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Was Anton von Webern an icon of progressive elements in music or a Nazi sympathizer? According to author Malcolm Hayes, perhaps both appellations are correct. Von Webern is neither as well known as his mentor Schoenberg nor did he achieve the (comparative) popular success of his compatriot Berg. As with other volumes in the Phaidon 20th-Century Composers series, more attention is focused on the life of von Webern than on the details of his music. Hayes recounts the troubled decline of Habsburg Austria in the first half of this century, which gave rise to the brand of modernism championed primarily by Schoenberg. Shot accidentally by an American soldier in 1945, von Webern never saw his postwar successes and was spared the spectacle of some of the claims of his postwar adherents.Book Description
Was Anton von Webern an icon of progressive elements in music or a Nazi sympathizer? According to author Malcolm Hayes, perhaps both appellations are correct. Von Webern is neither as well known as his mentor Schoenberg nor did he achieve the (comparative) popular success of his compatriot Berg. As with other volumes in the Phaidon 20th-Century Composers series, more attention is focused on the life of von Webern than on the details of his music. Hayes recounts the troubled decline of Habsburg Austria in the first half of this century, which gave rise to the brand of modernism championed primarily by Schoenberg. Shot accidentally by an American soldier in 1945, von Webern never saw his postwar successes and was spared the spectacle of some of the claims of his postwar adherents. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Solid introduction the fascinating composer
Webern's music seems to me to be something of an acquired taste. This biography, however, is perfectly designed to encourage one to acquire a taste for the strange atonal wisps of sound that comprise a good part of this composer's ouevre.

Rather than getting bogged down in technicaldiscussions of Webern's serial techniques, the author gives us thecomposer's life; stopping at crucial musical signposts to explain how histhought evolved. In each case, we're given an idea how to approach thegiven piece.

Webern's music often seems unearthly, and he comes across asa bit unearthly (or at least very impractical) himself.Still, we get ahuman portrait of him, which further encourages us to see the passion inhis music.

As with all the books in this wonderful series, it containscopious quantities of drawings and photos, a complete list of compositionsand a wonderful bibliography for further reading.

If you've alwayswondered what the big deal about Webern was (to the extent that heinfluenced 50 years of music, frequently by people who seem not to haveunderstood his muse), this is a good place to start finding out. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Indispensable
I bought this book when it was first published, and it remains the most thorough study of the composer available. I've seen no book, before or since this book, which is as extensive.The author is sympathetic, but retains his objectivity; there's no trace of fauning admiration here, nor of academic aloofness.Mixes biography with discussions of his musical works.This is that proverbial "must-have' book for anyone with an interest in the composer.

comprehensive personal
Shame this is diffucult to obtained,Moldenhauer is an archivist, a collector of the particles, anf filiments from one's lifeworld, and here this large book presents an exhaustive account of Webern's life down to much perosnal fragments, anxieties and wishes. We learn he remained afraid to conduct, and cancelled many times,also hated travel, he was very much like his music, thought thru down to finest rarefied details.,plucked strings, pencil-thin harmonics, Am Steg;a new musical language advanced like his "Six Pieces Op.6 for Orchestra",miniature gems of timbre here/there. There is not much on the creativity moments of his life, this is fairly a personal day to day ad nauseum at times narrative. It is fairly exhaustive, and really brings the commonplace aspects that fills really much of a composer's life, that in fact those moments of "illumination" or clarvoyance we as consumers continue wish to phanthom occur many times quite spontaneously and never within a durational frame of predictability; while walking or un-boarding a train, lighting up a cigarette, watching the troops from the train, returning home. His music, his diamond-cut pieces (Stravinsky decribed him) inspired a generation of composers. He affinity for purity number,density proportion shape and design were all welcome elements from the overdetermined political pages of Europe with Two Massive Wars, no one has seem to learn from.
There are nice vintage photos all included here. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume, a collection of papers--critical, analytical, and biographical--will be an indispensable addition to the surprisingly limited literature on Webern. The articles were compiled by Hans Moldenhauer, the composer's authoritative biographer. ... Read more

Product Description
8 PP 1921 WEBERN UE 6645 SHEET MUSIC ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on December 1, 1996. The length of the article is 1917 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Briefwechsel mit Arnold Schonberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg und Franz Schreker.
Author: Alexander L. Ringer
Publication: Notes (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1996
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: v53Issue: n2Page: p437(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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