This important new study reassesses the position of Anton Webern in twentieth-century music. The twelve-note method of composition adopted by Anton Webern had profound consequences for composers of the next generation such as Stockhausen and Boulez, who saw Webern's music as revolutionary. In her detailed analyses, however, Professor Bailey demonstrates a fundamentally traditional aspect to Webern's creativity, when describing his own music. Professor Bailey analyses all Webern's twelve-note works (from Op. 17 to Op. 31) i.e. the instrumental and vocal music written between 1924 and 1943. These analyses draw on sketch material recently made available at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel and include transcriptions of little-known drafts and sketches. A most valuable aspect of the book is the inclusion in appendices of such materials as a complete explanation of the row content of each work, the correct prime form of each of the rows from Op. 20 onwards, with a matrix constructed for each, and exhaustive row analyses.

This collection of essays looks at the music of Webern from several different perspectives. Webern scholarship, based on the sketches and other primary material now owned by the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel and the Library of Congress in Washington, has emphasised Webern's lyricism, and this is a theme running through Webern Studies. Most of the essays are the result of work with primary material. The volume includes entries from Webern's diaries, and all of the row tables for his twelve-note music. A comprehensive Webern bibliography covers thoroughly the period since Zoltan Roman's bibliography of 1978.

Reveals the great twentieth-century Italian composer's innovative handling of harmony, form, and text setting.

The Austrian composer Anton Webern (1883-1945) is one of the major figures of musical modernism. His mature works comprise two styles: the so-called free atonal music composed between 1907 and 1924, and the twelve-tone serial music that began in 1924 and extended through the remainder of his creative life. In this book an eminent music theorist presents the first systematic and in-depth study of the early atonal works, from the George Lieder, opus 3, through the Latin Canons, opus 16. Drawing on music-analytical procedures that he and other scholars have developed in recent years, Allen Forte argues that a single compositional system underlies all of Webern's atonal music. Forte examines such elements as pitch, register, timbre, rhythm, form, and text setting, showing how Webern displaced the functional connections of traditional tonality to create a totally new sonic universe. Although the main thrust of the study is music-analytical in nature, Forte also considers historical context and significant biographical aspects of the individual works, as well as word-music relations in the music with text.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

A fascinating account of Webern's life.