Drei Gesänge. Op. 23. Aus Viae inviae von Hildegard Jone
(Anton Webern Drei Gesange Op.23 Voice & Piano Universal E...)
Anton Webern Drei Gesange Op.23 Voice & Piano Universal Edition UE 10255, 1964 12 pages Very good condition signed on the cover by Thomas W. Moon See images Cover is yellow with green lettering From the estate of professional opera singer and professor Klara Barlow see my other listings for TONS more great music! Laurel 6
(Matthew Shaftel has assembled a well-researched critical ...)
Matthew Shaftel has assembled a well-researched critical edition of select Webern piano works, which together speak volumes of the composer's compositional growth over his early years. Satz and Rondo represent the Romanticism which framed Webern's writing, even while he studied with Schoenberg, while the short Kinderstück is the first of his dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) works, a relatively simple piece for children. Shaftel includes a thorough discussion of the three pieces, along with complete critical notes about the edition. For intermediate to advanced pianists.
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The Langsamer Satz (literally "Slow Movement") dates fr...)
The Langsamer Satz (literally "Slow Movement") dates from 1905 and was said to have been inspired by a hiking holiday in the mountains outside of Vienna Webern took with his future wife. He intended to write an entire quartet but put it aside after completing this one movement. Langsamer Satz is a highly charged work, clearly rooted in post-Brahmsian romanticism and tonality. A medium length quartet movement, the Langsamer Satz expresses a plethora of emotions from yearning to dramatic turmoil to a tranquil peaceful denouement. It shows that Webern, like Schönberg and Berg, was capable of writing very fine music in a tonal idiom if he chose. This work is a little masterpiece, suitable as an encore for professional groups but still within easy reach of competent amateurs.
Publisher ID: O4528
Format: Score and Set of Parts
The Austrian composer Anton Webern, one of the first important disciples of Schoenberg, carried many of that master's ideas to their logical extremes.
Webern's music was very influential on postwar European composers.
Background
Webern was born on 3 December, 1883 in Vienna, then Austria-Hungary, as Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern. He was the only surviving son of Carl von Webern, a civil servant, and Amelie (née Geer) who was a competent pianist and accomplished singer—possibly the only obvious source of the future composer's talent.
He never used his middle names and dropped the "von" in 1918 as directed by the Austrian government's reforms after World War I.
The Preglhof in Oberdorf, Webern's childhood home
He lived in Graz and Klagenfurt for much of his youth. But his distinct and lasting sense of Heimat was shaped his by reading Peter Rosegger; and moreover by frequent and extended retreats with his parents, sisters, and cousins to his family's country estate, the Preglhof, which Webern's father had inherited upon the death of Webern's grandfather in 1889.
Education
He studied under Guido Adler at Vienna University and received his Ph. D. in musicology there in 1906 for his dissertation on HeinrichIsaac's Choralis Constantinus, an important Renaissance collection of liturgical compositions.
Webern's studies with Schoenberg lasted till 1908.
Career
His edition of part two of this work is still standard.
In 1904, after an abortive attempt to study with Hans Pfitzner in Berlin, Webern began lessons with Arnold Schoenberg, who was the dominating figure of his life, even though Webern carried some of Schoenberg's ideas further than the older composer could entirely approve.
Some works written during this 4-year period are the Passacaglia for Orchestra, the chorus Entflieht auf leichten kähnen (text by Stefan George), and the Five Songs (also with texts by George), as well as a Piano Quintet in C Major.
Works representative of this new style are the Five Pieces for String Quartet (1909), the Four Pieces for Violin and Piano (1910), the Six Bagatelles for String Quartet (1913), and the Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano (1914), as well as groups of orchestral pieces and songs.
The introverted, sensitive composer was unhappy with the low standards of the opera houses in provincial towns, and he did not like theatrical life.
His following works are atonal, that is, written without reference to a key center.
Webern's compositions of the next 10 years became more and more concise; some are less than a minute long.
His dynamic effects were often delicate; he made use of the idea of Klangfarbenmelodie (tone-color melody), frequently dividing a melody among a succession of different instruments with resultant subtle changes in tone color.
Think of the concision which expression in such brief form demands!
Every glance is a poem, every sigh a novel.
During these years Webern was going from job to job as theater conductor.
He worked in Bad Ischl, Vienna, Teplitz, Danzig, and Stettin.
But these positions did not suit him.
This organization did valuable work in presenting major contemporary compositions to a highly selective audience.
When it had to dissolve in 1922 because of rising costs, Webern took over the direction of the Vienna Workers' Symphony Orchestra and, in the following year, added the responsibility of the Vienna Workers' Singing Society.
His acceptance of the new technique was wholehearted, and he used it till the end of his life.
The performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony by these groups under his direction in 1926 was long remembered. Webern's adoption of the twelve-tone method came in 1924, with the Drei Volkstexte for soprano, violin, clarinet, and bass clarinet.
Important twelve-tone compositionsof the 1926 were the String Trio (1927) and the Symphony (1928), as well as two groups of songs. After 1933 Webern led a very retired existence.
In Easter, 1945, he moved his family to Mittersill, near Salzburg, where he thought they would be safer.
After World War II it was Webern's work rather than Schoenberg's that inspired the young European composers.
Achievements
Along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core among those within and more peripheral to the circle of the Second Viennese School, including Ernst Krenek and Theodor W. Adorno.
As an exponent of atonality and twelve-tone technique, Webern exerted influence on contemporaries Luigi Dallapiccola, Krenek, and even Schoenberg himself.
As a tutor, Webern guided and variously influenced Arnold Elston, Frederick Dorian (Friederich Deutsch), Matty Niël, Fré Focke, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Philipp Herschkowitz, René Leibowitz, Humphrey Searle, Leopold Spinner, and Stefan Wolpe.
