Anton Webern: The Man and his Music

Extract

Non multa, sed multum. How happy I would be, could this saying be applied here!” With these words, Anton Webern dedicated the score of his Op. 9, the six Bagatelles for string quartet, to his friend Alban Berg. Each of these pieces, though lasting only a few seconds, contains a truly remarkable wealth of musical expression. But this old Latin adage may also very suitably be applied to the whole of Webern's work. The published list commences with a large composition for orchestra, the Passacaglia Op. 1 (1908), written after a long and strict study with Arnold Schönberg. It shows the twenty-five-year-old composer in complete command of all the traditional means of his art. Even this work, clearly influenced by Brahms's late style, betrays a peculiar originality, wrestling for its own means of expression in its melodic invention and its endeavour to expand tonality to the uttermost. Also the next work, a double Canon for mixed choir a cappella to words by Stefan George, strives for a certain conciliation between conventional ways of writing and the new presentation of a clearly conceived tone-world. The early tendency to marshal and arrange even the boldest and freest musical thoughts by orthodox musical form-laws (passacaglia, canon), remains characteristic also of Webern's latest compositions.