Editing Anton Webern (section)

====World War I====
As [[World War I]] broke out and nationalist fervor swept Europe, Webern found it "inconceivable", he wrote Schoenberg in August 1914, "that the German Reich, and we along with it, should perish."{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=209|Shreffler|1999|2loc=276}} Yielding in his distrust of [[Protestant]] Germany, he compared Catholic France to "cannibals" and expressed [[pan-German]] patriotism amid wartime propaganda.{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=209|Shreffler|1999|2loc=276–277}} He cited his "faith in the German spirit" as having "created, almost exclusively, the culture of mankind".{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=209}} Despite his high regard of French classical music, especially Debussy's, Webern revered the tradition as centered on counterpoint and form, and as mainly German since Bach.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=277}}

Webern served intermittently for nearly two years.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=273}} The war cost him professional opportunities, much of his social life, and the necessary leisure time to compose (he completed only nine {{lang|de|Lieder}}).{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=273}} Moving frequently and tiring,{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=209–222}} he began to despair, explaining to Schoenberg in November 1916 that the reality of war was "[[Old Testament]]" and "'[[Eye for an eye|Eye for eye]]'", "as if [[Christ]] had never existed".{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=218|Shreffler|1999|2loc=276–279}} Webern was discharged in December 1916 for myopia, which had disqualified him from frontline service.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=217–218}}

His 1917 {{lang|de|Lieder}} show that he reflected on his patriotism and processed his sorrow.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=278–279}} He treated the loss of life and, with the 1916 death of [[Franz Joseph I of Austria]], the end of an era.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=277–278}} In "Fahr hin, o Seel'", he selected a lament sung at a funeral in a Rosegger novel.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=277–278}} In "Wiese im Park", he selected a text from Kraus recognizing that the day was "dead", {{lang|de|"und alles ... so alt"}}{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=277–278}} ("and everything ... so old"). Webern also set several disturbing poems of [[Georg Trakl]], not all of which he could finish.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=278}} With uninterrupted contrapuntal density, by turns muscular and murmured, he [[Word painting|word painted]] Trakl's "great cities" and "dying peoples", "leafless trees", "violent alarm", and "falling stars" in "Abendland III".{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=278–279}}