Anton Webern (German: [ˈantoːn ˈveːbɐn]; December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and music expert. His modern music was among the most extreme of its time, using short, poetic styles and new methods like atonal and twelve-tone techniques. Webern’s work was influenced by his studies of the Franco-Flemish School with Guido Adler and by Arnold Schoenberg’s focus on structure in teaching composition, inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the First Viennese School, and Johannes Brahms. Webern, Schoenberg, and their colleague Alban Berg were central to a group called the Second Viennese School.

Webern was the first and last of the three to write music in a style that used short, expressive phrases and reflected his personal style and unique creative process. He wrote about themes like love, nature, mysticism, and nostalgia. Early in his career as a conductor, Webern often performed light music or operettas, but he aimed to conduct more serious music in Vienna. Following Schoenberg’s advice, Webern wrote longer pieces during and after World War I, using texts in many of his songs for structural support.

Webern became a respected choirmaster and conductor, promoting Gustav Mahler’s music in Vienna and abroad. While Schoenberg lived in Berlin, Webern wrote music that showed growing confidence, independence, and complexity using the twelve-tone technique. In Fascist Austria and Nazi Germany, Webern was seen as a "cultural Bolshevist" and faced marginalization. However, he continued to support "the path to the new music," gained international recognition, and relied more on teaching for income. He opposed fascist cultural ideas but supported pan-Germanism, a belief in unity among German-speaking people. He hoped for stable governance in Austria under Nazi Germany but was later disappointed. Webern helped Jewish friends escape or hide and considered leaving Austria himself.

During World War II, a soldier accidentally killed Webern. After his death, his music became widely celebrated by composers, musicians, and scholars in a movement called post-Webernism. René Leibowitz, Pierre Boulez, Robert Craft, and Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer helped promote his work as an important part of modernism through performances, study, and advocacy. Igor Stravinsky incorporated elements of Webern’s style into his own music. To many, Webern’s work represented a path to serialism, a method of composing using structured patterns. However, understanding the full meaning of Webern’s music, how it was performed, and its complex social and political background has been slower to develop. A complete historical edition of his music is currently being created.

Biography

Anton Webern was born on December 3, 1883, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. He was the only child to survive childhood, and his father, Carl von Webern, was an honored military veteran, high-ranking government official, and mining engineer who owned the Lamprechtsberg copper mine. Webern lived mainly in Graz (1890–1894) and Klagenfurt (1894–1902), with brief stays in Olomouc and Vienna for his father's work. He performed well in subjects like history and literature, and likely sang in school choirs.

Webern learned piano and sang opera with his mother, Amalie (née Geer), who was a trained pianist and skilled singer. He also danced with his sisters, Rosa and Maria, and received musical instruments as gifts, including a drum, trumpet, and later a violin. Local musician Edwin Komauer taught him piano, cello, and likely counterpoint from Bach's music. His family often played chamber music by composers like Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven, and Webern participated in local orchestras.

Webern and his family spent Easter holidays and summers at the Preglhof, a country estate near Schwabegg in Carinthia. They played in forests near the Koralpe and on a high meadow near a parish church where cattle grazed. Webern drove horses to a fair, fought a wildfire, and helped save his sister Rosa from drowning in a pond. In winter, they ice-skated on the Lendkanal to the Wörthersee. These experiences, along with reading Peter Rosegger, an Austrian writer connected to the Heimatkunst (homeland art) movement, helped shape Webern's strong sense of Heimat (homeland).

Before studying at the University of Vienna (1902–1906), Webern attended concerts, operas, plays, and visited art galleries and cultural events, including the Bayreuth Festival and Musikverein. He studied counterpoint with Karel Navrátil, harmony with Hermann Graedener, cello with Josef Háša, and piano with an unnamed pupil of Theodor Leschetizky.

At the university, Webern attended performances at the Burgtheater, Vienna Court Opera, and other venues, listening to works by Brahms, Mahler, Schumann, Strauss, Wagner, and Wolf. He met singers like Theodor Bertram and conductors like Mahler and Strauss. He sang in Bruckner's Te Deum under Siegfried Wagner and visited the Munich Kammerspiele for Frank Wedekind's Hidalla.

