As a final project for our fourth (and final) semester of harmony, I had my students write a paper about Webern's op. 5, III. Here's a video of the entire quartet in a good performance by the Quartet Casals. The third movement starts about 4:30 into the film.
Most of the questions that I asked the students were fairly straightforward set theory kinds of questions: what's the form of the movement, what musical elements delineate the form, discuss the prominence of set classes (014) and (015), talk about Webern's use of whole-tone subsets, and point out canonic passages.*
Most of the papers were quite good: they did a nice job of analyzing the piece, many of them going well above and beyond the call of duty and uncovering some interesting things. After reading 50 of them, I picked up on a few common trends that I'd like to mention here, framing them in slightly more sophisticated theoretical terms than the students had been exposed to.
The first thing that the assignment asked them to do was to listen to the piece a few times without the score, to talk about how they hear the form of the piece, and to discuss the mood projected by the piece. The one thing that most of the students remarked on in answer to this first question was how difficult it was to hear the cello (presumably because he's playing so softly at the beginning). I sent them the recording I linked to above to use in their analysis. Looking at the video again and thinking about the answers my students gave, I think the quietude of the opening seeks to establish an intimate relationship with the listener, drawing him or her closer. One must be extremely close to the ensemble to experience the pizzicato C#2 (marked ppp) in the cello that opens the movement. And, to see the video above, the audience is right on top of the quartet, which I think is sort of cool. To me, the string quartet historically has been considered an intimate genre: I think this piece makes a very strong case for the continuation of that aesthetic.
This, sadly, is one aspect of live performance that is difficult to recreate through audio technology. If you can't hear the notes on the recording, you simply turn it up until you can; when it gets too loud, turn it down.
Webern's dynamics remain for the most part hushed during the opening six measures: there are two ff chords played pizzicato (which still isn't very loud) by the upper strings at the end of m. 3. Measure 7 again features pizzicato ff, followed by ff col legno (with the wood of the bow): again, still very quiet as a result of the technique employed, despite the dynamic marking.
The other thing is a topic that's been weighing on my mind for a bit now: if I have time over the summer I'd like to write it up. I hadn't considered including this piece in the project, but I think it would be ideal. Long-time readers of this blog no doubt know of my interest in theorizing performance, and one topic that has interested me of late is the notion of entrainment. Entrainment is the spontaneous synchronization of human movement. Metaphorically speaking, we can use entrainment as an analytical narrative. Many of my students pointed out the striking independence of the voices throughout this quartet: the contrast between the cello and upper strings in the beginning; the contrast between violin I and the lower parts in the second half of the piece; the canonic passages; and the striking ending.
How might such a narrative unfold? At first, the cello is steadily providing the beat, and the upper three strings are for the most part rhythmically synchronized for the first eight measures or so. This creates two unique personae, each behaving differently from one another. The canonic passages that comprise most of the middle section show voices trying to align--they're playing the same musical material (sometimes in transposition or inversion), but they can't seem to do it at the same time. In the final big section of the piece, the cello begins another pizzicato ostinato, and the second violin and viola start off together. Despite the cello's best efforts to keep everyone together, after a few measures the second violin and viola "fall apart" and start playing in canon with one another. The lyrical violin 1 line that begins on top of the canon is another strikingly different persona and is not in line with any of the others. In the last two measures, out of the preceding chaos, all four instruments spontaneously synchronize and play the same melodic figure in octaves, fff, to close the piece.
Throughout the piece, we have different personae trying to get along and synchronize; it's not until the final two measures of the piece that we actually achieve that stability, and it's only briefly.
*Their project was adapted from an exercise in the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis, which is soon to appear in its second edition, much to my delight.
Most of the questions that I asked the students were fairly straightforward set theory kinds of questions: what's the form of the movement, what musical elements delineate the form, discuss the prominence of set classes (014) and (015), talk about Webern's use of whole-tone subsets, and point out canonic passages.*
Most of the papers were quite good: they did a nice job of analyzing the piece, many of them going well above and beyond the call of duty and uncovering some interesting things. After reading 50 of them, I picked up on a few common trends that I'd like to mention here, framing them in slightly more sophisticated theoretical terms than the students had been exposed to.
The first thing that the assignment asked them to do was to listen to the piece a few times without the score, to talk about how they hear the form of the piece, and to discuss the mood projected by the piece. The one thing that most of the students remarked on in answer to this first question was how difficult it was to hear the cello (presumably because he's playing so softly at the beginning). I sent them the recording I linked to above to use in their analysis. Looking at the video again and thinking about the answers my students gave, I think the quietude of the opening seeks to establish an intimate relationship with the listener, drawing him or her closer. One must be extremely close to the ensemble to experience the pizzicato C#2 (marked ppp) in the cello that opens the movement. And, to see the video above, the audience is right on top of the quartet, which I think is sort of cool. To me, the string quartet historically has been considered an intimate genre: I think this piece makes a very strong case for the continuation of that aesthetic.
This, sadly, is one aspect of live performance that is difficult to recreate through audio technology. If you can't hear the notes on the recording, you simply turn it up until you can; when it gets too loud, turn it down.
Webern's dynamics remain for the most part hushed during the opening six measures: there are two ff chords played pizzicato (which still isn't very loud) by the upper strings at the end of m. 3. Measure 7 again features pizzicato ff, followed by ff col legno (with the wood of the bow): again, still very quiet as a result of the technique employed, despite the dynamic marking.
The other thing is a topic that's been weighing on my mind for a bit now: if I have time over the summer I'd like to write it up. I hadn't considered including this piece in the project, but I think it would be ideal. Long-time readers of this blog no doubt know of my interest in theorizing performance, and one topic that has interested me of late is the notion of entrainment. Entrainment is the spontaneous synchronization of human movement. Metaphorically speaking, we can use entrainment as an analytical narrative. Many of my students pointed out the striking independence of the voices throughout this quartet: the contrast between the cello and upper strings in the beginning; the contrast between violin I and the lower parts in the second half of the piece; the canonic passages; and the striking ending.
How might such a narrative unfold? At first, the cello is steadily providing the beat, and the upper three strings are for the most part rhythmically synchronized for the first eight measures or so. This creates two unique personae, each behaving differently from one another. The canonic passages that comprise most of the middle section show voices trying to align--they're playing the same musical material (sometimes in transposition or inversion), but they can't seem to do it at the same time. In the final big section of the piece, the cello begins another pizzicato ostinato, and the second violin and viola start off together. Despite the cello's best efforts to keep everyone together, after a few measures the second violin and viola "fall apart" and start playing in canon with one another. The lyrical violin 1 line that begins on top of the canon is another strikingly different persona and is not in line with any of the others. In the last two measures, out of the preceding chaos, all four instruments spontaneously synchronize and play the same melodic figure in octaves, fff, to close the piece.
Throughout the piece, we have different personae trying to get along and synchronize; it's not until the final two measures of the piece that we actually achieve that stability, and it's only briefly.
*Their project was adapted from an exercise in the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis, which is soon to appear in its second edition, much to my delight.