Editing Anton Webern (section)

=== 1914–1924: Mid-period ''Lieder'' ===
{{Listen|type=music|image=none|help=no|filename=Excerpt of Fünf geistliche Lieder für Sopran und fünf Instrumente, Op. 15, V. Fahr hin, o Seel, zu deinem Gott; Anton Webern, composer, 1917; Peter Rosegger, poet, 1900; and Halina Lukomska, soprano and Pierre Boulez, conductor, 1969.ogg|title="Fahr hin, o Seel', zu deinem Gott", double canon ''in motu contrario'' (Klagenfurt, 20 July 1917) – soprano Halina Lukomska and conductor Pierre Boulez|description=In this excerpt (mm. 20–29) is Webern's [[lyric setting]] of the text "{{lang|de|[Gott ... nehme dich] barmherzig auf in jenes bess're Leben|italic=no}}".{{sfn|Kolneder|1968|loc=89–90}}{{efn|"[God ... lifts you] mercifully into that better life"}} [[Julian Johnson (academic)|Julian Johnson]] noted Webern's use of first short, then long [[note value]]s and phrases to impart a sense of calm rest before the final high harp [[String harmonic|harmonic]], a [[tone painting]] of [[heaven]].{{sfnm|Johnson|1997|1loc=76–78|Johnson|1999|2loc=156–157}}}}

During and after [[World War I]] (1914–1926) Webern worked on some fifty-six songs.{{sfn|Johnson|1999|loc=129}} He finished thirty-two, ordered into sets (in ways that do not always align with their chronology) as Opp. 12–19.{{sfn|Johnson|1999|loc=129}} Schoenberg's recent vocal music had been motivated by the idea that "absolute purity" in composition couldn't be sustained,{{sfn|Kolneder|1968|loc=83–85, quoting [[Theodor W. Adorno]]}} and Webern took Schoenberg's advice to write songs as a means of composing something more substantial than aphorisms, often making earnest settings of folk, lyric, or spiritual texts.{{sfn|Johnson|1997|loc=71–74, 89–101}} The first of these mid-period {{lang|de|Lieder}} was an unfinished setting of a passage ("In einer lichten Rose ...") from Dante's ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]]'', [[Paradiso (Dante)#The Empyrean|Canto XXXI]].{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=274–275}}

By comparison to melodic "atomization" in Op. 11, [[Walter Kolneder]] noted relatively "long arcs" melodic writing in Op. 12{{sfn|Kolneder|1968|loc=83}} and polyphonic [[voice leading|part writing]] to "control the ... expression" in Opp. 12–16 more generally.{{sfn|Kolneder|1968|loc=90}} "How much I owe to your ''Pierrot''", Webern told Schoenberg after setting Trakl's "Abendland III" (Op. 14/iv),{{sfn|Johnson|1999|loc=149–150}} in which, distinctly, there was no silence until a pause at the concluding gesture. The [[Counterpoint|contrapuntal]] procedures and [[Pierrot ensemble|nonstandard ensemble]] of ''Pierrot'' are both evident in Webern's Opp. 14–16.{{sfnm|Johnson|1999|1loc=149–150|Shreffler|1994|2loc=131–132}}