At school, Webern analyzed Beethoven's late quartets with classmate Egon Wellesz, took a Wagner seminar, and studied musical history under Guido Adler, who was a friend of Wagner and Mahler. For his musicology doctorate, Webern edited Choralis Constantinus II. As a composer, he admired its "subtle organization in the interplay of parts."

Webern also studied art history and philosophy with Max Dvořák, Laurenz Müllner, and Franz Wickhoff. He joined the Albrecht Dürer Society in 1903 and may have been introduced to artists like Arnold Böcklin and Giovanni Segantini by his cousin Ernst Diez. He admired Segantini's landscapes as much as Beethoven's music.

Webern studied Catholic liturgy and nationalism, influenced by his upbringing. He initially found the Jewish community in Vienna alien due to antisemitism, but he had Jewish friends like Heinrich Jalowetz, which changed his views.

Karl Weigl, a student of Guido Adler, introduced Webern to Arnold Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande in 1903. Webern attended Schoenberg's performances and may have studied with him starting in 1904. Through Schoenberg, Webern met Alban Berg and Alexander Zemlinsky, and may have worked as an assistant coach at the Volksoper in Vienna (1906–1909). Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern became lifelong friends.

Through Schoenberg, Webern met artists like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. In 1920, Webern wrote Berg about Klimt's work, describing it as "a luminous, tender, heavenly realm." He also met Karl Kraus, whose lyrics he later set in his compositions.

Webern married Wilhelmine "Minna" Mörtl in 1911 in Danzig. They had three children, and their Catholic wedding was held in 1915 after they married in a civil ceremony. They met in 1902 and hiked together in 1905. Webern courted her by sharing John Ruskin's essays and dedicated his Langsamer Satz to her. He wrote in his diary about their time together, showing his literary interests.

Webern conducted and coached singers in operetta, musical theater, and light music during his early career. Operetta was popular in Vienna during its Silver Age, though some critics like Karl Kraus and Theodor Adorno considered it pretentious. Webern initially disliked operetta but later appreciated works like Strauss II's Nacht in Venedig.

Webern worked as a conductor in Bad Teplitz and later in Danzig, where he conducted operettas like Lustige Witwe and Fledermaus. He left his job there due to disagreements. He composed his Op. 7 during summers at the Preglhof and attended Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand in Munich. He also worked as an assistant conductor in Danzig, where he first saw the ocean.

Music

Can thinking and feeling be completely separated? It is hard to imagine a very smart mind without strong emotions.

Webern's music was usually short, well-organized, and used very simple musical ideas. His work included small musical patterns, repeated patterns that read the same forwards and backwards, and careful use of musical elements on both small and large scales. His unique style was influenced by composers like Schoenberg, Mahler, and early music. He was also interested in unusual ideas and natural philosophy. He studied the works of Goethe, Bach, and composers from the Franco-Flemish School, as well as Wolf, Brahms, Wagner, Liszt, Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart. Changes in his musical style did not always match the development of his techniques, especially in his middle-period songs.

His music often had a clear, flowing quality and was meant to be sung. Johnson described the singing-like qualities of Webern's Op. 11/i. In his middle-period songs, some listeners noticed the voice being used like an instrument, especially with the clarinet, which connected to a style called bel canto. Lukas Näf described a special musical effect in Webern's Op. 21/i as requiring a flexible, expressive way of playing. His music often used unusual sounds, wide musical jumps, and extreme high and low notes.

For Johnson, Webern's use of flexible timing made Mahler's music feel more dramatic and calm. This, along with Webern's use of loudness and quietness, showed a small amount of personal emotion in his music. Webern carefully chose poetic texts for his songs. His music connected to his memories of his childhood home, his love of climbing mountains, and his interest in plant smells and shapes. He was compared to Mahler in how he used orchestras and themes like memory, nature, and loss. He worked with a poet named Jone, who shared his interest in spiritual and natural ideas. She wrote the texts for his later vocal works.

