A Level Music: Quartet Op.22: Movement 1 by Webern
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?- Created by: ChloeGerrard
- Created on: 11-06-14 16:12
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- Quartet Op.22: Movement 1 by Webern
- Background
- 1930
- 1st mvment of 2
- Requires highly skilled players
- Resources
- Widest range of timbre from small no. of players
- Quartet: Violin, clarinet, saxohpone (non-jazzy) and piano.
- Wide variety of techniques = maximum variation of tone colour
- Violin: bars 1-17: mit Dampfer (with mute): arco, pizz, both: bars 22-23.
- Piano: spread chords (arrows indicating direction)
- Large pitch range: e.g. violin, top C, bar 22.
- Wide dynamic range: most music is quiet apart from random 'f': e.g. 'ff' bar 22
- Structure
- Sonata Form: difficult to hear this (wanted to combine classical with serialism)
- Intro: bars 1-5: mirror canons
- Exposition: bars 6-15: main serial theme (prime row). Then repeated.
- Development: bars 16-23: rises to climaz at bar 22 (top C), leading to retrograde version of music immediately preceding it: palindrome.
- Link: bars 24-27
- Recap: bars 28-39: row appears in Klangfarbenmelodie: notes moving around instrumental parts
- Coda: bars 39-43: introduction but reversed (ending with first note)
- Recap: bars 28-39: row appears in Klangfarbenmelodie: notes moving around instrumental parts
- Link: bars 24-27
- Intro: bars 1-5: mirror canons
- Sonata Form: difficult to hear this (wanted to combine classical with serialism)
- Tonality
- Atonal and serial
- Serialism: arrangement of series of notes in fixed order
- Order remains same, yet series can be inverted, retrograded or retrograde inversion
- Each of 4 versions of series could be transposed up or down by 11 semitones: 48 possible versions of the row!
- Order remains same, yet series can be inverted, retrograded or retrograde inversion
- Harmony
- Notes occur individually, so frequently there is no harmony
- Two or more notes together: dissonance
- First 'chord' at beginning of 2nd bar produces a clashing major 2nd interval
- 3 notes sound at same time: bar 20: C# clashes against D and Eb
- First 'chord' at beginning of 2nd bar produces a clashing major 2nd interval
- Two or more notes together: dissonance
- Notes occur individually, so frequently there is no harmony
- Rhythm
- Frequent rests: fragmentary sound
- Sounds more continuous as it reaches climax (bar 20)
- Three recurring rhythmic groupings
- 1) semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver-rest-quaver (first 3 sax notes)
- 2) 3 semiquavers (piano: bar 3)
- 3) 2 semiquavers (violins: bars 3-4)
- Precisely notated (part of tone colour melody idea)
- Enhanced by tenuto and staccato markings
- Pause mark: just before recap
- Metre
- Mostly in triple time: no sense of metre as time sig changes frequently to quintuple and quadruplemetre
- Slow speed: 'sehr massig' (very moderate)
- Frequent changes: ritardando, a tempo. Calando (quieter and slower) towards end
- Textures
- Thin, even at climax with all 5 lines playing
- Rests prevent more than 3 parts playing together at same time
- Fundamentally polyphonic (there are 5 parts), but often monophonic
- Only occasionally in 5 bar intro do 2 parts sound together
- Mirror canons (beginning): the standard version of a phrase is imitated by inversion (upside down version) of same music
- Melody
- Tone Row
- Wide angular intervals
- Interval of tritone (diminished 5th or augmented 4th) occurs between 10th/11th notes of series
- Detracts from sense of key
- Melodic lines are fragmentary
- Dividing notes between instruments and using a wide variety or instrumental techniques was called klangfarbenmelodie
- Pointillist: little splashes of varying instrumental colour
- Background
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