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Anton Webern (3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer and conductor. Along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern comprised the core among those within and more peripheral to the circle of the Second Viennese School, including Ernst Krenek and Theodor W. Adorno. As an exponent of atonality and twelve-tone technique, Webern exerted influence on contemporaries Luigi Dallapiccola, Křenek, and even Schoenberg himself. As tutor Webern guided and variously influenced Arnold Elston, Frederick Dorian (Friederich Deutsch), Fré Focke, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Philipp Herschkowitz, René Leibowitz, Humphrey Searle, Leopold Spinner, and Stefan Wolpe.
Variations for orchestra Op. 30
Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli
Description by John Keillor [-]
Anton Webern's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30, was written in 1940-41. Consisting of a theme and six variations, this single movement work is just over seven minutes long, making it the composer's second longest single movement work. His Passacaglia, Op. 1, from 1907 is almost three minutes longer and is also a set of variations. In the thirty-three years that separate these pieces, the quality of Webern's composing remained at a consistently high level, while embracing quite divergent idioms. For instance, Op. 1 embodies post-Brahmsian tonality while Op. 30 is constructed from his unique twelve-tone technique, an operation that had a decisive influence on several generations of composers.
Written between January 1940 and February 1941, the Op. 30 is one of Webern's most elegant works, and has a discernable dramatic flair found in the recurrences of melodic shapes. Certain musical figures recur as if in dialogue with one another. There are also dramatic soundscapes that suggest an operatic setting. This work stands between his two cantatas, which are as close as Webern ever came to writing an opera, an endeavor that fell short twice earlier in his career. The bulk of Webern's output are songs and while his melodic abilities have never been questioned, his strengths as a dramatic composer reveal themselves in episodes of the cantatas--especially in the final vocal movement of the first cantata, Op. 29--and these Variations. Listeners find themselves in a state of anticipation, waiting for an absent curtain to rise, but the process of absorbing this would-be overture reveals much more substance than could be found in most operatic scores, or even in the composer's own Symphony, Op 21.
Webern's Op. 30 tone row is more sophisticated than that of his Op. 21, and his manipulations of the row are subtler. In Op. 30 this is evident in the chords which convincingly accompany the melodic lines. The Op. 21 relied more on canons to maintain a cohesive direction while the Op. 30 contains independent contrapuntal lines. The ability to write twelve-tone counterpoint without repetition is indicative of Webern's command of this musical language, a command
