Symphony (Webern)

Anton Webern's Symphony, Op. 21 was his first twelve-tone orchestral work. Written between 1927 and 1928, the work is noted for its symmetry, abstraction, and Alpine topics. It is a two-movement chamber or miniature symphony of only 10–15 minutes. Alexander Smallens conducted the world premiere at New York's Town Hall on 18 December 1929.

Historical background
The years Webern wrote his symphony (1927–1928), he visited his childhood home and mountains with friends and family. In November 1927 he and Norbert Schwarzmann, a physician and patron, attempted the Hochschwab starting at night, but weather turned them back. In May 1928, he and Rudolf Ploderer attempted the Schneealpe (his favorite mountain) in the snow. He revisited in July, reaching the summit with his wife Wilhelmine and their children. Then they celebrated his cousin Ernst Diez's birthday in Vordernberg and visited his sisters Maria and Rosa in Klagenfurt. He visited their former country estate, the Preglhof, and family grave sites in Schwabegg and Annabichl. From the cemetery grounds he collected and kept flowers along with photos as souvenirs. In August he, his son, and Ploderer climbed the Hochschwab; they overnighted in the Schiestlhaus and saw many mountain goats.

Orchestration
Op. 21 was part of a turn to more economic orchestration compared to Webern's early works. Its composition coincided with his revision of Op. 6 (1909, arr. 1920), in which he substantially reduced the wind instrument section, hoping for performances. Webern used only clarinet, bass clarinet, and horns, all featuring relatively wide ranges and each with some rustic, folk topicality.

After Webern finished the Symphony, the League of Composers asked him for a chamber orchestra work. He wrote Claire Raphael Reis that the strings could be reduced to soloists for the world premiere, but he wrote in his diary: "Better with multiple strings."

Form
The symphony is in two movements. Among initial sketches were outlines with descriptions, including "I. Rondo: lively—sun / II. Variations: moderately / III. Free form: very calmly—moon" and then "I. Variations / II. Rondo (Scherzo, march-like) / III. Slowly". He later planned the final movement, described to Berg as "an Adagio in canonic form throughout", for the middle. After writing two movements, he began a third but decided against it after much consideration. He cited the example of Beethoven's two-movement piano sonatas and Bach's two-movement orchestral works. Then he placed the slow movement first, opening the symphony with what Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer described as "the canonic Adagio" and concluding it with the "variation movement".

Movement I
The first movement is in a concise (quasi-)sonata form with superimposed elements and a rounded binary appearance. In a Classical manner, its exposition and development–recapitulation are repeated; it ends in a stretto (quasi-)coda.

Webern sketched the first several bars painstakingly through many successive iterations. Michael Spitzer described this music, on horn duet, harp, and "rumbling" lower strings, as "evocative of natural expanse" in its timbres and rhythms. The opening has often been compared to that of Gustav Mahler's Ninth. Though Webern had been unable to attend the Ninth's 1912 premiere, he played through it with Alban Berg and Heinrich Jalowetz; he wrote Arnold Schoenberg that it was "inexpressibly beautiful".

Demonstrating Webern's early music studies, the first movement consists of four lines in a double canon (by inversion) with frequent palindromes and fixed register. Anne C. Shreffler noted Webern's reliance on linear, song-like writing, an observation often made of Mahler.

One canon features Ländler-like lilting melodic repetition on legato strings and winds, representing an orderly pastoral topic.

The other canon is more percussive, even accompanimental in texture, qualities which Webern crafted after drafting the canon's melody. To this end, he used ornaments like acciaccature; articulations like staccati; instrumentation with the harp's plucked timbre; and musical techniques like double stops, mutes, pizzicati, string harmonics, and sul ponticello.

Movement II
The second movement comprises nine small sections replete with palindromes: a theme, seven canonic variations, and a coda. The theme is fragmented into motives and the variation developmental. Bailey Puffett noted not only the use of dynamics, register, rhythm, tempi, texture, and timbre for Classical forms of surface-level variation, but also the use of more developmental devices like inversion and retrograde, augmentation and diminution, imitation, and some octave displacement.

Danielle Hood described the fourth variation, identified by Webern as the midpoint, as a "waltz/Ländler double". In the fifth variation's cowbell-like harp octaves and close, stomping string dissonances, Adorno heard the "soulful sound" of the Almabtrieb, delighting Webern.

Proto-serialism
Goeyvaerts noted proto-serial schemes of articulations, dynamics, and register, not time (meter, rhythm, or tempo). Rochberg noted the "objectified, mensural" relation of pitch and time in Webern's later instrumental œuvre as a whole.

The Symphony's tone row comprises chromatic hexachords related inversionally by tritone.

Early performances
Alexander Smallens and the Orchestra of the League of Composers gave the world premiere at New York's Town Hall on 18 December 1929, meeting jeers.

At the Vienna Konzerthaus (1930), Webern himself conducted an ensemble including the Kolisch Quartet and members of the Wiener Staatsoper, flanking his Symphony with Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 2 (Eduard Steuermann, piano) and Beethoven's Septet. Josef Reitler wrote in the Neue Freie Presse that "barbaric ... soullessness is foreign [to Webern]", contrasting him with Bartók, Stravinsky, and the Krenek of Jonny spielt auf.

Listeners laughed in Berlin (Apr. 1931). There Otto Klemperer had two weeks to prepare. Heinz Tietjen was defunding the Krolloper ostensibly for its poorly attended modernist repertoire.

Hermann Scherchen conducted the London premiere at the summer 1931 International Society for Contemporary Music Festival. Prompted by Schoenberg, Edward Clark had invited Webern to conduct. Webern declined, citing travel fatigue and his desire to focus on composition. There was also low remuneration, recent bad press, and as noted in his diary earlier that year: "Need for quiet and reflection."

Klemperer programmed the Symphony again in 1936 Vienna, likely on Schoenberg's advice, but did not adhere to Webern's desired performance practice.