3 Little Pieces

Composed in 1914, these Three Little Pieces are the ultimate example of Webern’s modernist idiom at its most compressed: a complete performance of the set lasts about two-and-a-half minutes. Webern privately conceded to colleagues that brevity as extreme as this would never suit concert performance; and indeed his music was later find a more natural home in a future world of radio broadcasts, recordings and streaming. The first and third pieces deploy their musical material very sparsely, with the cello muted, and exploring a variety of sonic effects—pizzicato (plucked), am Steg (bowed close to the bridge, producing a nasal tone), am Griffbrett (its feathery opposite, played over the fingerboard)—which between them fragment any sense of conventional musical line. The second piece, with the cello playing unmuted, is fiercely expressive; and in the very quiet and ultra-concentrated third, the cello part consists of just eight single notes.