Anton von Webern (1883-1945)
(born Vienna, 3 December 1883; died Mittersill, 15 September 1945).
He studied at Vienna University under Adler (1902-6), taking the doctorate
for work on Heinrich Isaac; in composition he was
one of Schönberg's first pupils (1904-8),
along with Berg. Like Berg, he developed
rapidly under Schönberg's guidance, achieving a fusion of Brahms,
Reger and tonal Schönberg in his orchestral Passacaglia,
already highly characteristic in its modest dynamic
level and its brevity. But he was closer than
Berg in following Schönberg into atonality,
even choosing verses by the same poet, Stefan George, to take the step
in songs of 1908-9. His other step was into a conducting career, which
he began with modest provincial engagements before World War I. After the
war he settled close to Schönberg in Mödling and took charge
of the Vienna Workers' Symphony Concerts (1922-34). Meanwhile he had continued
his atonal style, mostly in songs: the relatively few instrumental
pieces of 1909-14 had grown ever shorter, ostensibly because of
the lack of any means of formal extension in a language without key or
theme. However, the songs of 1910-25 show a reintroduction of traditional
formal patterns even before the arrival of serialism
(especially canonic patterns, no doubt stimulated, as was the instrumentation
of many of these songs, by Pierrot lunaire), to the extent that
the eventual adoption of the 12-note
method in the Three Traditional Rhymes (1925) seems almost incidental,
making little change to a musical style that was already systematized
by strict counterpoint.
However,
Webern soon recognized that the 12-note principle
sanctioned a severity and virtuosity of polyphony that he could compare
with that of the Renaissance masters he had studied. Unlike Schönberg,
he
never again sought to compose in any other way. Rather, the highly
controlled, pure style of his Symphony appears to have represented an ideal
which later works could only repeat, showing different facets. His use
of the series as a source of similar motifs, especially in instrumental
works, merely emphasizes the almost geometrical perfection of this music,
for which he found literary stimulus in Goethe and, more nearly, in the
poetry of his friend and neighbour Hildegard Jone, whose words he set exclusively
during his last dozen years. With Schönberg gone, Berg dead and himself
deprived of his posts, Webern saw Jone as one of his few allies during
World War II. He was shot in error by a soldier after the end of hostilities,
leaving a total acknowledged output of about three hours' duration.
(see also article: The
Second Viennese School)