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Anton Webern

Classical Music / Composer Datebook: December 3


Austrian composer Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was born in Vienna. . He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique. His innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative in the musical style later known as serialism.

Webern was born as Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern. He never used his middle names, dropping the von in 1918. He attended Vienna University from 1902 where he studied musicology with Guido Adler, writing his thesis on the Choralis Constantinus of Heinrich Isaac. This interest in early music greatly influenced his compositional technique in later years.


He studied composition under Arnold Schoenberg, writing his Passacaglia, Op. 1 as his graduation piece in 1908. He met Alban Berg, who was also a pupil of Schoenberg's, and these two relationships were the most important in his life that shaped his own musical direction. After graduating, he took a series of conducting posts at various theatres outside of Vienna. However, in Vienna, he helped run Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances and conducted the "Vienna Workers Symphony Orchestra" from 1922 to 1934.

Webern's music was denounced as "cultural Bolshevism" when the Nazi Party seized power in Austria in 1938. As a result, he found it harder to earn a living, and had to take on work as an editor and proofreader for his publishers. He left Vienna in 1945 and moved to Salzburg, believing he would be safer there. However, on September 15, during the Allied occupation of Austria, he was accidentally shot dead by an American Army soldier following the arrest of his son-in-law for black market activities.


Video Credit:

Anton Webern. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain. 

Resources:

  • Bailey, Kathryn. 1998. The Life of Webern. Musical Lives. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.      

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