Five Pieces for String Quartet Op.5 (1909)

Heftig bewegt - etwas ruhiger

Sehr langsam

Sehr bewegt

Sehr langsam

In zarter Bewegung

“All of my compositions from the Passacaglia on,” Webern told Alban Berg in 1912, “relate to the death of my mother.” That statement is particularly significant in relation to the works of his early maturity, not least the Five Pieces for String Quartet Op.5 and the Six Pieces for Orchestra Op.6. Both of them were written in 1909, three years after the death of the composer’s mother when, clearly, he was in a state of mind still affected by that traumatic event. It is true that by this stage in his development Webern had followed Schoenberg into rejecting tonality and that, in the absence of any long-term structural principle, he had already adopted the extreme brevity that is too often mistaken for some kind of cryptography. The emotional content of the Five Pieces Op.5, which last no more than twelve minutes altogether, is all the more intensely experienced for being so compressed.

Of the two sorts of material in the opening movement, the first, marked Heftig bewegt (“in violent motion”), is sheer panic. The second, marked Etwas ruhiger (“somewhat slower”), is sheer grief. Each episode is repeated in even more compressed form and then developed at comparatively generous length, the Heftig bewegt broadening into melodic protest high on first violin just before the attenuated ending.

The arching melodic line is further developed in the Sehr langsam (“very slow”) second movement which, muted throughout, is confined largely to a dynamic level of ppp and a tenderly intimate expression. The Sehr bewegt (“very quick”) third movement is a kind of scherzo in miniature ternary form with a lyrical middle section briefly featuring an eloquent first violin. Another Sehr langsam, this one even quieter than the other, completes the symmetrical pattern represented by the three central movements.

The scarcely quicker last movement, marked In zarter Bewegung (“at a gentle pace”), returns to the grieving mood of the first Sehr langsam and confirms its elegiac inspiration above all in two expressive violin solos, the second of them poignantly dying away at the point where the work so graphically breathes its last.

Heftig bewegt - etwas ruhiger

Sehr langsam

Sehr bewegt

Sehr langsam

In zarter Bewegung

“All of my compositions from the Passacaglia on,” Webern told Alban Berg in 1912, “relate to the death of my mother.” That statement is particularly significant in relation to the works of his early maturity, not least the Five Pieces for String Quartet Op.5 and the Six Pieces for Orchestra Op.6. Both of them were written in 1909, three years after the death of the composer’s mother whend, clearly, his state of min was still affected by that traumatic event. It is true that by this stage in his development Webern had followed Schoenberg into rejecting tonality and that, in the absence of any long-term structural principle, he had already adopted the extreme brevity that is too often mistaken for some kind of cryptography. The emotional content of the Five Pieces Op.5, which last no more than twelve minutes altogether, is all the more intensely experienced for being so compressed.

Of the two sorts of material in the opening movement, the first – marked Heftig bewegt (“in violent motion”) and covering the dynamic extremes between fff and ppp in a mere six bars of hectic counterpoint, chordal dissonances and expressionist colouring – is sheer panic. The second sort of material – marked Etwas ruhiger (“somewhat slower”) and offsetting an arching melodic line in whispered legato with a fleeting canon in sensitive pizzicato – is sheer grief. Each is episode is repeated in even more compressed form and then developed at comparatively generous length, the Heftig bewegt broadening into melodic protest high on first violin just before the attenuated ending.

The arching melodic line is further developed in the Sehr langsam (“very slow”) second movement which, muted throughout, is confined largely to a dynamic level of ppp and a tenderly intimate expression. The Sehr bewegt (“very quick”) third movement is a kind of scherzo in miniature ternary form with outer sections driven by rhythmic ostinatos on the cello and a lyrical middle section briefly featuring an eloquent first violin. Another Sehr langsam, this one even quieter than the other and so fragmented that it takes another ostinato to hold it together in the middle, completes the symmetrical pattern represented by the three central movements.

The scarcely quicker last movement, marked In zarter Bewegung (“at a gentle pace”), returns to the grieving mood of the second movement in its opening cello solo and, while distantly recalling elements of previous events in the work, confirms its elegiac inspiration above all in two expressive violin solos, a short but lingering one in the middle and an attenuated one at the end where the work so graphically breathes its last.