Anton Webern - Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 (1940)

Anton Webern (3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer and conductor. Along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern comprised 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, Křenek, and even Schoenberg himself. As tutor Webern guided and variously influenced Arnold Elston, Frederick Dorian (Friederich Deutsch), Fré Focke, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Philipp Herschkowitz, René Leibowitz, Humphrey Searle, Leopold Spinner, and Stefan Wolpe.

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Variations for orchestra Op. 30 (1940)

Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli

Description by John Keillor [-]
Anton Webern's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30, was written in 1940-41. Consisting of a theme and six variations, this single movement work is just over seven minutes long, making it the composer's second longest single movement work. His Passacaglia, Op. 1, from 1907 is almost three minutes longer and is also a set of variations. In the thirty-three years that separate these pieces, the quality of Webern's composing remained at a consistently high level, while embracing quite divergent idioms. For instance, Op. 1 embodies post-Brahmsian tonality while Op. 30 is constructed from his unique twelve-tone technique, an operation that had a decisive influence on several generations of composers.

Written between January 1940 and February 1941, the Op. 30 is one of Webern's most elegant works, and has a discernable dramatic flair found in the recurrences of melodic shapes. Certain musical figures recur as if in dialogue with one another. There are also dramatic soundscapes that suggest an operatic setting. This work stands between his two cantatas, which are as close as Webern ever came to writing an opera, an endeavor that fell short twice earlier in his career. The bulk of Webern's output are songs and while his melodic abilities have never been questioned, his strengths as a dramatic composer reveal themselves in episodes of the cantatas--especially in the final vocal movement of the first cantata, Op. 29--and these Variations. Listeners find themselves in a state of anticipation, waiting for an absent curtain to rise, but the process of absorbing this would-be overture reveals much more substance than could be found in most operatic scores, or even in the composer's own Symphony, Op 21.

Webern's Op. 30 tone row is more sophisticated than that of his Op. 21, and his manipulations of the row are subtler. In Op. 30 this is evident in the chords which convincingly accompany the melodic lines. The Op. 21 relied more on canons to maintain a cohesive direction while the Op. 30 contains independent contrapuntal lines. The ability to write twelve-tone counterpoint without repetition is indicative of Webern's command of this musical language, a command that has rarely, if ever been matched. The chords heard in these variations are another indication of hitherto unknown levels of tone row mastery. Webern's Variations and sections of his Concerto, Op. 24 contain chords that clarify and heighten the direction of the melody in a way that is often associated with tonal writing. Webern's genius for creating great tone-rows is found in their deep and multiple levels of symmetricality, yielding many points of self-reference that strengthen the integrity of the melodic direction, formal contour, and harmonic rhythm and color.

The Variations were first performed in Winterthur, Switzerland on March 3, 1943, with Hermann Scherchen conducting. Webern was allowed out of Austria to attend the performance. It was against the law to perform his music in his own country, by order of the Nazis. It was his last trip out of Austria, and the last premiere of his work that he would hear.

[johnappleseed]

Op 30 is definitely another masterpiece, man he packed so much innovative into 31 tiny pieces!

[vidark.]

Stravinski listened to this piece after having refused to listen to his biggest rival Schonberg for many years. He then asked to listen again. And again. So this piece by Anton Weberg literally opened Stravinski’s ears to Sconberg and atonal music in general that he now started to compose himself.

[ReiSodaSteven]

I LOVE that pair of B flats at 0:33 Super quite then LOUD! Has to be my favorite section of this piece... 0:32 - 0:38

[markleneker]

I keep hearing the trumpet part from Ives' "The Unanswered Question."

[newgeorge]

Webern is like a lemon sorbet. He cleanses the pallet wonderfully.

[musicformind]

Thanks for uploading this masterpiece!

[nathanielwilson]

I like it. It's how I'm feeling these days.

[MrAscough]

Another pupil of his was my own composition teacher Emile Spira

[francesthemute]

It can work for me like atmospheric sounds for mystical or something-like landscape. But with no clear patterns I can't reproduce any passage from this piece in my head. Do you? Is it like another language? Do you need perfect pitch? Sorry if I'm bad in English.

[JanCarlComposer]

A strange piece, hard to get behind this

[ThePianoFortePlayer]

This is actually pretty good, sounds like dungeon music from a video game

[leoncohen]

I am more and more coming to believe that just as people without a pulse are dead, so is music without a pulse. Though this composition contains some interesting and even lovely sounds, it has no pulse, and no audible dramatic or melodic line running through it. It helps to show why the music of the Second Viennese School and its successors has not entered the classical music standard repertory, and why most musicians and most audiences have fought it ferociously. I did not fall in love with music because of works like this, and I doubt many others have either.

[olivierdrouin]

C est quand même la musique correspondant à cette rhétorique du " vous pouvez tout dire ", mais si vous dites quelque chose, vous voilà genocidaire de tout ce qui n a pas été dit.

[emanuel_soundtrack]

Its genial, but with a form that is so abstract and does not please its not so genial.