This blog is a brief summary of the lectures given by Webern in 1933. There were many times while selecting Webern’s main points that I wanted to add views of my own, but that will come in a later blog. It is intended as a starting point for wider discussion.

The full Webern lecture text is available as a PDF on the web in a translation by Leo Black, and includes comments and notes of particular interest.

http://archive.org/stream/antonwebernthepa007300mbp/antonwebernthepa007300mbp_djvu.txt

While these extracts may help formulate opinions regarding the development of Webern’s thinking the full text is indispensable and should be read as a whole.

It is our hope that this introduction to 12 note music will suggest to the reader a number of questions regarding a pivotal point where the advantages of a flexible musical system gave way to a more rigorous style. We certainly hope to encourage such questions in the next blog. Two questions have been placed on the graphic which provides an overview of the following blog.

In the lectures of 1933 Webern sets out to help the layman understand the purpose and functions of 12 note music and he states that it is necessary, indeed imperative that audiences recognise that there are “rules of order”. In these early stages Webern engages in a philosophical discussion about sources of order which he describes as the “craftsman’s method” without which nothing “genuine” can be achieved. He also refers to the idea of certain principles within music as natural and as such have to follow predetermined laws. Later in the lectures he amplifies the idea:

Art is a product of nature in general, in the particular form of human nature. What perspectives this opens! It's a process entirely free from arbitrariness.

His argument is that 12 note music is a result of a lengthy progression starting with chant. He sees that in this progression there are many examples of new music, all that is required for this term to be applied is that it provides an original encounter with sounds “never said before”. He also uses the term “obsolete” which implies that not all music survives to be thought of as art. Webern then turns to what he considers the natural feature of music, the overtone series, and ascribes the qualities arising from the series to the development of Western music, which he believed showed that it had been “assigned a special path”.

Webern expresses the view that wrong evaluations can be made for a number of reasons when appreciating great art. He is preparing his audience to accept that 12 note music has its place in the great scheme of musical history. In order to empathise with the new music particular attention has to be given to the differences between surface and in depth listening. This music and its appreciation has to engage the listener to empathise with the “laws of musical form-building”. Webern emphasises that such responses are not immediate:

Where something special has been expressed, centuries always had to pass until people caught up with it.

The changes inherent in the “something special” i.e. the 12 note system are recognised as being challenging, he comments on the view held by those who prefer the older, less dissonant music:

…we should be clear that what is attacked today is just as much a gift of nature as what was practised earlier.

One of the recurrent themes of the lectures is intelligibility or comprehensibility. Like the artist he considers this needs to be seen/heard as a complete view, where outlines are clear. His argument draws on the idea that such a view has to consist of foreground and background material; it can be taken a single line is insufficient for a musical presentation, it lacks “room” for the types of expression that have developed in the Baroque and Classical periods.

Surely it's remarkable for one person to sing and another to "add something!" So there's a hierarchy: main point and subsidiary point something quite different from true polyphony.

The lectures give us an insight into Webern’s emotional involvement in this argument regarding the development of music:

The first person who had this idea perhaps he passed sleepless nights he knew: it must be so!

Much is made of repetition in these lectures, he understands that it is the basis of formal construction and musical form and cannot be taken away from the development of the 12 note system:

…the basis of our twelve-note composition is that a certain sequence of the twelve notes constantly returns: the principle of repetition!

Naturally repetition leads to the use of variation, relating material to the first statement. He cites Beethoven and his use of motives:

By "motives" we mean, like Schoenberg, the smallest independent particle in a musical idea. But how do we recognise one? Because it's repeated!

Webern next deals with the development of tonality towards the chromatic scale and the weakening of the tonic. He uses the term “ambiguous” for certain chords, this term may indicate his (and Schoenberg’s view) of a weakness in the use of the tonal system in the late 19^th century. The linear progression of music is not over stretched by the use of more complex chords, but nevertheless requires renewal, and that renewal must be based on the music of the past.

