analysis and performance: webern's concerto op.24/ii

Analysis and Performance: Webern's Concerto Op.24/IIAuthor(s): Christopher WintleSource: Music Analysis, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 73-99Published by: Blackwell PublishingStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853992Accessed: 21/06/2010 16:05

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CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE: WEBERN'S CONCERTO OP.24/II

Introducing his Second Symphony recently to a London audience, Peter Maxwell Davies accounted for the broad movement of pitches at the opening of the Sonata-Allegro in terms derived from Heinrich Schenker: a principal pitch (Kopfton) was reached by way of an ascent (Anstieg), and, later in the work, was led to a full closure of the line, in the manner of an Urlinie. This renewed interest in tonal procedures - and especially in those enveloped in a 'hierarchic' mystique - is, of course, rapidly becom- ing the fashion. But if it answers to a widely-felt need to offer listeners clearly-articulated aural signposts once again, then it raises other questions that, for the time being at least, are less easy to answer: how do these tonal features integrate with the serially-derived transformational processes that generate so much of the music's surface? Is there a dichotomy here? If so, should it worry us? But even these are familiar questions, as may be seen from a recent issue of the 3'ournal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute. Challenging Hans Keller's identification of tonalities in Schoenberg's twelve-note music- tonalities that others have seen amplified through step-wise voice-leading - Arnold Whittall has asked: 'If "the foreground is atonal" but "the background isn't", where are the demonstrations of the nature of those backgrounds, and of the precise relationship between foreground and background ?' 1

There is another side to this matter too. In a well-known polemic published in 1958,2 Peter Stadlen directed his attack against twelve-note music, not primarily from a composer's viewpoint, but from a performer's. What was the point, he asked, of invoking traditional performing practices, when the language of Webern's music did not seem to suggest intrinsically - as tonal language had certainly done- the shaping de- manded of it? But how fair was the criticism? Certainly, diagnoses of just this kind of dichotomy in the music of the Second Viennese School were a hallmark of the time. And insofar as the purging of traditional features from 'advanced' serial music of the day led to no new body of literature concerned with interpretative (as opposed to executive) issues, Stadlen's scepticism touched upon real difficulties. On the other hand, was it really

(B) MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: l, 1982 73

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

true to claim that there was nothing traditional to respond to in the language of Webern's music? Or would the demonstration of a prolonged 'background' of the kind that Whittall has called for - whether with a tonal or twelve-note basis - vindicate the application of traditional interpretative means, at the same time easing the sense of internal discontinuities that has always attached itself critically to the later work of these Viennese composers ?

It is the last of these questions that I shall attempt to answer in this paper,3 not least because it is once again so topical. And to do so, I shall turn back to the very work that proved so seminal for serial composers of the Forties and Fifties, Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op.24. Here, however, I shall be concentrating, not on the first, but on the second movement, which has attracted so much less attention (the third has been almost entirely ignored), even though of the three movements it is much the most engaging expressively. I shall preface my analysis with an account of Viennese performing practices as they were interpreted in the first part of this century. These will be shown to determine in part some of the large-scale features of the music, as well as some of the minutiae. In turning to the pitch-structure of the work, I shall necessarily invoke more complex ideas of syntax than has often been the case in dis- cussing serial music, in order to separate 'foregrounds' from 'backgrounds', and to describe precisely the mechanism by which these are linked.

I hope that this paper, which addresses itself to two issues, will have two kinds of usefulness: on the one hand, in helping conductors to shape performances of the movement; and, on the other, in pointing to a 'classic' source for the kind of integrated, hierarchic twelve-note music that is now of such concern to composers, theorists, and, not least of all perhaps, to listeners.

1: Performing In his Handbook of Conducting,4 Hermann Scherchen, whom Webern con- sidered 'the best conductor for his works',5 defined 'the alpha and omega of conducting' as 'the capacity to conceive an absolutely ideal performance in the imagination'. Everything, he declared, was to be subordinate to this: 'the executive technique ... must obey the preconception which the conductor has formed of the work'. And the preparation for this 'ideal performance', he went on to explain, lay through analysis: the conductor 'must learn to determine in each work the inner dynamics according to which melody, harmony, rhythm and architecture are co-ordinated'. From one point of view, Webern's attitudes were very similar: as the foremost Austrian composer-conductor of his day, he also prepared himself 'in the most careful manner, through minute, but also time-consuming study of the text and structure of each single work', insisting along with Scherchen

74 MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: 1, 1982

WEBERN'S CONCERTO OP.241II

that these preparations were only means to an end, and that the important goal was the sense of occasion and enhanced 'spirituality' that the concert was to generate: reports of Webern's concerts, indeed, allude to an emotional intensity bordering on fanaticism.

From another point of view, Webem's insistence that, at least as far as his own music was concerned, 'audiences and even performers did not need to know the technical processes by which twelve-tone music is con- structed' has suggested to some musicians a separation of means and ends, an implication of double standards in the music. This is rather what Stadlen had in mind, in writing of Webern's 'dual attitude to music: on the one hand his urge to express extra-musical contents was carried to such extremes that the notes had become almost incidental and were only regarded as carriers of expression; at the same time he strove to free music from this bondage and so restore it to that autonomous structural sense it had tended to lose during the romantic period'.6 This account of Webern's expressive flexibility, furthermore, is corroborated by other reports. Steuermann recorded that Webern 'played [Op.24, No.1] so freely that I could hardly follow the music, but it was extraordinary' (adding, it must also be said, that when he conducted he 'was not so free'); and Klemperer remembered Webern playing 'every note [of the Symphony, Op.21] with enormous intensity and fanaticism'. But for all that the music was to be 'shaped with an enormous amount of rubato', with (in the Piano Variations, Op.27) definite changes of tempo every few bars to mark the start of 'new sentences', other accounts have suggested that there was nothing arbitrary in this flexibility, and, indeed, that it emanated from a single, unified interpretative vision. According to Lehrigstein, Webern 'felt so sure that there always was, at least in music, just one way of doing things. He could make no concessions of any kind and he felt quite certain that only the Schoenberg school knew the right way of understanding, performing, and perhaps even composing music.'

The source of the vision - and one central to the understanding of both the performance and the composition of this music - lay in the late- Romantic view of Beethoven, which Scherchen described in terms redolent of all the grandiose fervour of a Romain Rolland: Beethoven was torn, he said, between 'his own creative autocracy and his desire to sink himself in universal humanity'.7 Webern shared this view: 'every solution to a problem was supported by the ethic of an artistic attitude that had its deepest roots in Beethoven's ideal of humanity'. This made itself manifest in his teaching of composition ('no matter where we might wander in our analyses and discussions, we always returned to the sonatas and symphon- ies of Beethoven') and in his teaching of conducting (just as in Scherchen's Handbook, the principal analysis was of the First Symphony, so too Webern's course 'began with the First Symphony and culminated in Fi- delio').