Webern and Schoenberg both used musical intervals like minor seconds, major sevenths, and minor ninths, as noted by a microtonal music expert in 1934. Other composers, like Berg and Schoenberg, also used these intervals in different ways. Webern linked musical notes with other musical elements, such as fixed musical ranges.

Few of Webern's works were published during his lifetime. After his death, many of his works were discovered and published, including some that were unknown until the 1980s. This made it harder to understand the full range of his musical style. When conductor Boulez first recorded Webern's music, it fit on three CDs, but later recordings needed six CDs. A complete edition of his music is still being worked on.

Webern's earliest works were mostly songs based on poems by Richard Dehmel, Gustav Falke, and Theodor Storm. He set seven poems by Ferdinand Avenarius about the changing moods of life and nature. Composers like Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf influenced him. The Romantic Lied, a type of German song, had a lasting effect on Webern's style. He never stopped using its poetic, personal, and nostalgic qualities, even as his music became more abstract and introspective.

Webern wrote about the Preglhof in a poem and a tone poem called Im Sommerwind (1904), inspired by a work by Bruno Wille. In Sommerwind, some listeners found similarities to music by Strauss, Charpentier, and Delius.

In 1905, Webern wrote a string quartet in a modified sonata form, possibly influenced by Schoenberg's Op. 7. He quoted a philosopher named Jakob Böhme and referenced a painting series by Segantini. Some experts believe this quartet was influenced by Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra. Others noted that Webern's use of harmony in this piece foreshadowed Schoenberg's later atonal music.

In 1906, Schoenberg asked Webern to harmonize Bach's chorales, and Webern completed eighteen in a highly chromatic style. He later wrote a single-movement piano quintet in sonata form.

Webern's Passacaglia, Op. 1 (1908), was his graduation piece. Its use of chromaticism and unusual orchestration made it stand out. Its structure hinted at his later works. When Webern conducted the first performance of Op. 1 in 1911, the concert was poorly attended. A critic called the piece an "insane experiment." Webern's Op. 2 choral canons followed soon after.

Webern also started an opera based on a play by Maeterlinck, but only unfinished sketches remained. In 1912, he told Berg he had completed some scenes for another opera, Die sieben Prinzessinnen, which was never finished. He loved opera and knew the repertoire well, including every detail of performances. He admired Mozart's Il Seraglio and predicted that Strauss's Salome would last. He sometimes sang parts of Lortzing's Zar und Zimmermann, a personal favorite. In 1930, he asked Jone for dramatic texts, planning to write cantatas instead of operas.

Webern's music, like Schoenberg's, became freely atonal after Op. 2. Some of their works were published in Der Blaue Reiter. Schoenberg once joked that he could not tell who he was because of their mutual influence. In Op. 5/iii, Webern used a melody from Schoenberg's Op. 10/ii. In Op. 5/iv, he used a melody from Schoenberg's Op. 10/iv.

Webern's innovative works from Opp. 5–11 (1909–1914) greatly influenced Schoenberg and Berg. These works were very short and focused on new ideas. Webern believed that when all twelve musical notes were used, a piece was complete. Schoenberg wrote that Webern had freed music from the rules of traditional harmony.

Reception, influence, and legacy

Webern's music was often seen as hard for performers to play and hard for listeners to understand. Milton Babbitt noted that, to the extent it was noticed, Webern's work was described as extremely difficult to understand, very specialized, and unique in style.

At first, composers and performers focused on certain parts of Webern's music, such as its early post-Romantic and expressionist elements, and interpreted them in a formal way. This approach, which sometimes ignored Webern's own preferences, became known as post-Webernism. Later in the 20th century, scholars like the Moldenhauers helped people better understand Webern's music by studying his notes, letters, lectures, recordings, and other writings.

After World War II, Webern's earlier exclusion from public life under Nazi policies was recognized, but his views on politics, Germany, and antisemitism were not widely discussed. For some, like Stravinsky, Webern remained true to his artistic values. For others, his political beliefs were more complicated.

Eric Simon described a moment when Webern told a concertmaster to play a musical phrase with a long, drawn-out sound. When the conductor, Klemperer, heard this, he responded sarcastically, saying Webern probably knew exactly how to play the passage. Peter Stadlen later described Webern's reaction to a performance as calling the music "like the work of a madman."

