Anton Webern Four Pieces for violin and piano, op. 7

Written in 1910; must have sounded like music from Mars. Webern was clever in dressing up this rather austere material in the brightest colors; using special performance techniques that were state of the art for the time (Bartok pizz, pedal tones, and "knocking on wood" were still in the future).

Wikipedia describes music from this stage of his career as "freely atonal." This is misleading as analysis reveals impeccable formal discipline.

Piano and click track created via midi; then practice practice practice; my beloved 1886 Enrico Melegari violin recorded on an analog portastudio. Mixed and mastered in DP.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• webern
• violin
• piano
• classical
• atonal
• second
• viennese
• school
• midi
• digital
• performer
• melegari
• vier
• stücke
• john
• casten

[allarmunumralla]

thanks for your comment vivvpprof. The deal is, I made this recording more than 10 years ago; the mic was so-so and the piano samples terrible, best I could find at the time. I lost my master when an ancient computer died, and I got this from a cassette tape dump. So rather than just let it die, I decided to go ahead and post it. There are a few more errors, fyi. I might just try to recreate this, but my experience has been that efforts to recreate a prior are usually inferior. Oh well...

[damiancho15]

just close your eyes and enjoy it

[Nai61a]

@Nai61a I've just re-read your remark about "many of the works of Mozart or Bach" being "sterile" and I realised I didn't challenge it. Please name one great work by either composer which you regard as "sterile" then, perhaps, I'll understand your definition of "sterile" and how it differs - utterly - from mine. I'm not a huge Mozart fan, but I would never qualify his major works as "sterile".

[Nai61a]

@SykoLiu (Cont) Also, I was not implying superiority in reference to my training; I was merely explaining that I had had to study the second Viennese school. The significance of the piece, historically, does not escape me. I don't have room or time to take up the "rules are rules" argument. Suffice to say that the "rules" should not be the main (sometimes only) driver of the art.

[Nai61a]

@SykoLiu In these confined spaces, one has to resort to shorthand; I hoped you'd realise that I meant that judgments in art are a matter of taste, not that everything (literally) was a matter of taste (although I suspect that some people would take the literal view). I don't know what else you'd base judgments on if it wasn't your taste, informed by education and experience, maybe but not necessarily. (Cont)

[SykoLiu]

@Nai61a Opinions are always inherently flawed, but judgments need not be.

And not everything in art is a matter of taste. Sure, your personal preference is just taste, but anyone with the "proper training" that you claim to have can surely see the significance and meaning of this piece.

This piece is no more sterile than many of the works of Mozart, or Bach. Rules are rules. Whether you follow this set or that set, it's the composer that makes the music, not the rules.

[Nai61a]

@SykoLiu Everything in art (and almost everything in life) is a matter of taste. I explained early in my exchange with M151 what my taste was founded on. Please read the whole exchange - if you can be bothered. We all make judgements of merit and they are all equally unreliable.

[SykoLiu]

@Nai61a But that is a matter of taste, not merit.

[Nai61a]

@SykoLiu I was not trying to associate the "enjoyable" with the "meaningful" necessarily: there are probably plenty of examples of deliberately un-enjoyable music which makes it's point: perhaps the opening of the finale of Beethoven's 9th... I was talking about emotional responses. The Hiroshima Threnody is undoubtedly emotional and an experience; in this sense it seems to be authentically meaningful. To me, Webern seems sterile, antiseptic, emotionless, inauthentic.

[Nai61a]

@SykoLiu Car horns are more likely to be Varèse, I think. My association of car horns and Webern was stupid, but it was the best I could come up with at the time and in the context of what I was trying to communicate to M151. And the tuning to a major 3rd is often irritatingly inexact! Drives me mad.

[SykoLiu]

@Nai61a Not to mention that many composers, or artists of any kind, would suggest that an experience need not be enjoyable to be meaningful. Try Penderecki's Threnody (an overused, but potent example). Not exactly what one could call a pleasant listen, but still incredibly powerful.