But if the compositional effects of Webern's Beethovenian neo-

MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: l, 1982 75

Ob. Fl. ( calando tempo

i r t z uf t 4,< D+9 r rnp p mp } p f

4 e t t> t 9sS\ > v/Tb.

Ob. catando geethragen tempo

4g f Si t t 7 bt Hrn, (;@) ? f mp P PPk ppk mp / P 9 t f t Xf 4T + Z j ' 7 1 6 ctl h

mp p __ _

wigder catando_______ tempo lando getroger 3 tempo Hrn. j Ob. t f. f

pp - m p mp P p

_@ t 4] > #J t 4>;L t'';1 t 2

Reproduced by kind permission of Universal Edition (Alfred A. Kalmus Ltd.). This arrangement has been made for study purposes only and may not be performed publicly.


sehr getragen _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ternpo Fl. calando________ __ _sehr getragen ; *= Trp. ( t ,_>: Va. r ,_+ Hrn.

mp mp p pp =

2 4S 9 t 9< t wt-jU t rgj

Trb. Cl.

WEBERN S CONCERTO OP. 24/ II

Original instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet; horn, trurnpet, trombone; violin, wiola; piano.

score in a piano performing version. This is not simply a practical or pedagogic convenience, as might be the case, for example, with a Karl Klindworth reduction of a Wagner Music Drama, but reveals something intrinsic to the music. The piece fits perfectly under the fingers of two hands without alteration or omission of any kind (the same is - just ! - true of the other two movements), and could well be played as a piano inter-

Musrc ANALYSIS 1: l, 1982 77

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

mezzo (although the keyboard range might feel a bit limited). It is a restriction, furthermore, that affects the strategy of the composition. Here the simple homophonic circumstance of tune and accompaniment, col- oured by what Wildgans has described as a 'pointilliste' instrumentation8 (a more appropriate term than Klangfarbenmelodie), is adhered to throughout: in the hands of another composer, the situation whereby several instruments articulate a single line might well have given way to one where several lines are each articulated by single instruments with a consequent contrapuntal elaboration of texture.

There are plenty of biographical accounts of Webern's own use of the piano to suggest reasons for this restriction. Throughout his life, he made piano reductions of his own music (Opp.1, 8, 13, 14, 15, 19, 29 and 31) as well as that of Schoenberg, Wagner-Regeny, Schoeck, Casella and others. That some of this was enforced labour should not disguise the fact that these reductions met the demands of the times, not only for rehearsal purposes, but also for concert ones (in our own timbre-conscious times, the arrangement per se has fared extraordinarily badly). Apart from this, he introduced new works to his friends at the piano, taught analysis at the piano, played student exercises at the piano, and- most pertinently perhaps - coached conductors from the piano. To meet the last of these needs, therefore, the layout of the Concerto could hardly be more suitably arranged.

On the other hand, the caveats that Scherchen issued regarding the interpretative limitations inherent in a keyboard training raise another, and important, practical consideration: that of the articulation of line. He writes in the Handbook:

The piano as an instrument used in the home has acted on music as a plague and wrought terrible havoc. Even in orchestras, people are to be encountered whose musical training has taught them to decompose melodic relationships into small parts. Just as the guileless pianist con- ceives a bass which merely signifies a harmonic displacement as a division of structural articulation, so do other players hack periods in 4 into half bars, and partition live melodic entities into metric fragments.9

In his book, this issue is pursued in more detail than can be entered into here, though one comparison will demonstrate what it is that Scherchen has in mind. Ex. 2 shows the famous melody from Weber's Der Freischutz

Ex.2 a.

4t1 Jr .sl f S lf . > 1 r r g b.

4 f w1F 21 21f v tension-crescendo

78 MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: l, 1982

WEBERN S CONCERTO OP. 241 II

overture, first in the 'hack' version (a), and then in the preferred form (b): the term tension-crescendo is one of Scherchen's central concepts, used to indicate 'only the illusion' of a crescendo, with little or no 'real increase in the loudness of the tone':

The harmonic motion is effected in the fourth bar. In the first three, the Eb-major chord rises in a melodic pattern consisting of turns and of real notes; and then - when the dominant harmony has entered - sinks with the suspension C-Bb, back to its starting point.10

Just how important this sense of the shaping of line was to Webern also is conveyed by Steuermann's description of his conducting of Bach: 'he combined a projection of the motivic structure, which made the music vibrant with inner life, with a sense of the great line, always supported by simple and clear dynamics' (my italics). However much Baroque performing practice may have evolved over the last forty years or so, these remarks are especially illuminating about Webern's compositional pri- orities. Ex. 3 shows, through a basic formal analysis, how the various sections of the Concerto movement are all in effect articulations of the great line spanning the entire 78 bars, and how each section is itself delineated by 'simple and clear dynamics'.

The formal partitioning shows, within the context of a binary-ternay form, the 'Beethovenian', classical scheme. The divisions of Part 1 follow those of Leopold Skinner1 1 (who in turn responded to the teaching in this matter of Webern and Schoenberg) in describing a period, comprising an antecedent (in two sections), a consequent (in two sections with an extension), and a prolongation of the consequent which leads the period from its climax to its conclusion. Each of these three parts concludes with, and is articulated by, a tapering, calando phrase. For Part 2, Webern invokes the classical Model and Sequence principal, offering seven versions of the Model, which itself comprises three elements: a sehr getragen opening, invariably marked pp; a tempo section; and - as in Part 1 - a calando conclusion, articulated here, as there, by a fall in dynamics. Three of these models are allotted to the Durchfuhrung (Schoenberg's preferred term for the Development), whose 28 bars balance the 28 bars of Part 1: three to the Recapitulation (which, as will be explained in due course, is not seen as synonymous with the recapitulation of the sets of Part 1, which return at b. 452); and one to the Coda, where the calando conclusion is replaced by the more all-embracing instruction, morendo.

As far as the dynamics are concerned, it is striking that the scale on which they range, f-mp-p-pp-ppp, excludes the degree mf. This is also the case in the other movements (both of which include the only other dynamic degree X). The reason for this exclusion is probably as much biographical as it is musical. Webern, always so anxious to please his teacher, would have been only too aware that Schoenberg (the dedicatee of the work) discouraged students from using this indication, on the grounds that

MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: 1, 1982 79

Key * denotes a phrase ending calando + denotes a phrase played sehr getragen

m indicates a general instruction morendo (-) indicates that there is no calando at the close of Model 6, i.e. in column (c). This may be an omission, but it probably reflects the attenuation of the music at this point, where only a single piano chord would be subsumed under this indication. In line 3 of the consequent of the period, the two dynamic values subsume and replace the expected dynamic value in column (c) of line 2.

it lacked identity. A progression, therefore, such as occurs between bs 232 and 28, f-mp-p-pp, would seem to represent a regularly terraced dimin- uendo, without a sharp drop fromf to mp.

