Webern - Variationen für Orchester op. 30

[Mischa]

Written in 1940 as Webern's last orchestral work. I'd lie saying I'd understand the music, but as this thread is a successor of [ame="http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1407"]this one[/ame] there is hope!

music: http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/d...?do=file&id=17

score: http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/d...?do=file&id=16

Unfortunately the bars of the score are not numbered, but the double bars can be orientation enough. Webern himself structures the Variationen like this:

"Theme" of the variations: right to the first double bar. It's considered periodically, but its character is introductory

Then six variations (each through to the next double bar):
1st: unfolding the main theme of the ouverture (his words)
2nd: transition
3rd: Seitensatz
4th: Reprise
5th: a sort of synthesis of introduction & transition
6th: coda

The row itself consists of the three tetrachords introduced by basses, oboe & trombones.

Let's have a closer look to it! Where's the key to get it? Which are the facets (structure, row technique etc.) you'd want to point out? Of course I can't await a vademecum, but maybe we can reveal some aspects peu à peu...

[Herzeleide]

I love this piece. It's better than the piano variations.

[Mischa]

Ok, listening helps, it grows a bit, though all I appreciate yet is exactely, what Webern fans hate to hear: some really striking little aural sensations (like the interaction of harp & celesta in the 2nd variation). Generally I even fail already to understand the theme itself in the introduction alone, there's no discernable connection between the tetrachords, no rhythmic backbone, pretty wide intervals. What in fact did Webern's radical reduction & shortage left?

Though listening helps, I have to say I'm a bit lost there. No problem for me to get the Lyrische Suite, to appreciate and cherish the Schönberg orchestral variations, when it comes to more or less orthodox 12ton technique, but most of the Webern works leave me just like this one.

Well, the more one knows, the more one can appreciates. Structuring the Variationen alone helps already. But I'm still clueless. What's your approach? Where's your focus on it? Answer, Webern lovers!

[Mischa]

Shameless bump disguised as a Stravinsky quote:

"The 15 of September 1945, the day of Anton Webern's death, should be a day of mourning for any receptive musician. We must hail not only this great composer but also a real hero. Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference he inexorably kept cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, the mines of which he had such a perfect knowledge."

Digging diamonds in the Variationen, anybody? I just don't know where...