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Thus Spoke the Early Modernist: Zarathustra and Rotational Form in Webern's String Quartet (1905)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2015

SEBASTIAN WEDLER
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Abstract

The large-scale structure of Anton Webern's String Quartet (1905) is an ongoing conundrum in music scholarship. Initially inspired by Giovanni Segantini's Trittico della natura, the quartet has been interpreted by most commentators in terms of a tripartite episodic form. Through the lens of rotational theory, this article puts forward an understanding of the quartet that interprets it in dialogue with the sonata paradigm. Based on this reading, it will be argued that the quartet bears strong links to the early modernist discourse on musical form. This perspective will be further explored, with reference to Webern's manuscripts and sketches, in the way the quartet engages with the Zarathustra trope. In casting the quartet in this light, this article challenges the common historiographical interpretation that sees it merely as a precursor to the high modernism of Webern's later development.

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Articles
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Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , September 2015 , pp. 225 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2015 

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