The shaping of the first five bars of the movement offers a paradigm for every subsequent section. A pp opening (only at the beginning of the

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Ex. 3 FORM

Part 1 Exposition Antecedent of the Period: 1. of the Period: 2. Consequent of the Period: 1. OfthePeriod: 2. (extended :) 3. Prolongation

of the Consequent: Part 2 Durchfuhrung Model 1: Model 2: (extended :) Model 3: Recapitulation Model 4: Model 5: Model 6: Coda Model 7:

BARS D YNAMICS (a) (b)

(c)

6

-5 1

pp

p

p mp p

pp pp

ll2_ 16 17 - 211 212 _ 231

232 _ 28

mp p PP mp p >)

{ * ^

mp p

1. ppo f mpp

p* 29 - 33 p* 34 _ 39 p* 392 _ p* 432 _ 56

p* 57 - 63 pp* 64 - 68 pp(-) 69 - 73

ppp/m 74 - 78

PP+ mp PP+ mp

mp pp+ f mp

pp+ pp+ pp+

pp+

mp

p p

pp/m


WEBERN S CONCERTO OP.24/II

consequent is this p): a move to a higher dynamic (here, p); with a falling away to a lesser one, sometimes (as here, with the pp) to that with which the phrase opened. As we have already seen, it is this paradigm that as- sumes an even more concrete form in the Models of Part 2 of the piece. Subsidiary phrases (the second parts of the antecedent and consequent, the extensions and prolongations) use only the second and third elements of this paradigm. And the general shape of the movement can be observed by comparing the second elements of each line of the example (in other, words, by reading down column (b)): a growth in Part 1 from p through mp to a brief moment of f at the beginning of the prolongation of the consequent, with an immediate fall back to mp and p before the calando pp close. In the Durchfuhrung of Part 2, the central column shows a growth from mp in Models 1 and 2, to an extended climactic f in Model 3. This 'works out' the f dynamic level, and in the recapitulation and coda, Models 4 to 7 show a gradual fall in the column: mp to p and finally pp, mirroring the gradual dispersal of energy and increased fragmentation of

* * * t

ne 1n t l1S SeCtlOn. Indeed, the compositional tension in the work resides in the opposition

between extended linear arches on the one hand, and the fragmentation of the instrumentation through which the arches reveal themselves on the other. These kinds of melody, Scherchen said, 'cannot be performed cor- rectly unless each player mentally sings the whole of them as they are played, and contributes his share in accordance with the conception of the whole thus formed'. 'To sing', he explained, 'is the life function of music... all singing is concentration and release.'12 A singing quality could be achieved not merely through the use of surreptitious crescendi and diminuendi, and by sustaining notes with tension-crescendi, but by introducing a sense of the 'onward urge' - for 'the correct determination and achievement of this onward impetus is the whole secret of good performance'. But if the general shaping of each section, and, indeed, of the whole piece, is indicated by the dynamics, an 'onward urge' presupposes motion to and from specific musical goals. What are these goals? And how are they articulated? These questions bring us back to our opening ones, and demand that the issues of performance now become those of analysis. 13 But first, some preliminaries.

2: Analytic preliminaries According to Hans Moldenhauer, this movement was composed at the end of July 1934, in 'less than one week'.14 In March of that year, Webern had completed the Three Songs, Op.23, for voice and piano to texts of Hilde- garde Jone. These texts show how a sense of grace may be achieved in a number of ways: through contemplating the dependence of life upon death; by arriving at a self-denying awareness of nature; and through rec- ognising what it is that nature has to offer man. That he was still involved

MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: 1, 1982

81

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

in Jone's imaginative world during the composition of Op.24 - much of which was concurrent with that of Op.23 - is shown not only by his inten- tion at one stage to include a text of Jone in the first movement, but also by his likening of the second movement to one of her paintings of a 'harvest-wagon' (in one of the earliest sketches, furthermore, this movement was inscribed with the name Schwabegg, the burial ground of one of his parents).

These, of course, are private, biographical observations. But in its clar- ity of diction, Webern's music retains something of the straightforward, unashamed piety of Jone's writing. Indeed, his is a studied simplicity: the tempo (minim=40) is sehr langsam (originally ruXig, but now perhaps a little too slow to prevent the central section, bs 29-56, from sounding slightly strained if there is not a fairly marked 'onward rush' at this point); the durational values are limited to crotchets and minims, an austere restriction that nevertheless permits a suppleness of motion, as well as pro- viding a striking contrast with the mixed rational and irrational values of the first movement; there are only two forms of attack - the slurred note and the weighted note- both being articulations within an implicit, overall legato (and both being linked in the sehr getragen sections, where weighted crotchets are slurred together over an intervening rest); the 'pointilliste' instrumentation, as we have already observed, is maintained without variation or contrast; and the eight melody instruments play well within their compasses, with no exploitation of their individual characteristics beyond the use of mutes by the brass and strings.

However, it is not so much these kinds of feature that have attracted the attention of previous commentators, but rather some of the distinctive operations with the pitch sets. In what was, by the standards of Webern criticism generally, a relatively early article,15 Leopold Skinner described and designated the row forms in the first 28 bars, demonstrating how some of the more unusual manipulations served to articulate the broader aspects of the period structure. He did not, however, offer a sustained rationale to account for the successions of the sets, nor did he pursue the issue into Part 2 of the movement. On the other hand, some of his remarks about motivic continuities are attractive and suggestive, although his failure to take account of the dynamic articulations led him to designate five phrases in the antecedent, rather than two larger ones, which in turn led him to overlook the pervasively paradigmatic nature of the 5-bar unit in the movement as a whole. Just how one unit - or a pair of units - leads from one to another is shown in Exs 4(a) to (c). These substantiate Skinner's general point, that it is an important aspect of Webern's classical legacy that the rhythmic profile of these units primarily determines the recom- position - whether varied or unchanging - and that to a considerable extent the recurrences are independent of pitch repetitions.

In Ex. 4(a), the division of the antecedent into 5-bar units (the second is extended by half a bar) shows an important internal development. In the


i+SS lf B 1 1 f | I f r | 2 r I 1 ( rr l f I J

9 J i' b: 14 r 1; t 1 t: 1^t !Aw1 t rt tf r V 2 J t t

iD: | >: l | |ir ) 1t r |ll r g

A L - t

- + * ff - ]

(So10t Jk 1 )

M1. a) b) c)

4 t j I t 1 1 t ,[ ItJ,/ 1ir im M2. a) b) c) '9l Z 14 (t +, ]J IJ j Ir e

41 t f t t U 4: i- B a) b) ,

bs t J 1t b; ,J b: 1iM J Itr y J ,,

, ,

ji l''l < I$J i j (t u

=

& (rk 1-]]Wj 1: $ f 1 1 c) -

IJ ,: I I

WEBERN S CONCERTO OP. 241 II

EXPOSITION I. .

