After such a long time of stopping, finally i am back again with my final understanding of the book 'The path to new music' by Anton Webern. In this part, I am looking what is Webern's point of view of 'Variations'.
Webern illustrated music variations with plants. A plant, as a whole, is seen as a music in the whole picture. You see plant as a plant, but when you see it closer, do you notice that within the plant, there are roots, leafs, stems, flowers and fruits ? All these features of a plant are described by Webern as the variations of the plant.
In musical sense, you listen the music exist as a whole as if looking at the plant as a whole which consist of variations. However, if you take a look closer, you are able to see that the variations of the music are related to the main motif, just that they are evolved into other forms. Similar to the concept of the roots, leafs, flowers and fruits of a plant, they don't look the same, however they are related to the plant and grow from it.
In view of serial music, Webern explained that there exist a lot of variations, for example, the various inversions, and also the comprehensiveness of having repetitions. Therefore, serial music is still not totally out of the realm of western classical music tradition. In one of the interview of Peirre Boulez, he mentioned that, it was from his understanding from Mahler's music in which he was able to understand Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.
Some recommendation to works by the second vienese school:
1. Arnold Schoberg - Pierrot Lunaire (Ensemble Intercontemporain - Boulez) Label: Deutsch Gramaphone
2. Alban Berg - Lulu (Chicago Symphony - Barenboiem) Label: Deutsch Gramaphone
3. Anton Webern - The Complete Work of Anton Webern (Berlin Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain - Boulez, Zimmermann (Piano)) Label: Deutsch Gramaphone*
4. Anton Webern - The Complete Work of Anton Webern (London Symphony - Boulez) Label: Sony
*Number 3 is the newer version of Webern's Cycle.
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JX: As I mentioned to you briefly the other day, Webern is expressing a very organicist viewpoint here. If you are interested to find out more about organicism as a metaphor in music, you may wish to read Ruth Solie's “The Living Work: Organicism and Music Analysis.” 19th-Century Music 4 (1980-81): 147-56. This is a classic article on the subject.
On serialism, may I point you to Joyce's series of postings on Babbitt's serialism from 2008? This is post-war II American serialism as opposed to Webern's 2nd Viennese school serialism.
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