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Webern's Sketches (I)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Roger Smalley
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Extract

In tempo 91 I wrote an article on the recently discovered and published sketches of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Since that time an equally handsome volume of sketches by Anton Webern has appeared. Studying the sketchbooks of a great composer is perhaps the closest we can ever come to experiencing the act of creation. It is still—inevitably—a second-hand experience, but one which enables us to follow the process of creation with more immediacy than does the analysis of an already completed score. If we analyze a finished work we can learn a great deal about the structure of that work in particular, and about compositional techniques in general. As composition progresses, the musical ideas with which the composer started out begin to develop according to their own inner logic. Eventually the composer is no longer in the position of dictating events but of attempting to discover and follow the logical development which the music itself dictates to him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 112 , March 1975 , pp. 2 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Notes

1. Smalley, , Roger, : ‘The Sketchbook of The Rite of Spring’, TEMPO 91, Winter 1969–1970, pp. 2–13 Google Scholar.

2. Webern, Anton von: Sketches (1926–1945). Facsimile reproductions from the composer's autograph sketches in the Moldenhauer Archive. Carl Fischer Inc., New York 1968 Google Scholar.

3. Moldenhauer, , Hans, : ‘A Webern Pilgrimage’. The Musical Times, No. 1500, 02 1968, pp.122–127 Google Scholar.

4. This Kinderstuck has been published by Boosey and Hawkes, and one of the string trios (it is not clear which) by Universal Edition (UE 13019).

5. For a complete catalogue of the Webern Archive see ‘A Webern Archive in America’ by Moldenhauer, Hans, in Anton von Webern: Perspectives, ed. Irvine, Demar (University of Washington Press, 1966), pp.117–166 Google Scholar . In his introduction to this catalogue Moldenhauer does not make it clear where all these sketchbooks came from. The sixth sketchbook was presented to the Archive in 1961 by Mrs. Amalie Waller, Webern's eldest daughter; the other four were only ‘unearthed’ by ‘the momentum of these endeavours’ (to gather as much additional material as possible). At the time of publication of the present volume of sketches, the Archive was in the University of Washington.

6. Krenek, , Ernst, : ‘The Same Stone Which The Builders Refused Is Become The Headstone Of The Corner’. Die Reihe, Vol. 2, p. 12 Google Scholar.

7. The sketches for a projected third movement for the Symphony op.20 (Plates 9–11) have been transcribed and discussed in some detail by Deppert, Hienrich in his ‘Studien zur Kompositionstgchnik im instrumentalen Spatwerk Anton Weberns’. Edition Tonos, (Darmstadt, Ahastrasse 7) 1972, pp. 178–187. The contents of the final pages of the sixth and last sketchbook (Plates 41–47) are described byGoogle Scholar Moldenhauer, Hans in his article ‘ Webern' projected Op.32 ’, Musical Times, No. 1 $30, 08 1970, pp.789–792 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Extract from Webern's letter to Hildegard Jone dated 11.3.1931, in Webern, , Anton, : Letters to Hildegard Jone and JosefHumplik. Theodore Presser Co. and Universal Edition, 1967, p. 17 (letter 22)Google Scholar

9. Webern, , Anton, : The Path to the New Music. Theodore Presser Co. and Universal Edition, 1963, p. 14. In this book the same acrostic is translated as ‘The sower Arepo keeps the work circling’Google Scholar .

10. German H = English B♮; German B = English B♭.

11. U = Umkehrung = Inversion; Kr = Krebs = Retrograde; U Kr = Umkehrung Krebs = Retrograde Inversion.

12. The words in square brackets have been added by the author.

13. ‘The ultimate principle in the presentation of a musical thought is comprehensibility’. Webern, , quoted in Die Reihe, Vol. 2, p. 22 Google Scholar.

14. Stockhausen's article ‘Webern's Konzert für Neun Instrumente Op.24’, first published in 1953 and reprinted in Karlheinz Stockhausen: Textt, Vol. 1 (Du Mont Schauberg, 1963), pp. 24–31, contains much interesting speculation on the relationship between pitch and rhythm in this work.

15. Extract from Webern's letter to Berg, Alban dated 1.8.1919. Die Reihe Vol. 2, p.17 Google Scholar .