Anton Webern

The modernist radicalism of Anton Webern’s music was a central influence on the generation of avant-garde composers after the Second World War. He was born in Vienna in 1883, the son of a government official in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The family house and estate at Preglhof, in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, gave Webern a deep love of the landscape of the Austrian Alps and their lakeland foothills. In 1902 he entered Vienna University, studying and editing the music of Renaissance-era choral composers. He also became a composition pupil of Arnold Schoenberg; and when his teacher’s music began to explore the uncharted world of atonality, Webern followed his example. His earlier late-Romantic idiom now became spare and compressed, favouring short forms, highly refined instrumentation, and hyper-intense musical expression. Outstanding achievements from this period are the 6 Pieces for large orchestra, Op. 6 (1909), and the ultra-terse Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9 (1911-13). Webern’s later works filtered the stylistic purity he admired in the Renaissance choral masters through the 12-note serial method evolved by Schoenberg. Among these are a two-movement Symphony for small orchestra, Op. 21 (1928), and two Cantatas for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 29 (1939) and Op. 31 (1943). In 1945, just after the Second World War ended, Webern was accidentally shot and killed by a soldier in the occupying American army.