Customer Reviews

Webern: Works for String Quartet

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Few things excite me like modernist chamber music, but Webern's works for string quartet have never really grabbed me. How disappointing! Or so I thought. Today I spent several hours listening through these pieces chronologically. Now it all makes sense: The longer pieces, all the earliest Webern wrote (the slow movement, the string quartet, and the rondo), are pleasant and unambitious. They all carry with them the influence of Webern's teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. These early pieces lack much in the way of identity and compositional rigor, as they seem to be more in the business of evoking _Verlarkte nacht_ and Schoenberg's first quartet than anything Webern-esque!

After these early works, things get interesting -- and the only real `problem' is that Webern's compositions are so short that if your attention wanders for even a second you'll have missed a pivotal moment in the piece! Therein lies the challenge of "getting" the music. Webern's music is carried out with introverted efficiency so, as a listener, you must be very committed with your attention. The first piece to explore the alien world of atonality is _five movements for string quartet_, which lasts only eight or nine minutes. Its colorful gestures, like percussive effect by striking with the wood of the bow and progressive intervals, invite one into the exciting soundworld of artists setting out for the world of atonality, which is limited only by one's imagination.

Webern's imagination blooms with great-yet-compact results, as he writes pieces even shorter than the _five movements_. Yet here, in a brief phase before he adopted Schoenberg's serialist method, he preserves affecting power of expression in pieces whose movements are virtually never longer than a minute. The _six bagatelles_ and _three pieces_, expressing loss and sadness, are painful to listen to. They are, it seems, "pieces" in a more denotative sense of the term -- fragments of painful emotion, rendered with articulate and unconventional language and technique. (the song-piece, the second part of the _three pieces_, is performed by mezzo-soprano Mary Ann-McCormick with exquisite pain).

Three pieces for string trio and quartet emerge with the advent of serialism. These are remarkable pieces -- again, short but precious. Be it the angular, swirling motions a surprising melodicism of op.20, or the perfect, careful conception of op.28, with its deep lyrical beauty scattered across the different instruments with prudent economy and emotional sensitivity, Webern's late serialist chamber works are some of the finest to be offered.

Webern's string music is epic in its emotional dimension, not its size and scope. Within these short pieces are systems of necessity, pure and without artificial extension. I can't believe it took me so long to appreciate them.

If you like Webern, these are simply indespensible--and you probably know that already and are wasting your time reading reviews that would better be spent buying them. If you don't know whether you like Webern, be warned that this isn't music for the faint-hearted. It's musically very dense and concentrated, yet sonorally very sparse, requiring the constant attention of the listener. Nonetheless, it is immensely expressive and harmonically very beautiful. To most, nonetheless, it sounds like Psycho-music, as even Webern fans must concede. Many items on this disc are some of Dr. Webern's most accessible, but highly expressionist nonetheless. As for the performances, they are astounding. The bagatelles are played with a tad bit more precision by Kronos (Winter was Hard), but not with the warmth, sonority, and energy with which Emerson plays them. All in all, I prefer this rendition.

I hesitated before attempting a review of this CD. I use the word "review" as a concession to common usage on the Amazon pages. Real reviews of the music contained here are best left to professional critics. What I write are the thoughts and sentiments of a longtime listener to classical music of all periods. I often listen to the string quartets of Janacek, Bartok, Shostakovich, and Britten, and enjoy them immensely. I mention these composers in particular because, like Webern, their sound world is a product of the twentieth century, though their methods are not the same.

This recording of nine works for string quartet and string trio embraces Anton Webern's early, middle and late compositions in the genre. Three works represent each period.

Webern composed the early pieces (1905/06) when he was still a student under Schoenberg. The earliest, Slow Movement for String Quartet, is a beautifully lyrical composition. String Quartet (1905) is a one-movement work (lasting for 15 minutes, the longest of the CD), and comprises three sections corresponding to the three panels of Italian painter Giovanni Segantini's triptych, "Werden - Sein - Vergehen" (Becoming - Being - Passing away), that had inspired Webern. As played by Emerson String Quartet, it begins enigmatically, rises to intense emotional expression, before subsiding to a peaceful, resigned ending. This is the only piece on the CD that I can compare to another version. Two years ago I bought a DG recording of Hagen Quartett playing the Debussy and Ravel string quartets, which also had the Webern 1905. I liked the Webern quartet almost immediately. Hagen's performance is similar to Emerson's but is more evocative than emotional -- as played, the quartet fits well with the French compositions, I think. The Rondo (1906), like the other two works of the early period, presents no particular problem. I don't believe anyone used to twentieth century quartet sound will shrink away from these three.