L- t *_

Ex.4a

, ANT.

{fol

- -

zy - -

first of these, each trichord spans a total duration of four crotchets, and is divided into 1 + 2 pitches (or 2 + 1 in the case of the second). Two trichords are also present in the next unit, but divided into three two-note units, each spanning three beats, creating a sub-metric effect. These three units total nine, and not ten beats. The unit therefore is completed, and extended by a beat, through a piano echo (we shall see in due course how important these echoes are). All these observations put into perspective

DURCHFUHRUNG Ex.4b

v


- #

PROL. -

r7J lwr lit trJ4Is It | 11 / ; 1r?e

M5 a) b) c)

19t t it : 41t t i t t I I t( ] t [ 7 rr ) M6 a) 5 b; = c)

[) t $r 1t r t Je 12 , ,1

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Skinner's observation about the opening of the consequent. This opens with a two-note unit, spanning three beats (as in part ii of the antecedent), and continues with two three-note groups (not this time subdivided) each spanning four beats (as in part i of the antecendent).

The prolongation of the consequent in Ex. 4(a) shows a further important connection. The second and third pitches of the second trichord (A and F) are placed on the weak beats of the bar, and are presented registrally as a falling 'major third'. By invoking the classical rhetorical prin- ciple of anadiplosis, this close becomes the opening of the model that forms the paradigm for the remainder of the piece, as may be seen from Ex. 4(b). (In Ex. 4(a), it is also worth noting that the first trichord of the prolongation section, Eb-B-C, derives both its rhythm and pitches from bs 7-9 of the antecedent, as well as comprising, climactically, a span of five crotchets).

The expansion of the (b) sections of the models in Ex. 4(b) answers proportional demands. The 28 bars are first divided into two groups of 14 (M1/M2 + M3), which are then further subdivided 5(M1)/5 + 4(M2)/5 + 4 +3 + 2(M3). Some of these divisions are blurred by the shifting of strong-

beat configurations onto weak beats and vice-versa (indicated in the example). These shifts, which are most readily apparent in the (a) column, have their own significance, which will be discussed later. The dissolution of musical momentum in the Recapitulation is effected through a more intri- cate pattern of cross-reference with respect to the various rhythmic cells, as is shown in Ex. 4(c). Here the cells in the piano part (enclosed in brack-

ex.4c RECAPITULATION M4 a) [b b) $ji | *- ^

K k l - ' - l J

ets throughout the examples) participate more prominently than before, whilst the individuality of the three parts of the model (a, b and c) is dissolved as the 'falling major third' figure characterises not only column (a), but, increasingly, columns (b) and (c) too.

In showing how the structure of these lines integrates with that of the piece's source set, analysts16 have designated Webern's use of melodic 'ex-

84 MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: l , 1 982


Ex. 5 (014)

PO (014)

|A, S _W -1 b AS =t h =, S $ 1 X 1e -- 11

yOl4): P RI ' R I

p.c. (jil= content hexachord 1 k tritone , hexachord 2

\ related/ ( PRI MARY ) (SECON DARY )

traction' as their starting point. Ex. 5 shows the familiar analysis of the PO form of the set (with respect to this movement) in terms of its generating (014) trichord, which is deployed in four versions, P-RI-R-I to form what Milton Babbitt has described as a trichordally-derived set.17 This (014) trichord is also matched by the first, fourth and seventh pitches of the set, as well as by the fourth, seventh and eleventh. The two principles of construction invoked here have both been developed independently in a number of compositions, notably by Babbitt himself (derivation) and by Peter Westergaard (extraction). Yet how they are integrated in this composition, and especially how they are 'developed' - for regular extraction is not maintained beyond the first 28 bars - has not yet been demonstrated, any more than has been shown their integration into a larger idea of form within the music.

As far as this last point is concerned, it is worth recalling Webern's own thoughts, outlined during the course of the lectures he gave at the time of the Concerto's composition:

Considerations of symmetry are now to the fore, as against the emphasis formerly laid on the principal intervals - dominant, subdominant, mediant, etc. For this reason, the middle of the octave - the diminished fifth- is now the most important. For the rest one works as before. The original form and pitch of the row occupy a position akin to that of the 'main key' in earlier music; the recapitulation will nat- urally return to it. We 'end in the same key' ! This analogy with earlier formal construction is quite consciously fostered; here we find the path that will lead us again to extended forms.18

Of course, it is very easy to demonstrate just these features in Webern's later music. One need look no further than the last movement of the Piano Variations, Op.27 to see how the Eb that opens the antecedent and consequent of the period, and which also closes the prolongation of the consequent, cedes, in the penultimate variation, to the climactic reiterated A's, only to return as a 'tonic' pedal-point in the concluding variation. And in the movement from the Concerto, Op.24 under discussion, the opening form of the row (PO) returns with the recapitulation of the sets at b. 46, and comprises the coda at b. 74. These observations may seem self- evident. But the points of contention that Webern's statement has raised-


CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

whether contextual emphasis on a single pitch can create an equivalence for a tonal centre, whether the return of an original set form carries the same aural conviction as the return of a tonic, or whether, indeed, the status of comparisons between twelve-note and tonal languages is anything other than that of a metaphor - have not themselves been adequately answered. Webern is, after all, proposing a kind of hierarchic view of pitch organization. How extensive are the ramifications of this hierarchy? How does it help us to listen to and perform this music? And how may we formalize the pitch-syntax of this music?

It is these questions which we must now attempt to answer.

3: Analysis We have seen so far how the large-scale melody, or great line, of the music may be broken down into smaller phrases, each with its own rhythmic and dynamic contour. We have now to demonstrate how, both on the large and the small scale, these divisions are articulated by the pitch material, and how Webern's hierarchisation of pitches, especially at the openings of phrases, creates the sense of directed motion which can, in turnn form an interpretative foundation for the performer.

(a) The antecedent of the period. Webern's terms of analytic reference are all essentially present in the first 11 bars of the movement. The sets for the passage are laid out in Ex. 6(a), with the melodically extracted trichords that overlap successive set forms indicated by the beams. The underlying structure, by which the four sets move through an augmented triad, is shown in Ex. 6(b). Ex. 6(c) explains how, in an abstract way, transposition through an augmented triad reveals properties intrinsic to the set: with each successive transposition by four semitones, the pitch content of each hexacord of the set is preserved. This is due to the fact, as Ex. 6(d) demonstrates, that each hexachord is divis- ible into two augmented triads. The cycle of transposition presented in (c) - so familiar in kind to analysts of the String Quartet, Op.28 - creates its own functional area within a composition, and may obviously be comp- lemented by three other such cycles beginning on P1, P2 and P3.

