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Copyright by Robert Harry Hallis Jr 2004 Copyright by Robert Harry Hallis Jr 2004 The Dissertation Committee for Robert Harry Hallis Jr certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Reevaluating the Compositional Process of Anton Webern: 1910-1925 Committee: ______________________________ Elliott Antokoletz, Supervisor ______________________________ Hanns-Bertold Dietz ______________________________ Rebecca A Baltzer ______________________________ Kathleen Higgins ______________________________ Merianne Wheeldon Reevaluating the Compositional Process of Anton Webern: 1910-1925 by Robert Harry Hallis Jr, B.M.E., B.A., B.M., M.M., M.L.I.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2004 In loving memory of my mother. Preface The brevity of Anton Webern’s works is deceptive. Although his complete works can be performed in an afternoon, he is encountered in almost any critical discussion of music at the turn of the twentieth century. This treatise represents the fruits of several years of examining only a portion of his compositions within the scholarly discourse that has grown around his works. My interest in his compositions, however, began long before this, and extended beyond the compositional process of a single composer. As an undergraduate, I found it curious that such a brief corpus of works should have so profound an influence on the development of Western Music. As a student of composition, I was fascinated by the organization of his rows, and how he brought an extraordinary musical expression to a potentially mechanical succession of pitches. As a student of psychology, I was equally fascinated by the process by which artists envision their creations, and bring their visions to completion. It was not until my years as a graduate student, however, that I became increasingly aware of the dichotomy between Webern’s historical image as a calculating expressionless master of the rows, and the programmatic associations and emotional expressivity that he discusses within his letters and lectures. While it is comforting to have seen several new biographical works reconcile Webern’s expressed aesthetic and his historical position,1 theoretical considerations of his works continue to focus on issues that appear foreign to his compositional intent. 1 Kathryn Bailey, The Life of Webern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Malcolm Hayes, Anton von Webern (London: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1995); Anne Schreffler, Webern and the Lyric Impulse: Songs and Fragments on Poems of Georg Trakl (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); and Julian Johnson, Webern and the Transformation of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). v George Perle concluded that pitch-class set analysis was contrary to his “common sense” experience of much of the atonal repertoire.2 In this treatise, I concluded that many of the analytical procedures used to “reveal” a broad number of techniques in Webern’s atonal music appear equally contrary to his compositional intent. Octatonic collections, whole note scales, symmetrical relations are all evident in many of his atonal works, and such structures are often aurally recognizable. Webern’s letters, diary entries and lectures, however, do not support the idea that he intentionally used them in structuring his music. Rather these elements became part of the composer’s ear and experience. A close reading of his writings as well as the musical tracts written by those who knew him personally reveals that Webern consciously used rather traditional musical forms and techniques in a highly individual manner. Aware of a broad range of contemporary music, Webern used these elements intuitively, or even perhaps subconsciously, and not as a part of a precompositional intent. These conclusions have been reached over an extended period of time through working with many individuals. I am deeply appreciative to all who have shaped my educational experience over the long time I have been formally attending university, many perhaps in ways unseen to them at the time. The members of my committee, however, have been especially influential through this long journey. I remain especially appreciative for the consistent support, insight and enthusiasm provided by my chair, Elliott Antokoletz, over the extended period of time needed to complete this treatise as well as for his participation on my Master’s treatise. Through his classes and participation on my Master’s committee, Hanns-Bertold Dietz has been especially influential over this period of time, and his 2 George Perle, “Pitch-Class Set Analysis: An Evaluation,” The Journal of Musicology 8/2 (Spring, 1990): 151-172. vi Socratic pedagogical style brought Webern’s lectures and Schoenberg’s teaching to life. Through her courses and my comprehensive exam, Rebecca Baltzer underscored the connectedness between the music, the theory and the society, and Kathleen Higgens was so helpful in untangling aesthetic issues and integrating the philosophical elements into the current study. I deeply appreciate Marianne Wheeldon’s willingness to step in at the last minute and work with me at a distance. As an undergraduate at Stetson University, I was first introduced to the word musicology by Robert Fort. Here I also had the privilege of studying composition with Janis Kindred and Paul Langston as well as watercolor with Fred Messersmith, all of which served to illustrate the many levels of challenges one faces when approaching “creation” in even the most modest sense of the word. I am also grateful for the patience and insight Robert Brady offered while working with philosophical issues of aesthetics and communication. Through these experiences, I first became interested in the motivation and processes of creativity, aesthetics, and the complexities of music history. As a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, I had the privilege of working with a number of distinguished scholars in both the departments of Music and Library and Information Science, and I remain indebted to them for their patience, insight and expertise. I especially want to thank David Hunter for providing an archetypal mentor for the scholar/librarian, as I worked with him as both student and employee in the Fine Arts Library, and continue to work as a music specialist in an academic library. I am also indebted to Patrick McCreless, whose participation on my Master’s treatise, and whose analytical studies of Webern’s works provided valuable insights in understanding his music. I am naturally grateful for the continuing support of my wife, Xiang, and for her constant efforts to focus my attention on completing this treatise. I vii extend my thanks to Universal Edition, who kindly gave permission for reproducing excerpts, if such can be made from Webern’s published works. I am also grateful to Pal Rao, now Dean of Libraries at Wichita State University, whose encouragement and support provided the nurturing environment necessary to finally bring this work to completion while he was Dean at Central Missouri State University. viii Reevaluating the Compositional Process of Anton Webern: 1910-1925 Publication No. _____________ Robert Harry Hallis Jr., Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Elliott Antokoletz Analytical treatments of Anton Webern’s compositions between 1910 and 1925 fail to provide a “rosetta stone” by which these works may be collectively understood. In his 1932 lecture, The Way to the New Music, Webern provided a clue to understanding these works. Here he used the term “run” to describe his compositional process for the Bagatelles. The present study proposes that what Webern termed a “run” refers to an unfolding aggregate of unique pitch-classes that mark a division, idea, or theme within the composition. Although a run usually contains pitch-class repetition, the presentation of all twelve unique pitch-classes defines structural divisions within the composition. These boundaries are articulated by the appearance of the final missing pitch-class, and generally supported by additional elements of timbre, tempo, and dynamics. Webern was forced to thin the texture and compress the form in his atonal works in order to permit one to aurally perceive the introduction of unique pitch-classes. My analyses of Opp. 7 through 19 support this conclusion. ix His 1932 lecture, however, recalled a technique he used twenty years earlier, and after he incorporated Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method into his compositional practice. Psychological investigations into the validity of autobiographical memory further support my reading of Webern’s narrative. In addition, I use Wittgenstein’s metaphors of the “language game” and “forms of life” to show why some scholars have used Webern’s statement to support analytical treatments that are foreign to his intent. Certainly one finds octatonic collections, whole-tone scales, and symmetrical structures in Webern’s atonal works, and, indeed, he was familiar with a broad range of contemporary music. Webern does not, however, specifically allude to any of these techniques in his letters, lectures, or diary entries. Rather, Webern intuitively used these elements to arrange individual pitches within an unfolding “run.” Through this survey of Webern scholarship, I argue that the preoccupation with serial tendencies in his atonal compositions served to overshadow the uniqueness of his stated
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