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Anton Webern: biography and creativity

Anton Webern (photos are presented in the article) - Austrian composer, as well as conductor. He is one of the founders of the New Vienna School. Born in Vienna on September 15, 1883. In his youth, the future composer lived in Vienna and Graz.

Biography

The father of the future musician, Carl von Webern, was a mining engineer and an official from the Ministry of Agriculture. Mother, Amalia Ger, was the daughter of a butcher. She was interested in art, and she showed herself as an amateur pianist. Anton Webern’s biography is closely related to music. The future composer began to study seriously in 1895.

anton webern biography

At Edwin Komauer he comprehended playing the cello and piano. The young man also attended a gymnasium located in Klagenfurt. After that, he studied under the guidance of Guido Adler at the University of Vienna as a musicologist. In the period from 1904 to 1908, the musician was engaged in the composition of Arnold Schoenberg.

This fact had a significant impact on the formation of him as a person, and also determined his creative orientation. Webern in Schoenberg's class met Alban Berg, the composer, who became his close friend. Since 1908, Webern has performed as a symphony and opera conductor in the cities of Germany and Austria, and he also worked in Prague.

The musician was the leader of the Vienna Workers' Singing Society. In the period from 1928 to 1938, the composer held the position of conductor on Austrian radio. When the Nazi regime established itself in Austria, Webern was removed. His life was tragically cut short in Mittersill in 1945, when the city was already occupied by American troops.

Creation

anton webern photo

Anton Webern was a pupil and follower of Arnold Schoenberg, the creator of the so-called “atonal” school. The composer brought to the limit forms of expression the principles laid down in it. He used serial and dodecaphone technique in his compositions.

The music of this composer is characterized by the extreme concentration of expressive means, the unreality of images, sublimity, rigor, economy and conciseness, conciseness and aphorism. Exceptional sound refinement in the music of Anton Webern is combined with abstract thinking and a rigid structural scheme.

He is the author of choral, chamber-instrumental, symphonic and vocal works. The maestro created literary works, including poetry, the drama "Dead", musical studies and articles, analyzes of his own works, a series of conversations called "The Path to New Music".

The work of this composer significantly influenced the trends of the musical post-war avant-garde in the West. It was reflected in the works of such composers as Ligeti, Maderna, Nono, Stockhausen, Boulez, Stravinsky. Under his influence were the Russian music creators Volkonsky, Denisov, Schnittke, Gubaidulin, Kneifel, Wustin.

Quotes

weber biography

Anton Webern said:

New music is unprecedented music. In this case, the new music is equally as what arose a thousand years ago, and what exists today.

According to the composer, the new one is:

Such music, which is perceived as never before created, and not spoken.

The composer called music a language in which a person conveys what he cannot say otherwise. He wrote that there was a certain need, a need that awakened to life a phenomenon called music by people. The creator claimed that some thoughts can be expressed only by sounds:

Obviously, there was a certain need, a certain necessity, which brought to life what we call music. What is the need? The need to say something, to express a thought that cannot be expressed otherwise than in sounds.

Philip Gershkovich called Webern the last master of German music.

New Vienna School

Composer Anton Webern was one of the founders of Zweite Wiener Schule. The aesthetic principles of this phenomenon have historically developed in Vienna in the first third of the twentieth century.

Anton Webern composer

The school of composers was the result of the active organizational, pedagogical and creative activities of Arnold Schoenberg, as well as his students. In addition to Webern, efforts were made by René Leibowitz, Hans Erich Apostel, Theodor Adorno, Egon Velles, Heinrich Yalovets, Victor Ulman, Hans Eisler, Alban Berg.

Works

Anton Webern in 1906 created the sonata part for piano (Sonatensatz - Rondo). Also, the following works belong to his authorship:

  • "Slipping on the light shuttles";
  • “This song is only for you”;
  • “In the wind”;
  • “On the bank of a stream”;
  • "In the morning dew";
  • "Naked tree";
  • "Entrance";
  • “Still makes me faithful”;
  • “Praise and thanks to you”;
  • “I am so sad”;
  • “You have come to the hearth”;
  • "You, from whom I always hide";
  • “I am alone with you”;
  • “The day has passed”;
  • Mysterious Flute;
  • “It seemed to me when I saw the sun”;
  • "The lawn in the park";
  • "Lonely";
  • "In a foreign land";
  • "Winter evening";
  • "The sun";
  • "Evening landscape";
  • "At night";
  • "The singing of a caught thrush";
  • "Cross";
  • "Morning Song";
  • “To stand with the divine name”;
  • "My way";
  • “Go, O soul”;
  • “Poor Sinner”;
  • "Holy Virgin";
  • "Savior";
  • Zolotko;
  • "The rescue";
  • “Candle Lilies Whiten”;
  • “A flock grazes in a meadow”;
  • "Dark heart";
  • “Rushing from the heights”;
  • “The Lord Jesus is mine”;
  • "How glad I am";
  • "Purple Bird of the Heart";
  • "Stars";
  • "Eye Light";
  • “Lightning Lightning of Life”;
  • "Little Wing";
  • “The blessed strings of Apollo sound”;
  • "The world is silent";
  • "Deeply hidden inner life";
  • "To draw from the fountains of the sky";
  • "The lightest burdens of trees";
  • "Friendly word";
  • "Released from the bosom";
  • "In the summer wind."

And one more saying of the master: “What is the point of lovers to study the elements of music, the“ riddles of its rules ”? The point is precisely to teach to see the abysses behind banalities! And yet - and this would be a salvation - to be active spiritually."

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