions which are employed,
various patterns of relationship are established, and revealed by an effect of shading so
novel that it must be ranked among the most important of Webern's contributions to
instrumental technique. In this movement he makes use of only three dynamic levels, piano,
forte and fortissimo, with no intemediate crescendi or diminuendi. He arranges his terse
rhythmic figurations so that the relationships within the row forms are displayed by the
alternation of these plateaus of volume.
The final movement is more extended and consists of a
"theme" and five variations which are recognizable by a gradual transition of
mood, rather than by any too obvious boundary. The "theme" is almost monodic.
There is, in fact, only one vertical coincidence in its eleven measures though several
harmonic combinations are produced by suspension. Such a remarkable economical texture
does not, in itself, constitute a criterion of merit. We must be careful to differentiate
between 'simplified' art which has a vogue with the neoclassic and various
"back-to-" cliques, and art in which purity and directness emanate from a
creator who has visualized the dramatic intensity that can underline the appearance of
each tone. There is no suggestion of reduction in this music. It was conceived this way.
This final movement attains a climax with the rhythmic syncopation of the fourth
variation. A coda, the final variation, more richly harmonized that the rest of the
movement, utilized once again, a modified Spiegelbild, which assists it to subside into an
all-enveloping serenity.
It is, I suppose, inevitable to attempt a comparison
between the twelve-tone works of Schoenberg and of Webern. One cannot, of course, ignore
the strong bond of kinship which exists between the two men, nor deny the idealistic
outlook which manifests itself in the use of the twelve-tone system by the Viennese
fraternity in general. But however closely allied may be the general outlook and Utopian
aspirations, it is left to the personality to determine the products of great men, and
there is really no more excuse for categorizing Webern with Schoenberg, than Kandinsky
with Kokoschka, or Thomas Mann with Nietzsche.
In all of his mature twelve-tone works, Schoenberg turns
a powerful ray of light upon every detail of his structure and, often with complete lack
of reservation, illuminates the most intimate details of the motivic-fragments
metamorphosis. If his means, therefore, become obvious it is because his aims are
grandiose. Webern's is a more suggestive art. Although in his use of the twelve-tone
technique he shows even greater consistency than Schoenberg, a microscopic inspection and
tabulation of each possibility is foreign to the delicacy of his style and the reticence
of his manner. In many of his later works we are almost unaware of the schematic
manipulations of his technical devices.
The extent to which he draws upon the total resources of
the twelve-tone vocabulary is regulated by a very singular selectivity. From this somewhat
epicurean temperament stem those qualities of refinement and discrimination which we have
already discussed. And it is these qualities which, originally motivated by a desire for
technical fastidiousness, approach, in his maturity, a realm of emotional transcendence.
There is an almost unearthly intuitiveness about the last works of Webern. It is as if he
sought a metaphysic with each creation. It would be false to suggest that his is purely a
cerebral craft. The gratification of the intellect and of the senses is inseparable in
art. However, any physical response or sensual stimulation has been elevated to so
subliminal a state, that it is very difficult to relate Anton Webern's music to the world
as we know it. But on the rare occasions in art, when we find revealed a visionary region
of such paradisacal enchantment, it is the happier diversion not to try.
-- Glenn Gould
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