WEEK 3: SYMMETRIES AND SERIAL ORGANIZATION ANTON WEBERN

IAN SHANAHAN (2002)

Define SERIALISM: serialism occurs whenever the ordering of something is important.

So both pieces last week were, strictly speaking, serial (though local note-to-note detail in
my own Lines of Light isnt!). Implication: serialism 12-tone composition; and yet the
latter is serial!

Explain the four basic row-forms: O/P, R, I, RI and their transpositions: hence there are
usually 48 distinct row-forms (unless hexachordal symmetries are present in O); NB: {RI} =
{IR}.

Explain the matrix and its numbers (011): see Ex. 1.

Now define SYMMETRY and its meaning (see Brief Notes on Symmetry); relate it to those
operations that yield the four basic forms:

translation (e.g. a honeycomb, a brick wall) transposition; imitation (canon, polyphony);

reflection (e.g. the human body) retrograde, inversion, retrograde inversion;
rotation (e.g. flowers, starfish) Stravinsky (next week), Kagel (archive), cyclic groups;
scalar symmetry (= self-similarity) discussed last week.

Key points about Anton Webern (18831945). He received his doctorate in musicology from
the University of Vienna in 1906; his thesis topic: Renaissance music (on the composer
Obrecht, etc.). Hence his love of canonic forms. Performances of his music were banned by
the Nazis; he was shot by an American soldier (how symbolic!!!) tell the story briefly.

Historical context: Webern is the great link between the 19th-century symphonic tradition
(Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern) and post-WW2 serialists (Webern, Boulez and
Stockhausen). He was virtually a 1950s cult figure of almost mythological proportions,
despite the fact that even during the late 50s recordings and scores of his work were difficult
to obtain. Moreover, because serialism was banned throughout Nazi Europe, it became a
symbol of post-WW2 intellectual freedom.

Weberns late musical language is carefully circumscribed; the key concepts are symmetry
and unity. His music deliberately covers a limited emotive field; therefore, his technical
means are not widely varied. He increasingly tended to limit his materials only to those that
best served his expressive needs. He endeavoured to preform these, so that a whole work
derived from a minimum of material ... a seed, typifying the Germanic fetish for unity and
organicism. Weberns musical circumscription achieves homogeneity and coherence in the
service of unity. He endeavoured to create as many relationships as possible within the
music (this is genuine complexity), so that the totality of any work was comprised of
interrelated factors reducible to an absolute minimum of initial material.

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Webern actually composed relatively few serial works, but his 12-tone rows became
increasingly similar: cells of semitones interspersed with 3rds, deployed in symmetrical
patterns, as in his Concerto, Op.24 see Ex. 2 and Ex. 3.

A lovely point concerning the Concertos 12-tone row: the 4 basic serial transformations are
inherent to the row itself! Hence there exists a kind of abstract self-similarity in this piece.

The cellular construction of Weberns 12-tone rows carries significant implications for his
musical products: e.g., within the Concerto Op.24/I, all 2- and 3-note fragments use only
semitones and 3rds plus their inversions and compounds from the 12-tone row.
Harmonically, Webern limits himself to the very same material semitones, 3rds, their
inversions and octave displacements (m9ths etc.); and one also finds plenty of tritones. (So
again, we see considerable unity, if not great variety.) Thus: m2nds, m/M3rds, A4ths,
m/M6ths, M7ths, m9ths are most often heard in this music (these too are symmetrical!).

NB: Webern normally starts with note 1 of a 12-tone row, although notes might also be used
as pivots (common tones) between different rows. This becomes a compositional parameter
that serves as a formal determinant.

Webern sometimes preordains the octave within which each pitch-class shall be deployed with
a fixed-register chord that is itself usually symmetrical see the handouts. This suggests
two possibilities: (1) progressing gradually to or from fixed registration; or (2), fixing the
register strictly throughout a given section. Indeed, for Webern, the first device equates to
modulation in Classical tonality although his sonata forms do not arise organically from
his serial designs: theyre prefabricated, and serve to align him ideologically with the
Austro-Germanic symphonic tradition (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler,
Schoenberg, etc.). Weberns sonata forms and progressions are elucidated by various
compositional parameters and instrumental techniques see Ex. 4.

And yet Webern tended to prefer contrapuntal forms: due to his doctoral studies, he was very
well acquainted with rhythmic proportionalisms, hocket, and all the various types of canon.
Many sections of his music are merely successions of canonic designs (e.g., the 2nd
movement of Weberns Symphony consists of a set of mirrored canonic variations).

His polyphonic phrase-structure is based upon brief, simple rhythmic cells which overlap, and
are derived directly from basic whole-number proportions ... usually in 2- or 3-note
fragments. For example, the first movement of Weberns String Quartet, bars 4965, is
grounded entirely upon the ratio 2:1. (As with Messiaen, such music is pulse-driven, but it is
by no means obviously metric!) And in his Concerto, one finds similar behaviours: the
rhythmic cells on p.1 all exhibit the ratio 1:1:1, but with changing time-values: , , triplet ,
triplet

Another typical Webernian structural device: strict mirrors or palindromes ... yet more
symmetry! A movement might consist of a single mirror, or chains of smaller mirrors. Often,
the timbral, dynamic and articulatory details are mirrored as well.

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Also, we regularly encounter mirror harmony i.e. symmetrical chords often on account of
the presence of a (symmetrical) fixed-register chord, as at the end of the Concerto Op.24/I.
Now go through the score (handout) of Weberns Concerto Op.24/I.

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