Of course, the actual succession of sets in Ex. 6(a) differs from its 'background' representation in (c). Webern does not write PO-PSP8-PO (where O=G, 1 =Gt etc. throughout the movement), but PO-ISP8- RI9. Both I4 and RI9, however, can be shown to be substitutions. I4 replaces P4, since, as Ex. 6(e) demonstrates, the succession POP4 would have led to an over!apping extracted (015) trichord, rather an (014) one. RI9 in effect reverses the order of hexachords in PO (thereby invoking Milton Babbitt's secondary set property, henceforth designated as (s)), an interpretation upheld by the musical context, where the consequent begins only with its second hexachord.



Ex.6

(014) ANTECEDENT CONSEQUENT

h $+ tJ4,+|J$+,*J>,,0iJ*J>,,lls0J 0 , IJ W J- X - 0 PD I4 RB RIg= ftXts)

rt =: - :- i, 2-_- - -_-1 7 ------ blt-r X r- - - 0-- -- - X - = -= =

____________________

pO Plexachord 1 Hexachord 2

} _ I I I . I

t. 4 '--W#- 1s, 1ts 1---o- $ , - -$# S t

P4 fi W _ # 1 . # I : f t _ . . v $* |

!, v 1-w_ v V S - -o--v-- v - 1 *- : f-- A

tt--L ' -w--1 --W- -# t * -2-- zxe #

dl4JzJ i-fHlElfL--'*-FA F-F--4

NOT (014) (015) N B

e [t-$ ,*-| -443-}#=-t l t F lf. >-t

The augmented triads that lie, therefore, in the 'background' of the music are also represented on the surface of the music in two ways. The first is through registration. In Ex. 7(a), the four melodic (viz. extracted) trichords of the antecedent are shown as chords, each contained within the span of the 'major seventh'. This matches the arrangement of the figures in the accompaniment in the first 28 bars (Ex. 7(b)). Ex. 7(c) shows these trichords disposed registrally, with notes common to each trichord placed at the same level. The 'echo' phrase in the piano that rounds off the antecedent (bs 10-11 ) lays out the first hexachord of RI9 as three pairs of 'major seventh' dyads, with the uppermost pitches (E-C-G$) outlining a regularly spaced augmented triad. This may be seen in Ex. 7(d) where the dotted lines relate these pitches to those in the melody which they echo. Com- parably, Ex. 7(e) shows how the other pitches may also be grouped into regularly spaced augmented chords (note that the Bb is only implied within this scheme: it occurs, in fact, as the uppermost pitch of the octave band within which all of the piano accompaniment is cast, with the exception of the echo phrases at bs 10, 21 and 28, for the entire first section of the movement: see Ex. 7(f)).

Secondly, and more importantly, the opening pitches of the antecedent (G), the consequent (G and Eb) and the prolongation of the consequent (Eb


Ex.7

S Is ,$ jiz D b e.g.

1'9 t wqie; t-< -X-*

4 # IF | t--- I --- -- | "--' | --' 4 b

1+ r f D , r Y r f t

124 part of the (014) trichord Eb-B-C).

The tension between slowly unfolding 'background' events and relatively rapid, though different, 'foreground' events creates the sense of directed motion in the music following b. 28. And rather than pursue any further details of the Exposition at this stage, we shall at once follow the large-scale events in the Durchfuhrung and Recapitulation.

(b) The background to bs 2F56. To arrive at the background strategy for the Durchfuhrung section of this

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE


t S S (}d | v ,,, q | PO L hexachord 2 pitch content t hexachord 1 pitch content t

W: i-, 15 t i-'11'-'':I, $: Ir"- 1i:-$-u:J1+: L11 (014) l l trichords I n. b. tritone-related I

Durchfuhrung, and of the first Model that establishes the Recapitulation. The two systems below the music examples show how the 'major third' figures (derived, it will be remembered, from the close of the exposition - cf. Ex. 4(a)) have a presence both in the augmented chords that comprise the two hexachords of the source set (PO), and in the more immediate (014)-based set-successions of the 'foreground'. It is important to see that, whereas in the first three of these sections there are just four pitches, in the fourth, the 'goal' of the directed motion, there are six, comprising the first hexachord of PO, the 'source set'. The rhythmic articulation here is also significant. In the first three sections, the 'major third' figure is placed alternately on weak, strong and weak beats. In the fourth section,


piece, Schoenberg's account of how themes 'which have not modulated are now gefuhrt durch (led through) contrasting regions in a modulatory procedure'19 must be allied with Webern's account of tritone relationships, as well as with my own account of the background importance of augmented trichords, and the role that the (04) dyad has in mediating between 'foreground' and 'background' sets. The fruits of this alliance point to a further property of the set, that the pitch content of its second hexachord is related to that of the first hexachord by transposition at the tritone (see Ex. 5). Webern's idea of Durchfuhrung is to lead through the second hexachord (disposed into the two augmented trichords E-C-G and A-C$-F) back to the first, in which the augmented trichord D-Bb-F$, has a secondary status, acting as an approach to the augmented trichord G-Eb-B, which, as we have already seen, acts as the 'tonic' of the movement. The function of the Recapitulation is to stabilize the first hexachord generally, and the 'tonic' augmented trichord in particular; that of the Coda is to summarize the entire course of the music.

All this is demonstrated simply in Ex. 9, which reproduces the openings (the sehr getragen sections) of the three Models that comprise the Ex.9

..

DURCHFUHRUNG Bars:29-30 (i)

RECAPITULATION

57 i L tiv)

(048) trichords


,Lo,5'.> 'u' r w s_ i

I9tJ tF lo$vitJ ltj lt l lt r il r jrisrlt r l er 1 , 'b

if t f f 2t Ic 1

f r r : *: C ccntE^t

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

there are two such figures: the SEb (from the 'primary' augmented chord) on the strong beats, the Bb-Ft on the weak beats (completing the secondary augmented trichord begun in the previous section with D and Bb).

