Webern

[Richard Barrett]

It's not as though most of his works last very long.

This is part of the problem though. What you need to be able to do with Webern is put yourself into the same kind of state of intense concentration on every moment that you would in a concert, which is difficult when some little piece or other of his gets slotted into a broadcast schedule. I was pondering this on Friday evening after seeing a performance of his op.1 Passacaglia. I must have heard it dozens of times on CD, sometimes no doubt while following a score, but the way in which this work (along with its successors in Webern's oeuvre) concentrates an almost Mahlerian form and expression into a few minutes is something I can only really appreciate with the sense of presence and occasion that comes with a live performance. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

[Mandryka]

Schoenberg wrote a preface for the 1924 edition of Webern's op 9 bagatelles.

Can anyone help me find a copy of it in English or French? Free and online!

[Bryn]

Schoenberg wrote a preface for the 1924 edition of Webern's op 9 bagatelles.

Can anyone help me find a copy of it in English or French? Free and online!

You will have to register for a free access month but: https://www.scribd.com/document/3819...s-for-4tet-Op9

[Mandryka]

You will have to register for a free access month but: https://www.scribd.com/document/3819...s-for-4tet-Op9

Thanks, but somehow I don't want to sign up just to cancel!

[RichardB]

IMO it's worth paying for.

[smittims]

If I had time I'd type it out for you from my Philharmonia pocket score. It's quite short. Just a feaw lines. But I've got to go. Maybe later.

[Mandryka]

IMO it's worth paying for.

Scribd, you mean? The only reason I don’t do it is that I don’t really like reading academic papers on screen. Do you use a tablet to read them?

[Mandryka]

If I had time I'd type it out for you from my Philharmonia pocket score. It's quite short. Just a feaw lines. But I've got to go. Maybe later.

Thanks for the thought!


The reason I want to see it is that I was in a discussion about expressiveness in Webern op 5 (Five Pieces for String Quartet.) According to Moldenhauer’s biography op 9 and op 5 were written at about the same time. Malcolm MacDonald in his book on Schoenberg quotes a sentence from the preface, which casts a bit of light on how these people understood expressiveness:

Think what self denial is necessary to cut a long story so short . . . to convey a novel in a single gesture, or happiness by one catch of the breath!

So I’m kind of curious to see more from the preface. But if it’s short, maybe there is no more illumination to be gained.

[Mandryka]

By the way, when I was looking at Moldenhauer’s book, I found this astonishing quote from Alma Mahler’s Meine Leben from 1915.

Webern produced few but original compositions. He became ever more radical and Schoenberg at one time complained to me and Werfel how much he was suffering under the dangerous influence of Webern and that he needed all his strength to extricate himself from it.

[Bryn]

Is not Scoenberg's full text simply:

“Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Every glance can be expanded into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single breath—such concentration can only be present when there is a corresponding absence of self-indulgence.”?

[Mandryka]

Is not Scoenberg's full text simply:

“Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Every glance can be expanded into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single breath—such concentration can only be present when there is a corresponding absence of self-indulgence.”?

Ah, looks like MacDonald had given the essence of it anyway. Thanks.

[A Robyn]

Ah, looks like MacDonald had given the essence of it anyway. Thanks.

Try this link: https://www.google.co.uk/books/editi...bpv=1&pg=PA184

[Serial_Apologist]

Is not Scoenberg's full text simply:

“Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Every glance can be expanded into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single breath—such concentration can only be present when there is a corresponding absence of self-indulgence.”?

On my cassette of Webern Day I have the announcer quoting Schoenberg as saying "Absence of self-pity", which has always struck me as implying something quite different from self-indulgence, which I would read as "indulgence in Self" as opposed to concentration on the matter in hand rather than investing it with hyper-emotional subjectivity. Assuming I've got this right this would imply a radical aesthetic shift away from the intense subjectivity of Op. 5 and other works up to that time.

[smittims]

Though the brevity of these pieces is a persuasive advocate for them, on the other hand that very brevity itself requires an advocate.

Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. You can stretch every glance out into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a breath - such concentration can only be present in proportion to the absence of self-pity.

These pieces will only be understood by those who share the faith that music can say things that can only be expressed by music.

These pieces can face criticism as little as this - or any - belief.

If faith can move mountains, disbelief can deny their existence. And faith is impotent against such impotence.

Does the musician know how to play these pieces, does the listener know how to receive them? Can faithful musicians and listeners fail to surrender themselves to one another?

But what shall we do with the heathen? Fire and sword can keep them down; only believers need to be restrained.

May this silence sound for them.

Arnold Schoenberg
Modling, June 1924

[Serial_Apologist]

Though the brevity of these pieces is a persuasive advocate for them, on the other hand that very brevity itself requires an advocate.

Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. You can stretch every glance out into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a breath - such concentration can only be present in proportion to the absence of self-pity.

These pieces will only be understood by those who share the faith that music can say things that can only be expressed by music.

These pieces can face criticism as little as this - or any - belief.

If faith can move mountains, disbelief can deny their existence. And faith is impotent against such impotence.

Does the musician know how to play these pieces, does the listener know how to receive them? Can faithful musicians and listeners fail to surrender themselves to one another?

But what shall we do with the heathen? Fire and sword can keep them down; only believers need to be restrained.

May this silence sound for them.

Arnold Schoenberg
Modling, June 1924

Thanks for the full quote, smittims. I still stand by my different interpretation of Schoenberg's words he, in his Op 19 piano pieces, and Berg, very briefly in the Altenberglieder and the clarinet and piano pieces, have been cited as also preoccupied with a foreshortening of expression and means, arguably under Webern's influence, and one could easily hear in AS's retrospective comment on Op 9 an aspiration to spiritual insights almost in terms of a religious self-denial of which he judged himself temperamentally incapable of achieving. It might be interesting, in that light, to see how the post-WW2 serialists who took Webern rather than Schoenberg, or Berg for that matter, as their nearest model in the quest for a new, self-purifying start, freed from what they saw as the burden of the past borne by most of their predecessors.