By repeating the theme in various combinations, by introducing something that is the theme unfolding not only horizontally but also vertically that's to say a reappearance of polyphonic thinking. And here the classical composers often arrived at forms that recall those of the "old Netherlander" in their canon and imitation.

These thoughts lead Webern to Bach and the Art of Fugue, a work held in high esteem and one which he transcribes in part

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=webern+art+of+fugue+transcription&view=detail&mid=BB7357CADBF3BC36E04DBB7357CADBF3BC36E04D&FORM=VIRE

Another strand of Webern’s argument concerns the tonic or keynote which provides the musical structures with their designs and unity. He demonstrates that over time this became “unnecessary” and the gradual erosion of the potency of the tonic leads us to the stage where the ear became used to its absence, even at the end of a work as the work in itself satisfied the audience. This takes us into the realm of the logic of 12 note construction

we felt the need to prevent one note being over-emphasised, to prevent any note's " taking advantage " of being repeated.

However this internal lack of repetition was balanced by the adhesive quality of the row in the composition as a whole:

…unity is completely ensured by the underlying series. It's always the same; only its manifestations are different.

These manifestations are now well known to us, O,I,R,RI, the 48 variants.

As we have seen Webern argues that the tonic, once the most powerful force, has given way to a music without a key. There is an acknowledgement that the tonal system shaped the structures of pre-12 note music and this leads him to examine how the 12 note system can create comprehensibility without a tonic.

Canonic, contrapuntal forms, thematic development can produce many relationships between things, and that's where we must look for the further element in twelve-note composition, by looking back at its predecessors.

The later lectures work through the history of musical styles leading to the 12 note system. Lecture 6 opens with a bold statement

Before we knew about the law we were obeying it. ….Twelve-note composition is not a "substitute for tonality" but leads much further.

Having made such a statement Webern returns to explain that his connection with the listener hasn’t entirely been forgotten. He understands that the untrained ear may not be able to “always” follow the row, adding that

Something will stick in even the naivest soul.

He also shares with his audience his approaches towards formal construction:

one aims at as many different intervals as possible, or certain correspondences within the row symmetry, analogy, groupings (thrice four or four times three notes, for instance).

...Schoenberg's, Berg's and my rows mostly came into existence when an idea occurred to us, linked with an intuitive vision of the work as a whole; the idea was then subjected to careful thought, just as one can follow the gradual emergence of themes in Beethoven's sketchbooks. Inspiration, if you like.

Inspiration will become a key concept in the following blogs where flexibility and rigour are examined in the light of the composer's comments in these lectures.

Creativity and aging.


In this blog I want to make reference to the first movement of Ralph Vaughan William’s 9th symphony, his last symphony, but before considering some features of the music I would like to reflect on how age plays a part in the creative process, and how it may help us understand RVW’s symphony and other 9ths.

Most of us associate one’s later years with decline. Our newspapers are filled with the notion that the growing numbers of over 60’s, over 80’s and over 100’s are an increasing burden on our financial resources and services. Younger members of society are encouraged to take out pensions to guarantee their well-being into extreme old age.


It may surprise some readers to know that this view of decline is not universally held and there are challenges to the notion that the reduction of ability and physical well-being is an inevitable result of age, rather they are a result of treatable disorders. In the simplest terms the difficulties we associate with age can be regarded as a challenge to physicians to find remedies. In terms of creativity we have the potential to keep developing our ideas into extreme old age.

We recognize that many musicians retain their powers of expression and interpretation into late life, many conductors continue their careers well past their 80th year, (Karl Boehm, 86; Adrian Boult, 100; Arturo Toscanini, 90; Leopold Stokowski, 96, Boulez 90) and a glance at the works produced by Elliott Carter after his hundredth birthday shows that artistic enquiry remained a significant factor to the end of his life.

We must move away from the belief that such people as mentioned above are the exceptions to the rule, many artistic fields have similar examples, and I understand that for folk-art the larger proportion of craftsmen/women are in the later stages of life.