The middle-period works (1909 - 1913) are a different matter, not because of their rigorous atonality, but mainly because their extreme brevity makes it difficult for listeners to connect with the music. I'll be honest and say I don't *enjoy* the music but am fascinated by it, drawing me as it does into a strange world of expression. It takes less than 11 minutes to play Five Movements op. 5. The middle movement is marked 0'42, but actual playing time is 37 seconds, the rest being slack time between movements. More extreme is Six Bagatelles. The longest movement is marked 1'42, and the other five range from 22 to 50 seconds, including slack. In his excellent Guide to Chamber Music, Melvin Berger quotes Schoenberg's statement on Six Bagatelles that I find exaggerated, where he says, "One has to realize what restraint it requires to express oneself with such brevity. You can stretch every glance into a poem, every sigh into a novel." I admit, I can't. More reasonable is his other statement, "These pieces can only be understood by those who believe that music can say things that can only be expressed by music." And most down to earth is Berger's own conclusion: "Short of a note by note analysis, perhaps the best advice is to approach 'Six Bagatelles' as a unique adventure in sound that has few parallels in the chamber music repertoire."

In 1913 Webern composed Three Pieces for String Quartet. Its first and last movements in modified form became the first and last movements of Six Bagatelles (originally comprised of four movements). In the middle movement of Three Pieces, the haunting voice of mezzo-soprano Mary Ann McCormick goes to the core. Webern must have been expressing deeply felt emotion when he composed the song. We know that he had once written to his friend and fellow student Alban Berg that most of his compositions related to the death of his mother. The emotion doesn't always appear on the surface; we have to assume that Webern tried to communicate it in his own introspective and original way, and that it remains up to the listener to come to grips with it.

The late-period pieces are Movement for String Trio published posthumously, String Trio op. 20, and String Quartet op. 28. These are still brief works, but at least the individual movements are measured in minutes, not seconds! In this phase, Webern started employing the advanced technique of serialism, in which elements of music such as pitch, tone color, and rhythm were organized in sets, to rich effect. Previously, he had applied Schoenberg's 12-tone method of composition strictly, and could write in connection with Six Bagatelles, "Here I had the feeling that when the twelve notes had all been played, the piece was over." Now he could compose using twelve tones -- and had the flexibility for the piece to go on, and could even write canons and fugues. The culminating work, String Quartet op. 28, was Webern's pride -- Berger cites him as writing, "I must confess that hardly ever before I felt so good about a work of mine (after its completion) as I do this time." The more I listen to the late works, the more I appreciate them, and each time I listen becomes a challenge to discover more in them.

There have never been so many recordings of Webern's music in the market as now, and the string quartets are particularly well-represented. However, the present recording of the quartets and trios is very far from being the best one, especially concerning the early pieces (without opus-number) that sound rather unrehearsed and unexpressive. It is lamentable that just this recording was included in DG's "Complete Webern" box. Instead of this CD I recommend the recording with the Arditti Quartet (Disques Montaigne; this CD was released at least 3 times since 1991). The Schoenberg Quartet and the Leipzig Quartet have also released very good CDs but the choice of pieces is not quite the same. The recording with the Quarteto Italiano is unfortunately out of the catalogue since many years.

... but you MUST listen with rapt attention, possibly with your eyes closed and preferably to only one composition in a sitting, in order to hear the musical ideas, let alone the basically Romantic sensibilities, in the string quartet works of Anton Webern (1883-1945).

Webern's whole musical biography is told on this CD. The first track - "Slow Movement for String Quartet" - identifies his birthplace in 19th C German Romaticism; without Brahms, there would be no Webern, or Schoenberg for that matter. It's quite a poignant, lush movement, and the Emerson Quartet wisely plays it with restraint, since bombast or schmaltz would spoil it. In fact, the Emersons play all of these quirky pieces with restraint, however fast their tempi, letting the structure of the music speak for itself. Most quartets, I think, overplay these miniatures, trying to force their affect upon the listener.

