Webern and the Lyric Impulse

This study provides a new view of a composer long considered to be one of the century's most rigorously intellectual creators, Anton Webern. By examining a central pre-twelve-tone work, the Trakl cycle, Op 14, in the context of the Viennese intellectual and artistic climate, Professor Shreffler shows how Webern's responses to Trakl's complex verse enabled him to expand his musical vocabulary. The author's emphasis on Webern's compositional process is of particular importance: whether because of the anxiety of creating a new musical language, or because of an innate hyper-perfectionism (or both), Webern rejected most of what he composed. A close examination of the manuscript sources - fragments, sketches, and fair copies - of Webern's comparatively neglected middle-period lieder enables her to shed light on Webern's musical language and his working methods. A focus on the sources also helps to modify the view that his music progressed steadily in the direction of the twelve-tone technique. The works reveal instead a concern with expressing the essence of the text; this lyricism, rather than articulating a substantially different aesthetic from the later works, provides a better understanding of the consummate lyricism of all his music, however compressed or fragmented its utterance in the `classic' twelve-tone works.

Readership: Students and scholars of Webern and the Second Viennese School.

Anne C. Shreffler, Assistant Professor, Department of Music, University of Chicago

"Her book is an excellent discussion, thoroughly convincing and a most important contribution to Trakl and to Webern scholarship." - R. S. Furness, Austrian Studies

"`Shreffler's skills as both archival detective and analytical interpreter combine to produce a convincing and absorbing narrative of the creative process ... Shreffler's particular sensitivity to matters of form and texture helps to give her interpretation of Webern's struggle to synthesise old and new, radical and traditional, an unusual sophistication and conviction. Above all, she never loses sight of the interaction between text and music, the exploration of which helped to make Webern so fastidious a self-critic, and so prone to initiate projects that ran out of steam.' Musical Times"

"an absorbingly detailed study... a landmaek for Webern scholars and others, including those interested in sketch studies and in the evolution of harmonic language in the early twentieth century." - Notes

"'Schreffler's skills as both archival detective and analytical interpreter combine to produce a convincing and absorbing narrative of the creative process. Her work has strong asthetic roots in the belief that Webern and Trakl were both modernists... She also has much of value to say about Webern's text-setting... This book is attractively presented... her principal thesis to do with why Webern abandoned some projects while completing others is clearly set out.' Arnold Whittall, Musical Times, March 1995"

"'Schreffler's skills as both archival detective and analytical interpreter combine to produce a convincing and absorbing narrative of the creative process. Schreffler's particular sensitivity to matters of form and texture helps to give her interpretation of Webern's struggle to synthesis old and new, radical and traditional, an unusual sophistication and conviction. Above all, she never loses sight of the interaction betyween text and music, the exploration of which helped to make Webern so fastidious a self-critic, and so prone to initiate projects that ran out of steam.' Arnold Whittall, The Musical Times, March 1995"

"an absorbingly detailed study... a landmark for Webern scholars and others, including those interested in sketch studies and in the evolution of harmonic language in the early twentieth century." - Notes

"an important book, and a timely one" - Tempo