Anton Webern

Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern
(He never used his middle names and dropped the von in 1918)
(December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945)
was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School.
The early years
Webern received his first musical instruction from his mother, an amateur pianist. In Klagenfurt, Edwin Komauer instructed him in the rudiments of musical theory, as well as in piano. Webern also learned to play the cello and participated in the local orchestra.
First compositions
His first compositions, two pieces for cello and piano (1899) and several songs, date from the Klagenfurt period. In 1902, after graduation from the Klagenfurt Humanistisches Gymnasium, he attended performances of Wagner operas at the Bayreuth Festival; these left a deep impression on the young musician.
The college years
That fall, he entered the University of Vienna, studying musicology and composition. He received his Ph.D. degree (1906) with a dissertation on the Choralis Constantinus II of the Dutch composer Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450-1517).
Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1904, Webern had become a private pupil of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. The association proved to be a decisive influence. With Schoenberg, and soon also his friend the young composer Alban Berg, Webern explored new dimensions of musical expression, leading to the breakthrough that established "atonality"--a revolutionary concept abnegating the necessity of a governing tonal centre.
A new direction
Schoenberg's direction of Webern's musical development ended in 1908. By then, Webern had already written many works, including the orchestral idyll Im Sommerwind (antedating his study with Schoenberg), several string quartets, the songs based on poems of Richard Dehmel, the orchestral Passacaglia, Opus 1, and the choral canon Entflieht auf leichten Kähnen, Opus 2. These still adhere to traditional tonality, but, with the Stefan George songs (1908-09), Webern entered the realm of music no longer based on a fixed tonal centre.
Compressed compositions
In 1911, Webern married Wilhelmine Mörtl, the daughter of his mother's sister. Because of the Roman Catholic prohibition of the union of first cousins, the marriage was solemnized only in 1915, after three of the couple's four children had already been born. During the years 1908 to 1913 he held posts as coach and conductor in Vienna, Ischl, Innsbruck, Teplitz, Danzig, and Stettin. His compositions of that period reveal a growing tendency to compress the highest intensity of expression within the greatest formal brevity, characteristics that mark opuses 5 through 11.
Expanded forms
The Cello Sonata (1914) marks his first effort to return to more expanded forms following his "aphoristic" period. Opuses 12 through 19 (composed between 1914 and 1926) are vocal compositions; except Opus 12, which employs piano accompaniment, these works are distinguished by highly original instrumental combinations.
World War I
In 1915, during World War I, Webern enlisted for army service but was discharged at the end of 1916 because of poor eyesight. After a last theatre season in Prague (1917-18), he settled in Mödling, near Vienna, teaching privately and acting as supervisor for the Schoenberg-founded Society for Private Musical Performances (1918-22).
In 1924, Schoenberg formulated the 12-tone method of composition--the system in which a basic "row," formed from the 12 independent tones of the chromatic scale, is used melodically and harmonically through the devices of inversion, retrograde progression, and transposition, allowing for a total of 48 possibilities in which the chosen row may appear.
Twelve-tone method
Webern adopted this system first in his Kinderstück for piano, employing the serial technique thereafter for all further compositions (opuses 17-31) and developing it with severe consistency to its most extreme potential. The instrumental works during that period (opuses 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 30) are governed by rigorous formal discipline.
Inspiration
In the vocal realm, the lyrics of Hildegard Jone, a painter and poet, inspired all of Webern's later works (opuses 23, 25, 26, 29, 31). Always professing his ties with tradition, Webern was a foremost exponent of the genre of the German Lied. He also was a skillful arranger; notable among his orchestrations of classic works is the Ricercata from J.S. Bach's Musical Offering.
Conducting
After the Society for Private Musical Performances was dissolved, he conducted several choirs, notably the "Singverein," a lay group especially organized to perform masterworks, such as Mahler's Symphony No. 8, in conjunction with the Workers' Symphony Concerts. Both organizations, sponsored by the Social Democratic Party, were dissolved after the "Dollfuss Revolution" (February 1934). As guest conductor, Webern occasionally appeared with the Austrian Radio Orchestra and was invited to conduct in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, and England.
Teaching
Although an outstanding teacher, Webern never received an appointment at the University of Vienna or the music academy. He held a minor position at the Israelitic Institute for the Blind (1925-31), and from 1932 on gave private lecture courses. Public recognition at home remained limited to the Vienna Music Prize, awarded to him twice (1924, 1932) under the Socialist regime.
Political upheaval
Politically never active, Webern yet fell victim to the rising tide of right-wing nationalism. Schoenberg left Europe soon after Hitler came to power in 1933. The Nazis branded the music of the "New Vienna school" as "cultural Bolshevism" and "degenerate art" and banned performance of this type of music. Webern's artistic isolation grew complete with Berg's death in 1935, and his economic plight became desperate after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938.
World War II & Death
The political upheaval brought to a halt the publication of his works. With almost no private pupils left, Webern had to resort to accepting such tasks as piano arrangements of works by lesser composers. Always of a retiring disposition, he fell into total obscurity with the outbreak of World War II.
Webern's disillusionment with the Hitler regime was deepened by increasing bombing raids. In February 1945 his only son, Peter, was killed in a strafing attack on a train. When the Russian Army neared Vienna, the composer and his wife fled to Mittersill near Salzburg, where their three daughters and grandchildren had sought refuge.
Webern was accidentally shot and killed by an American Army soldier following the arrest of his son-in-law for black market activities, when he stepped outside the house to enjoy a cigar without disturbing his sleeping grandchildren.
Works with Opus Numbers