Schoenberg "yearn[ed] for a style for large forms ... to give personal things an objective, general form."{{efn|In Apr. 1914, after [[Four Orchestral Songs (Schoenberg)|Op. 22]]/i, "Seraphita," so wrote Schoenberg to Alma Mahler.{{sfn|Auner|2003|loc=123–124}}}} Berg, Webern, and he had indulged their shared interest in [[Heaven and Hell (Swedenborg book)|Swedenborgian mysticism]] and [[Theosophy]] since 1906, reading Balzac's ''[[Louis Lambert (novel)|Louis Lambert]]'' and ''[[Séraphîta]]'' and Strindberg's ''[[To Damascus|Till Damaskus]]'' and ''Jacob lutte''. [[Gabriel]], protagonist of Schoenberg's semi-autobiographical ''[[Die Jakobsleiter]]'' (1914–1922, rev. 1944){{efn|Scholarship varied as to the genesis of ''Jakobsleiter''.{{sfnm|Auner|2003|1loc=123–125|Berry|2008|2loc=86|Berry|2014|3loc=66|Smither|2001|4loc=678|Watkins|2011|5loc=215, 295n83}} Two scholars noted work from 1914.{{sfnm|Auner|2003|1loc=123–125|Watkins|2011|2loc=215}} [[Winfried Zillig]] finished it after Schoenberg's death.{{sfn|Watkins|2011|loc=295n83}} Schoenberg told Berg about setting Strindberg's ''Jacob lutte'' in spring 1911. Webern introduced Schoenberg to Balzac's ''Louis Lambert'' and ''Séraphîta'' in Mar. 1911.{{sfn|Brown|2011|loc=120}}}} described a [[Jacob's Ladder|journey]]: "whether right, whether left, forwards or backwards, uphill or down – one must keep on going without asking what lies ahead or behind",{{efn|"''Ob rechts, ob links, vorwärts oder rückwärts, bergauf oder bergab – man hat weiterzugehen, ohne zu fragen, was vor oder hinter einem liegt.''"{{sfn|Christensen|1979|loc=Volume II: Appendices, Appendix B: Annotated Edition of the Libretto (DICH[tung]14), 6}}}} which Webern interpreted as a [[conceptual metaphor]] for (twelve-tone) [[pitch space]].{{sfn|Watkins|2011|loc=215–216, 226–227}} Schoenberg later reflected on "how enthusiastic we were about this."{{efn|In 1941 Schoenberg lectured: "the ... law of the unity of musical space ''demands an absolute and unitary perception''. In this space, as in Swedenborg's heaven (described in Balzac's ''Séraphîta'') there is no absolute down, no right or left, forward or backward." Schoenberg then considered ''Jakobsleiter'' a "real twelve-tone composition" for its opening [[hexachord]]al ostinato and "Scherzo ... of all the twelve tones".{{sfn|Schoenberg|1950|loc=113}}}}

On the journey to composition with twelve tones, Webern revised many of his mid-period {{lang|de|Lieder}} in the years after their apparent composition but before publication, increasingly prioritizing clarity of pitch relations, even against timbral effects, as [[Anne C. Shreffler]]{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=283}} and Felix Meyer described. His and Schoenberg's music had long been marked by its contrapuntal rigor, formal schemes, systematic pitch organization, and rich motivic design, all of which they found in the music of Brahms before them.{{sfnm|Straus|1990|1loc=8–9, 21–41|Shere|2007|2loc=10}} Webern had written music preoccupied with the idea of dodecaphony since at least the [[total chromaticism]] of his Op. 9 bagatelles (1911).{{sfnm|Ballance|2023|1loc=42, 95, 114|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=194, 309–310}} and Op. 11 cello pieces (1914).{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=206}}{{efn|Schoenberg hinted at the idea in ''Harmonielehre'' (1911),{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=308}}}} He began preparing these aphoristic works for publication while composing most of his mid-period {{lang|de|Lieder}}, which may have reoriented him to his own lyricism.{{sfnm|Johnson|1999|loc1=128–131|Wedler|2023|loc2=87–89}}

There are twelve-tone sets with repeated notes at the start of Op. 12/i and in some bars of Op. 12/iv, in addition to many ten- and eleven-tone sets throughout Op. 12.{{sfn|Kolneder|1968|loc=89}} Webern wrote to Jalowetz in 1922 about Schoenberg's lectures on "a new type of <em>motivic work</em>", one that "unfolds the entire development of, if I may say so, <em>our</em> technique (harmony, etc)".{{sfn|Hamao|2011|loc=239–240, 287–288, quoting Webern with Webern's emphases}} It was "almost everything that has occupied me for about ten years", Webern continued.{{sfn|Hamao|2011|loc=239–240, 250–251}} He regarded Schoenberg's [[transformation (music)|transformation]] of twelve-tone rows as the "solution" to their compositional concerns.{{sfn|Hamao|2011|loc=235, 250–251, quoting Greissle and Schoenberg}} In Op. 15/iv (1922), Webern first used a tone row (in the voice's opening twelve notes), charted [[Tone row#Theory and compositional techniques|the four basic row forms]], and integrated [[trichord|tri]]- and [[tetrachord]]s into the harmonic and melodic texture.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=309–310}} He systematically used [[twelve-tone technique]] for the first time in Op. 16/iv–v (1924).{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=310}}