There are two further parallels here. First, the A and Ct placecl on the strong beats of bs 34 and 35 stand, as a dyad, in tritone relationship to the G and Eb placed on the strong beats of bs 57 and 58. This is a juxtapo- sition that will be crystallized in the Coda. The registral positioning of both this A-Ct dyad and the E-C dyad that opens the Durchfuhrung (bs 29-30) have been foreshadowed in the Exposition (see Ex. 10), since the extracted melodic pitches of the first full set of the consequent are E, C, C and A. Ex.10

i ] X s l - - - - -

(c) The background to bs 5S78. Ex. 11 shows how, in the three models of the Recapitulation (bs 57-73), the dispersal of energy and increased fragmentation of the line are matched by an ever more emphatic stabilization of the pitches of the primary hexachord of PO, disposed into the two augmented triads SEb-B (Ex. ll(b)) and D-Bb-F (Ex. ll(c)). Indeed, in the second and third models of this section (from bs 64 and 69 respectively), the melody instruments play only pitches from this hexachord. Since these pitches are the same melodic (extracted) pitches as occurred in the exposition from bs Ex.11

sehr Z 57getragebn W 64 gseet)rragen tempo 'echo' SgeeVra> tempo

9o MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: l, 1982

2s24, and since, as we have already seen, the pitches E, C, Ct and A at bs 13-15 foreshadow the functionally more significant unfolding of the secondary hexachord of PO (at bs 29-30 and 3s35), we may, with hind- sight, listen to the entire exposition afresh: the pitches either confirm the PO primary hexachord (G-Eb-B/F$-D-Bb) or move away to the secondary hexachord (E-C-Ab/F-C$-A). In the light of the entire piece, as we shall see, such a reading would seem to articulate the passage harmonically . * *

n a s1gn1ncant way. All this is summed up in the Coda (Ex. 12). The marcato pitches in the

Ex. 12 (EA Po hexachord 1 heschckrd 2

(y t ,) 2 J 2 , r l t ,

Pf.

, t ; ' is if , ,

,

lT S iS . hS

Ntritone-reLated /

WEBERN'S CONCERTO OP. 24/ II

trumpet (weak beats this time) are answered, ppp, by the marcato pitches in the piano (also weak beats), with the Db-A now placed in the lowest register, where, indeed, the A sounds the lowest point of the entire movement. In the first hexachord the piano accompaniment figure lies, by comparison with the opening, at a lower octave level, thereby expanding the idea of 'registral band' by an octave, and is rhythmically augmented, thereby enhancing the effect of a general dispersal of momentum; and the second hexachord preserves the kind of division into three 'major sevenths', whose upper three - and hence, whose lower three - pitches out- line the augmented trichord.

(d) Harmony and extraction. The three preceding sections of analysis have laid out the 'background' structure of the music, indicating the goals that are being pursued, and how, more locally, they are prefigured and, in the Coda, summed up. An awareness of these articulations is essential to a properly balanced interpretation of the movement. But before turning to some of the minutiae of the 'foreground', we must consider one other area in which form is articulated on the large-scale, that of harmony.

We have already designated b. 57 as the point at which the Recapitu- lation begins, since this is the point at which the tonic augmented trichord - and by extension, the first hexachord of the source set - is stabilized. It is also the point where the process of extracting the first, fourth, seventh


CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

and tenth pitches of each set to form the melodic trichords - a process replaced by different principles in the Durchfahrung- is restored: this means, of course, that the melodic pitches found between bs 57 and 73 are the same as those found in the Exposition between bs 11 and 24. On the other hand, we have also said that the Recapitulation of the set-forms of the opening begins earlier than this, on the second beat of b. 46. These two observations are not necessarily opposed. It is by no means an axiom analytically that in Classical music the return to the opening thematic material must at once be supported by a return to the tonic tonality, or vice versa. Nevertheless, the return of PO at b. 46 does have its own articulation, one that needs to be seen in the context of the harmonic or-

* * a

ganlzatlon ot t ne entlre movement. Let us look at the figures found throughout in the piano accompani-

ment. In the Exposition, all the figures connect a 'major seventh' dyad with a

'major third' dyad by means of a slur (Ex. 13(a)). The only exceptions are Ex. 13 a b c d 1-28 etc. 29-46 etc. 46 48 etc.

t KIIe D t 1lS - ti--[ lSt=$i Dalft | t-fhf)|) t---l;E-9sI-X -l C)1)-(04) (01) t_ (01) 64),(04) _

e f g

5b&zit0i':t t 159' tip9t 1-t- t- - i4t l -5 4iat1 ---

_f(04)-(01) _ (01) (01)/ (04) (01) (04)

the piano 'echo' phrases that terminate the antecedent, the consequent, and the prolongation of the consequent, which comprise 'major sevenths' only.

In the Durchfuhrung, however, these two intervals - 'sevenths' and 'thirds' - are isolated and developed separately. From bs 29 to 46, there are only 'major sevenths', which are presented either singly, or slurred (Ex. 13(b)). The figure at b. 46 that heralds the return of PO (Ex. 13(c)) has a further function: as it unites a 'major seventh' with a 'major third' dyad, it connects the preceding 'major seventh' area (bs 2946) with the succeeding 'major third' one (bs 47-51): see Ex. 13 (d). This is also the function of the figure at bs 51-52, whose slurred 'major third'/'major seventh' (Ex. 13(e)) leads the music back from the 'major third' area to a resume (bs 53-56) of the 'major sevenths' of bs 4143(Ex. 13 (f)). (Note that the F-Db of b. 51 not only recalls the registration of this dyad at b. 48, but confirms a position this dyad had taken at b. 17, and which it resumes at b. 63, and takes again at b. 71.)

The Recapitulation does not simply reproduce the piano figures as they were found in the Exposition, but, Classically, extends the processes of the



Durchfahrung. Following the sehr getragen of bs 57-58, the dyads are now regrouped, so that, roughly speaking, pairs of 'major thirds' and pairs of 'major sevenths' alternate (Ex. 1 3(g)).

These means of articulating larger musical areas of the piece harmonically - so simple, yet so telling - would seem to have determined the pattern of melodic extraction in the Durchfahrung. Ex. 14(b) from the next section shows that this pattern differs from one set to the next, and that with the melodically extracted pitches (stemmed notes) new intervals emerge that had not been heard in the Exposition. This is redolent of

Set Ex.14a EXPOSITION Forrns

1 ANT.

o 1s i J o. t h J S L- @ tS 9

4 ;, J J + . --1 r r E

s8 l

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Extracted dyads Piano cmd trichords dyads

(04) (01) Set Ex.14b DURCHFUHRUNG Forms

f;bt5) >=r-i - itCE hexachord 2

' > E t4) (02)(04) - - 6 oi., $j;- L =_ _

, f r s _ _ ,

E (016) (01) ?* --- j -- j--' j - - 1 -1------------- -

r E $

_=: 1. . _ . . . . . b-S- 4__- , _ _

L

(ol) I: : l

.. ,

. (05?

(ol)

-

_ __=_ _ r

_ . ____

-- 1--

> 4 | E (02) --- -1--06;zX ;!t- -i Xr | - : 1-

-

(01) =- - t-

i

(ol)

1-

(01)/(04)

43 1 E .(04)(04)(0m) X . < LDS- t 1 -bJ; I i - I

Recapitulaticn (014) d s#S 46 jE i t S , q _ S | - - - -1-

50 - (01) (014) (04)101)

4 4---i>C=i-? r -i- b=t t t t

55w ', ' (01) (04) (01flN) (ORo)l$--3-J-tt^---it9--!---;2>-lil-41 1 --=1- 1

" RECAPITULATION -

Key: Unstemmed note-heads relate to the piano part; stemmed and beamed notes relate to the melodically extracted pitches; double beams designate the (04) dyads that are part of the sehr getragen sections. E denotes an elision between the terminal pitch(es) of one set and the initial pitch(es) of the next. * denotes those extracted dyads and trichords that do not belong to classes (01), (04) or (014). (s) denotes a secondary set formation (e.g. PO(s) is equivalent to PO, with the succession of the two hexachords reversed: this form is equivalent to RI9).