Op. 1 Passacaglia for Orchestra (1908)

Op. 2 Entflieht auf Leichten Kaehnen (1908)

Op. 3 Five Songs from Der Siebente Ring (1908-1909)

Op. 4 Five Songs on poems by Stefan George (1908-1909)

Op. 5 Five Movements for String Quartet (1909)

Op. 6 Six Pieces for Large Orchestra (1909)

Op. 7 Four Pieces for Violin and Piano (1910)

Op. 8 Two Songs of Poems by Ranier Maria Rilke (1910)

Op. 9 Six Bagatelles for String Quartet (1911)

Op. 10 Five Pieces for Orchestra (1911)

Op. 11 Three Little Pieces for Violincello and Piano (1914)

Op. 12 Four Songs for Voice and Piano (1915-17)

Op. 13 Four Song for Voice and Orchestra (1914-18)

Op. 14 Six Songs on Poems of George Trakl (1917-21)

Op. 15 Five Sacred Songs(1917-22)

Op. 16 Five Canons on Latin Texts (1924)

Op. 17 Three Traditional Rhymes (1924)

Op. 18 Three Songs (1925)

Op. 19 Two Songs (1926)

Op. 20 String Trio (1926-1927)

Op. 21 Symphony (1927-1928)

Op. 22 Quartet (1928-1930)

Op. 23 Three Songs From "viae inviae" (1934)

Op. 24 Concerto (1931-1934)

Op. 25 Three Songs on Poems by Hildegard Jone (1934)

Op. 26 Das Augenlicht ("Durch unsre offnen Augen") (1935)

Op. 27 Variations for Piano (1935-1936)

Op. 28 String Quartet (1936-1938)

Op. 29 First Cantata (1938-1940)

Op. 30 Variations for Orchestra (1940)

Op. 31 Second Cantata (1943)

Works without Opus Numbers

Two Pieces for cello and piano (1899)

Three Poems, for voice and piano (1899-1902)

Eight Early Songs, for voice and piano (1901-1903)

Three Songs, after Ferdinand Avenarius (1903-1904)

Im Sommerwind, idyl for large orchestra after a poem by Bruno Wille (1904)

Slow Movement for string quartet (1905)

String Quartet (1905)

Piece for piano (1906)

Rondo for piano (1906)

Rondo for string quartet (1906)

Five Songs, after Richar Dehmel (1906-1908)

Piano Quintet (1907)

Four Songs, after Stefan George (1908-1909)

Five Pieces for orchestra (1913)

Three Songs, for voice and orchestra (1913-1914)

Cello Sonata (1914)

Piece for children, for piano (1924)

Piece for piano, in the tempo of a minuet (1925)

Piece for string trio (1925)

Deutsche Tänze (German Dances) by Schubert (1824), orchestrated by Webern (1932)

Webern's Posthumous Influence on the Music of Future.
During his own lifetime, Webern's compositions were never much appreciated. Being so different from the music that was popular in Europe at the time, audiences found his style confusing and incomprehensible. Even today many people have trouble understanding his music, which actually can have moments of sheer beauty. Because of the demands his music put on performers, many musicians refused even to attempt it; and during the Second World War the Nazis banned his works entirely. He was ultimately reduced to making a living as a proofreader for his own former publisher.
After his death, Webern's influence began to spread rapidly among the new musicians of the free world. His use of serialism and his emphasis on a single note or single melodic line gained interest with many composers who subsequently expanded his techniques to fit their own styles such as Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen. It is perhaps regrettable, however, that many of Webern's disciples have not had sufficient regard for some of his deeper musical philosophies that were founded on his profound religious convictions. Webern's great reverence for God and religion — which even the war and the death of his only son could not shake — can be seen most acutely in the texts of his sacred works.
"Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference,
he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds,
his dazzling diamonds,
of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge."
— Igor Stravinsky