The scene: The Great Ballroom of the Clinton
Library in Little Rock.
The event: The second of this season's series of
chamber music concerts.
The time: Almost 7 p.m. on a Tuesday, just as
the performance is about to begin.
The overture: The murmur of conversation in the
room melts away. Anticipation rises. The listeners await the momentary
arrival of the string quartet. But first comes a slipping sound, almost
grating, like bottles and glasses skidding against one another.
A slowly ascending arpeggio reaches unsuccessfully for High C. Then a
momentary pause for suspense before a climactic clash, as of cymbals. There
is an intake of breath here and there in the hall, followed by a satisfying
crescendo, or rather crashendo. For a table of wine glasses in the corner of
the room has collapsed. The concertgoers break into appreciative applause.
It was the perfect introduction to the atonal music of Anton Webern,
disciple of Arnold Schoenberg, he of the 12-tone scale. A professorial type,
Herr Webern developed an elaborate theory of musicology involving rhythm,
pitch and palindromic forms.
I don't know what all that means, either, but his music must have been
impressive on paper. When actually performed, however, it comes out sounding
like a lackadaisical game of marbles being played on a smoothly polished
wooden floor. Free classical music from the traditional notes, and, at least
to a Western ear, the result is freefall - much like a wobbly table of wine
glasses freed from gravity.
How to describe "Webern, Movements for String Quartet (Five Pieces), Op. 5"?
Composed in 1909, it's a cosseted world's view of chaos. The long world war
in three acts (I, II, and Cold) had not yet begun; the course of
civilization was still thought of as inevitably onward and upward.
Progress was a given, a kind of inevitable Darwinian process in which the
fittest would survive as always new and better forms emerged. As in
Professor Webern's experimental work. In short, these people had no idea of
what real, bloody global chaos was.
These five pieces may be better than they sound, as someone once said of
Wagner. At least they're mercifully short. Together they would make a fine
soundtrack for a Hitchcock movie, maybe "Spellbound." They're jagged,
disjointed, fantastical, placid at times, disturbed underneath - and more
than a bit precious. Like some people you unfortunately know.
Some in the hall wince. Others snort. But if Webern's music appalls, it also
interests. Though he was avant-garde then and even now, his work has become
a period piece. Why does he grate while other futurists from the past still
amuse? Why is Charles Ives still a delight to hear, Webern a chore?
Because Ives, American that he was, had a sense of humor and humanity. He
had a connection to the past even if only to satirize it. He had a light
touch and playful disposition. Webern, a most serious man, was decidedly,
theoretically, imperatively Teutonic.
It is easy enough to visualize Webern's five pieces as a series of scenes:
Mice skitter across an empty room.
Continued... |