-

-

s I6 1+9--[

38 r L I

E t-S,-n I

41 9 -*

,9 1g ,$-


Baroque and Classical binary-ternary forms, where the leading-through of tonalities in the second part of the composition is often accompanied by the introduction of new kinds of harmonic formation, notably diminished harmonies.

(e) The foreground sets, bs 1-29. In section (a) of the Analysis, the 'background' network of augmented trichords was shown to derive in part from the 'cycle' of transpositions PO-I4-P8-PO(s) which provided the structure of the antecedent, and in part from the intrinsic properties of the set. In section (b), the sehr getragen dyads E-C (bs 29-30) and A-Ct (bs 34-35), themselves implicitly members of augmented trichords, were then shown to derive registrally from bs 13-15. Although these dyads were said to foreshadow the 'modulation' to the tritone area at the opening of the Durchfahrung, the overall context of the Exposition was seen to be determined by the opening pitches of the three principal phrases (G, SEb, Eb-B respectively) which outlined the 'tonic' augmented trichord (see Ex. 4 (a)). We may now see how this structure is reflected in, and supported by, the organization of the 'foreground' sets, which are laid out in Ex. 14(a).

The following plan shows the strategy standing behind this Example: ANTECEDENT CONSEQUENT PROLONGATION

(048): PO-I4-P8-PO(s)hi/hii- (159) P9-P1- P5-P9(s) (37.11): P7-P 11 (s)hi-P 11- By following the second hexachord of PO(s) by P9, Webern ensures, as Skinner observes, that the first four melodically extracted pitches of the antecedent (GEb-E-C) are reproduced at the beginning of the consequent. He also effects a shift to a new 'cycle' of set transpositions, P9-P1- P5-P(s). As before, this cycle (the first pitches of which are E-G$-C-E) ends with a secondary set form (equivalent to RI6). This means that the first hexachord of P9, by following the second hexachord, comparably in- augurates a new section, in this case the Durchfahrung. Ex. 15(b) shows how this overlapping of the P9 cycle into the Durchfahrung gives sub- stance to the assertion that the E and C of b. 13 prefigure the structurally more significant E and C of bs 29-30: for both dyads stand at either end of this cycle. (Cf. also the layout of the dyads Ab-G and SEb in bs 13-14 and 30-32.)

The plan also shows that the P9 cycle, unlike that of the antecedent, is extended through the interpolation of elements of a third cycle, based on the succession P3-P7-P11 (the first pitches of which are Bb, D and FS respectively), though only the P7 and P11 forms are used. P11 in fact occurs twice: first as a secondary set, marking the end of the consequent with an 'echo phrase' in the piano; and then in its proper form, as a short


CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Ex.15 a

, (3 7 ll) t ,Issss ! _

' PRIMARY 4048)'Tcnic augnented trichod': J j -- -- vo HEXACHC8D

18;244 Fl. ct vnf: P a 9 I (CONSE()UENT) p : (PROLONGATION)

7 1t1

p Ju I 1

b

TJ j - - > S 2 ?o

>CONDARY

|9' tJ 1 +' S u HEXACHCRD 13-30 _

19 r Is4IJi-1 1#W10 t8-24 1lt 1J-ld[J-1 structure: U L f 1 1

extension of the consequent (its first hexachord is elided with the second hexachord of P1 l(s), as shown in Ex. 14(a)). The significance of this interpolation is shown in Ex. 15 (a). The Pll forms give a special emphasis to the 'tonic' augmented trichord, GB-Eb, both in the 'echo phrase' of bs 21-22, which picks up the B-G in the violin of b. 20, and in the Eb-B of the trumpet in bs 2924. (The extension to the consequent, in bs 22- 23, which is based on the first hexachord of P11 proper brings the Ft and D in the trombone: these pitches, which also belong to the primary hexachord of the 'source set' PO, also preceded the Eb and B at b. 6.) All this, then, serves to anchor and aff1rm tonic qualities at this point.

The corollary to this is shown in Ex. 15(b). The remaining extracted pitches of bs 13-30 (which mark the beginning and end of the P9 cycle) belong to the secondary hexachord of the 'source set' PO. This is not for- tuitous. Just as the primary and secondary hexachords of PO are related at the tritone, so too do the sets that are interpolated into the P9-P1-P5 cycle stand in a tritone relation to the sets they adjoin. In other words, P7

96 MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: 1. 1982


stands in tritone relationship to P1, just as does P11 in relation to P5. What is important here is that the interpolated sets (P7 and P11) ensure,

through the surface articulation, that the prevailing ('tonic') augmented trichord G-Eb-B emerges as prevalent with respect to the 'background,' and that the pitches of the P9 'cycle', E-G$-C, are still at this stage subordinate. Only at the beginning of the Durchfahrung, as the 'cycle' completes itself, do they achieve their own prominence.

The division of melodically extracted pitches into those that affirm either the primary or the secondary hexachords of the 'source set' also helps to explain the foreshortening of the Recapitulation. For, from b. 46 onwards, all the sets of the Exposition recur, up to and including Pll (affirming the 'primary' hexachord). But at b. 74. Webern does not move from Pll to P5 (which would affirm the 'secondary' area), but goes at once back to PO. This confirms the 'tonic area' in which Pll moves, by virtue of its extracted pitches FS, D, Eb and B.

(f) The foreground sets, bs 2F56. We have already seen how the strategy of the Durchfahrung is defined by its 'background', whereby the pitches of the sehr getragen sections - the 'goals' of musical motion - lead us from the secondary hexachord of PO, i.e. E-C-(G$)/A-C$-(F), back to those of the primary hexachord, which is stabilized at b. 57. Since these tsro hexachords are related at the tritone in the 'source set', the overall effect is of a 'modulation' back to the tonic area from the tritone-related one. Once again, we can see how the 'foreground' sets, laid out in Ex. 14(b), support this strategy.

The first full set, following the completion of P9(s), is the retrograde of P6 (so designated because the extracted sehr getragen pitches are uniquely the last, and not the first, of their respective trichords, and because no- where else in the movement do retrograde forms play a part). Through the elision of terminal pitches, P6 leads at once to I6, establishing at this level the tritone-related area. The sets then move in pairs, I6/P4 and I9/P7. Each pair is internally linked, as before, through the elision of terminal pitches. If, however, this 'sequence' had been continued, the next set (following I6 and I9) would have been IO. But Webern adroitly substitutes PO for IO. For, at the end of the first of these pairs, P4 links to the beginning of the second of these pairs, I9, through the elision of terminal trichords. But at the end of the second of these pairs, P7 elides its final trichord not with the first of the following set (which would then have had to be IO), but with the first extracted trichord of PO. This substitutioIl defines the connection, central to so many aspects of the analysis of the movement, between extracted pitches and foreground sets.