Webern wrote detailed instructions for how music should be played, including dynamics, tempo, and expression. He encouraged performers to follow these instructions but also to add emotional depth through their phrasing. This was supported by recordings and accounts of performances of works like Schubert's Deutsche Tänze and Berg's Violin Concerto under Webern's guidance. Ian Pace noted that Webern's approach to conducting Op. 27 emphasized flexibility and emotional intensity.

This aspect of Webern's work was often ignored during the early post-war period, when interest in older music was growing. Stravinsky, who studied Webern and Renaissance music in his later years, had his assistant, Craft, perform Webern's works as well as those of older composers like Monteverdi and Schütz. Many musicians played music that combined old and new styles, as noted by scholars like Nicholas Cook, Anthony Pople, and Richard Taruskin. J. Peter Burkholder observed that audiences for early and modern music often overlapped.

Felix Galimir of the Galimir Quartet told The New York Times in 1981 that Berg demanded precise performances of his music but then wanted them to feel very romantic. He said Webern was also deeply romantic in his personality and conducting style, often making music feel overly emotional. This was different from how people today often view Webern's work.

Many artists created portraits of Webern. Kokoschka, Schiele, Dolbin, and Rederer drew him. Oppenheimer, Kokoschka, and Tom von Dreger painted him. Stumpp made lithographs of him, and Humplik sculpted him twice. Jone made drawings and a painting of him. Rederer also created a large woodcut of Webern in 1964.

Schoenberg praised Webern's ability to express complex ideas simply, writing in the 1924 introduction to Op. 9 that Webern could "express a novel in a single gesture." Berg joked about Webern's brevity, and Hendrik Andriessen called Webern's music "pitiful" in this regard. In a parody of a magazine article, editors joked that Webern's music was so short that even Mahler's long Symphony of a Thousand needed to be shortened.

Felix Khuner said Webern was as revolutionary as Schoenberg. Hans Mersmann wrote in 1927 that Webern's music showed the limits of a style that tried to go beyond Schoenberg's work.

During the 1940s, Dallapiccola, inspired by Webern's lesser-known songs, blended Webern's ethereal style with Italian opera. He was deeply moved by Webern's Op. 24 when it premiered in 1935 and dedicated his work Sex carmina alcaei to Webern. Dallapiccola's Goethe-lieder from 1953 echoed Webern's Op. 16 in style.

In 1947, Schoenberg defended Berg and Webern against rumors that Webern had supported the Nazis, saying they should be remembered as a group united by their ideals. Krasner called them "Vienna's Three Modern Classicists" and emphasized their shared idealism.

Webern's death was a loss for musicians who valued his work. Despite a world that often ignored him, he created music of great beauty and insight.

After World War II, interest in Webern's music grew rapidly. His approach to organizing music, including pitch, rhythm, and dynamics, became a model for new compositions, especially in courses like the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. René Leibowitz promoted Schoenberg's work, and composers like Adorno and Stockhausen contributed to this revival. Composers and students listened intently to performances like Peter Stadlen's 1948 interpretation of Op. 27.

Webern's innovations in structure, rhythm, and melody influenced many composers, including Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen, and others. A special issue of die Reihe in 1955 focused on Webern's work, and his lectures were published in 1960.

In the United States, composers like Babbitt and Rochberg studied Schoenberg's twelve-tone method. Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland were both curious and critical about Webern's music. Craft helped Stravinsky rediscover Webern, which shaped Stravinsky's later works. Stravinsky insisted that Columbia Records record and distribute Webern's music, calling it "not yet canonized art" in 1959.

Among the New York School, John Cage and Morton Feldman first met in Carnegie Hall's lobby.

Recordings by Webern

• Webern Conducts: Berg – Violin Concerto. Continuum. Published in 1991 [original work from 1936]. ASIN B000003XHN. OCLC 25348107. SBT 1004.
• The Complete Works of Anton Webern. CBS Records. Published in 1978. ASIN B000002707. OCLC 612743015. Webern conducts an arrangement of Schubert's German Dances.