After that "Slow Movement", it's all uncompromising serialist and post-serialist music of the sort the vast majority of 20th C classical music lovers grew up hating -- free from the constraints of tonality and melody, abrupt, epigrammatic, antithetical to relaxation. Oddly enough, listening to this performance after letting it age on my shelf for a decade or so, I'm surprised at how comfortably classical it sounds ... how acceptable and how rooted in European musical history. I had the same experience in re-listening to 'free jazz' -- Ornette Coleman, specifically -- and discovering the lyricism of it where before I'd heard only rage and alienation. In both cases, the 'shock' is gone, but the empathy with the music that has replaced the shock is worth much more.

If you don't know the Emerson Quartet, you ought to give them a try. This CD and their recording of Joseph Haydn's "Seven Last Words" are among my favorites, and make a wonderfully ear-opening combo.

Webern's output for string quartet comprises a fine program for a single CD, at least if one includes the string trio. The mixture of works is interesting insofar as Webern's mature works are intermixed with early romantic music, and one of the assets of the performances by the Emersons here is that they are equally good in both types of music (and they do take the early music just as seriously as the later, aphoristic works). The 1905 string quartet, for instance, is hardly a masterpiece, but the combination of lush, tonal romanticism with thematic material that clearly heralds Webern's later serialism is nevertheless rather striking, and played with total commitment.

Emerson's playing is refined, but appropriately expressive for the music. They have a broad palette of expressive resources and techniques at their command, and realize all the subtleties and different techniques the music calls for (especially, of course, the later music) virtually perfectly. Attention to the minutest detail - and letting each single note count - is of course crucial in the later music, but the Emerson still manages to play it with a certain sense of abandon. They are consistently on the faster side when compared to alternative recordings, but I never found the performances hurried.

The opus 9 bagatelles (music as pared down to its essential as have ever been written) are especially marvelous, but special praise should also go to their rendition of the Three Little Movements (the second of which, Schmerz immer, also feature Mary Ann McCormick as an expressive mezzo in the composer's poem), perhaps in part because the outer movements of the latter collection also features in the op.9 with just a few modifications. The Emersons are furthermore thoroughly convincing both in the otherworldly trio and the more matter-of-fact quartet op.28 quartet. The sound quality is overall fine - well-balanced (between the instruments) and clear, but perhaps somewhat too close. Still, this disc should not be missed, although the performances also show up in DG's indispensable, Boulez-led set of the complete Webern (i.e., that is really where I recommend that you go).

I have had this set of Webern's string quartets and trios by the Emerson Quartet (EQ) on the shelf for years, and have seldom been motivated to listen to it. I finally found an alternative that I feel is much better by the Schoenberg Quartet (Webern: Chamber Music for Strings) -- see my review). In comparing the two, the EQ takes the tempos faster -- no surprise! -- and this has the effect of making it sound as if there is a clear plan to get from point A to point B: "we don't know where we're going, but we're going to get there briskly and efficiently." Whether it's the technique or the DG recording or both, the sound of this disc is airless and cramped, a bit inhuman.

You might conclude that this was Webern's intent, until you hear the Schoenberg Quartet! Their Webern, by contrast, is a seeker, and you are invited to join him, and the performers, in wondering just what we've gotten ourselves into, and trying to figure it all out. The sound is warm and spacious, and their tempos are slower than the EQ, but not quite as slow as the Juilliard Quartet, whose late-'60s recordings are included in the Sony box (WEBERN: COMPLETE WORKS (Op. 1-31) with Boulez conducting -- see my review), which makes it all sound tragic. These EQ recordings, by the way, from 1992-1994, are included in the 2000 DG box, COMPLETE WEBERN, also with Boulez conducting the orchestral works.

If you were going to choose only one recording, then, my strong recommendation is the Schoenberg Quartet on Chandos. However, the EQ and SQ discs are not strictly speaking the same -- they mainly include the same works but with the following exceptions: the EQ plays the "Movement for String Trio," a posthumously published work from 1925, and the "Three Pieces for String Quartet" with soprano from 1913, while the SQ omits these and plays instead "Four Pieces" (Op. 7) for violin and piano from 1910-1914, the "Sonata" (Op. post) for cello and piano of 1914, and "Three Little Pieces" (Op. 11) for cello and piano, also of 1914.