There is a syntactic nicety here, too. The first pitches of the succession I6-I9-PO define a diminished harmony, C$-E-G. Since each pitch of a 'diminished seventh' belongs necessarily to a different augmented chord, a

MUSIC ANALYSIS 1: 1, 1982 97

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

further means of linking the augmented-trichord and tritone-related worlds of this movement is pointed to.

Finally, and more concretely, it should be noticed that the recapitulation of sets at b. 46 marks a further division, since the new formations in the melody - the (02) dyads and the (016) trichords, both of which occur twice- arise only before this point, and not after. All other formations are (01) or (04) dyads, and (014) trichords.20

Conclusion This analysis could, of course, be extended to take in further details of melodic structure, registration and (especially) instrumentation. But it should by now be clear that, while Webern deploys the twelve notes in regular rotation to achieve a formalized atonality, the twelve notes are not, from a larger point of view, related equally to one another at all. On the other hand, the designation of a tonal centre, of a 'tonic' augmented trichord, and of primary and secondary hexachords within the 'source set,' does not in itself imply that Schenkerian tonal operations need be invoked. While there is a parallel here between the larger deployment of a single hexachord to embrace an entire section, and the concept of Stufen, and while there is also a pattern of (set-)substitutions, there is more signifi- cantly no sense of motion towards a cadence per se, no Auskomponierung, and no voice-leading by stepwise movement. And it is part of the aesthetic of Webern's twelve-note music that the expressive power is achieved precisely by denying the assurances that these conventional tonal means offer.

It may still be the case that a conductor need not acquire all the information assembled in this paper before lifting his baton. Nevetheless, it is striking that in the available commercial recordings of the Concerto, so little comprehension of structure is evinced. Dynamics are ignored, phras- ing is under-articulated, tempo gradations are over-ridden, and the whole deprived of the sense of directed motion that alone can bring this music to life. Instead, we are offered too often that which is chic, clean, inorganic and dead. If this analysis can do anything to reverse this state of affairs, then it will have achieved something of its purpose.

It will have achieved another part of its purpose if it helps composers and historians of contemporary music to re-assess their attitudes to the neo-classical aspects of Viennese twelve-note music. It is quite apparent from this account that the various dimensions of structure are all highly integrated, and that there are no discontinuities: the trichords of the set, the extracted trichords, the pivotal nature of (04) dyads between (014) and (048) trichords, the hexachordal structure that embraces (014) and (048) trichords alike, the tritone-relatedness within the sets, the deployment of larger tritonally - related areas in the melodic dimension, the transpositions of sets either through 'cycles' of augmented chords, or from a tritone area to a tonic area: all these things are extraordinarily enmeshed.



They find their differentiation, and hierarchisation, on the other hand, precisely through their formal articulation. And it is the opportunity for differentiation and hierarchisation that the traditional formal context offers, as much as the opportunity for alternative kinds of repetition of material. What also emerges from this is a differently conceived idea of what the universe of an atonal musical language might comprise.

Who knows, our currently fashionable retrenchment might well be a case of reculer pour mieux sauter.... !

NOTES 1. Arnold Whittall, 'Schoenberg and the English', gournal of the Arnold Schoen-

berg Institute, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 1980, p. 29. 2. Peter Stadlen, 'Serialism Reconsidered', The Score, No. 22, February 1958. 3. The material for this paper was first presented to a colloquium at King's

College London, December 7th, 1977. 4. Hermann Scherchen, Lehrbuch des Dirigierens (Leipzig: 1929), translated as

Handbook of Conducting by M. D. Calvocoressi (London: OUP, 1933). 5. Unless otherwise indicated, the accounts of Webern's attitudes to per-

formance are taken from: Hans Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern: A Chron- icle of his Life and Work (London: Gollancz, 1978).

6. Stadlen, op. cit. 7. Scherchen, op. cit., p. 19. 8. Friedrich Wildgans, Anton Webern, trans. E. T. Roberts and H. Searle

(London: Calder, 1966), p. 144. 9. Scherchen, op. cit., p. 28.

10. Scherchen, op. cit., pp. 29-30. 11. Leopold Skinner, 'Analysis of a Period', Die ReWhe, Vol. 2, pp. 46-50. 12. Scherchen, op. cit., p. 29. 13. Mr Paul Banks has drawn my attention to the fact that at the Vienna Conser-

vatoire in the late part of the nineteenth century the conductors' and composers' courses were one.

14. The points concerning the genesis of Webern's Op.24 are taken from Mol- denhauer, Op. Cit., pp. 431-438.

15. cf. note 11. 16. For example, Peter Westergaard, 'Towards a Twelve-tone Polyphony', Per-

spectives of New Music, Vol. 4, 1966, p. 90ff. 17. Milton Babbitt, 'Some Aspects of Twelve-tone Composition', The Score, No.

12, June 1955, pp. 55-61. 18. Anton Webern, The Path to the New Music (Vienna: Universal, 1960), trans.

Leo Black (Pennsylvania: Theodore Presser, 1963), p. 54. 19. Arnold Schoenberg, Structural Functions of Harmony, rev. ed. by L. Stein

(New York: Norton, 1969), p. 145. 20. There is the exception of the maverick (015) trichord at bs 6(}62, which

parallels a comparable trichord at bs 15-16. In both cases, the trichord arises by Webern's following of P9 by P1 (as opposed to I1, had the example of the antecedent been followed, cf. Ex. 6(e)): this succession, however, was necess- ary to ensure the tritone-related pairs of sets P1-P7, and P11-P5.


Article Contentsp. 73p. 74p. 75p. 76p. 77p. 78p. 79p. 80p. 81p. 82p. 83p. 84p. 85p. 86p. 87p. 88p. 89p. 90p. 91p. 92p. 93p. 94p. 95p. 96p. 97p. 98p. 99

Issue Table of ContentsMusic Analysis, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 1-116Front Matter [pp. 1-2]Editorial [pp. 3-8]Epilogue/Prologue: Criticism and Analysis [pp. 9-31]Music Analysis as Human Science? 'Le Sacre du Printemps' in Theory and Practice [pp. 33-53]A Disguised Reminiscence in the First Movement of Mozart's G Minor Symphony [pp. 55-71]Analysis and Performance: Webern's Concerto Op.24/II [pp. 73-99]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 101-107]Review: untitled [pp. 108-112]Organicist Meditations [pp. 112-116]

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analysis and performance: webern's concerto op.24/ii

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