Anton Webern

Anton Webern (German: [ˈantoːn ˈveːbɐn] ; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its concision and use of then novel atonal and twelve-tone techniques in an increasingly rigorous manner, somewhat after the Franco-Flemish School of his studies under Guido Adler. With his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core of those within the broader circle of the Second Viennese School. Their atonal music brought them fame and stirred debate. Webern was arguably the first and certainly the last of the three to write music in an aphoristic, expressionist style, reflecting his instincts and the idiosyncrasy of his compositional process. Peripatetic, unhappy, and often assigned light music and operetta in his early conducting career, he aspired to conduct more established repertoire with more autonomy at home in Vienna. During and after World War I, he set folk, lyric, and spiritual texts in texturally dense Lieder. He came to some prominence and increasingly high regard as a vocal coach, choirmaster, conductor, and teacher in Red Vienna. With a publication contract through Emil Hertzka's Universal Edition and Schoenberg away at the Prussian Academy of Arts, Webern wrote music of increasing confidence, independence, and scale using twelve-tone technique. He maintained his "path to the new music" while marginalized as a "cultural Bolshevist" effectively until his death. A variety of post-World War II musicians celebrated his music, much of which was first published only then or later still. Among these were many composers influenced especially by his twelve-tone music in a phenomenon known as post-Webernism, linking but not restricting Webern's legacy to serialism. Understanding of his musical semantics or semiotics, performance practice, and sociocultural contexts was widely fledgling after years of severe disruption. This was gradually improved by musicians and scholars who helped publish and record his works as well as establish his music as modernist repertoire. A Gesamtausgabe (complete edition) is pending.