Psychologists have identified an inner compulsion towards creative work throughout our life,
but also recognize that this compulsion changes in the way it manifests itself.

There are recognizable periods or phases in the approaches we take to creativity in our“second-half” of life. Psychologists have also stated that people have a greater sensitivity to their inner-world and creative imagination in later life.

A link may help those who wish to look at greater detail into the phases of creativity in ageing,
it is not an overlong PDF:

http://www.peopleandstories.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/RESEARCH-ON-CREATIVITY-AND-AGING.pdf

Cohen (the author of the above PDF) identifies the following stages:


“Midlife Revaluation”: confronting one’s own mortality.

“Liberation” phase: freedom from paid work and the time available to follow own interests.

“Summing-up” phase. Looking at the events of one’s past and creating a narrative from these
events.

“Encore” phase: reaffirming beliefs and opinions and exploring variations on those opinions.


Earlier reference was made to 9th symphonies, there are of course late symphonies which are 10ths, Maxwell Davies’s is a recent example. Written during his treatment for leukaemia (approaching his 80th birthday) it revisits interests developed in his time as a student in Rome and his awareness of the architect Borromini. The architecture of music is a key consideration for Davies, this short quote gives a flavor of his thinking:

One has to try as a composer, I feel, to improve the quality of listening by putting pointers in one's work to help people to hear in a way, not so much as they did, but which will make clear to them the new architecture which is crystallising out of the music of the early part of this century.

I mention these points as they show aspects of the phases referred to earlier. Whether 9th, 10th or 32nd (as in the case of Brian), it is the maturity reached through working a set of large scale composition that interests me here.


RVW’s 9th symphony (in E minor) was composed during the period 1956 to 1957. Vaughan Williams died on the 26 August, the day on which the symphony was due to be recorded by Sir Adrian Boult, (there is a 30" recording of Boult sharing the news with the orchestra on the day).

Vaughan Williams's original idea was to create a programmatic symphony based on Thomas Hardy’s book Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Knowledge of the intention may help illustrate the thinking e.g. behind the contrast of the “Stonehenge” melody for saxophone and the “drummer boy” theme in the second movement. It is known that Holst and Williams held Hardy in high regard, our blogs have touched on Holst’s “Egdon Heath” and its contrasts of harmonic language.

Once again we are in the area of the “Encore” phase, there are reference to earlier, indeed very early works, while the opening chords of the 9th show a striking resemblance to the close of the final movement of his 6th. We may also consider that RVW is revisiting discussions with his friend Holst (who by this time had been dead for over 20 years), compare the similarities between the harmonic language of the opening of “Egdon Heath” and the opening melody of RVW’s 9th symphony.

The first movement, originally titled “Wessex Prelude” has a beautiful curve as its opening 4 bar phrase, rising from E to D flat. If we examine this as a set we have a 0,1,3,4,7,8 collection. If we compare the flute figure at rehearsal mark 3 we have a closely related theme in outline (the essential difference being the F natural to A flat upper notes, this interval is to become significant later in the movement) yet both set structures are identical, while the following violin melody shown forms a subset of 01368.

The saxophone parallel chord texture restates the collection 0,1,3,4,7,8. The remaining material is always traceable to the first set, even with the rhythmically distinct figure at 5, preceded by the cantabile clarinet figure at 4, one of the most beautiful transitions in RVW’s works.

The manuscript gives an overview of the two outer movements (the first in black ink, the fourth movement in blue). Placed in the center is what I consider to be the source of the material for both movements. If we consider these as a single joint movement we have a close relation to Sibelius 7, and for this reason I considered it worth joining the two movements as a single unit in a 2 piano arrangement, available on You Tube:

https://youtu.be/DHYfCUVmVJM


All of this only touches on the mastery of developing thematic characters from the original “curve”, but it does show RVW’s firm grasp on the technique of musical development at the end of his life, while revisiting ideas from his past, an endorsement of the “encore” and other phases of life.