Anton Webern

It may come as a surprise to learn that Anton Webern's delicate, refined and intimate music can be transferred to the organ. Xavier Durasse (1934-1992), a pupil of Durufle and Messiaen, has produced an organ adaptation of the famous three-movement Variations for piano op. 27 (1936), a groundbreaking composition in serial music. His arrangement is accompanied by judicious registration marks and division of the manuals. The result is fully convincing, making this late work with its chamber-like atmosphere attractive to organists.Durasse's adaptation is now presented to the public for the first time. His pupil Bernhard Haas, an organ professor in Munich, has prefixed his teacher's manuscript with a foreword containing important suggestions regarding the work's performance. / Orgue

Par WEBERN ANTON. Composer and choir master Clytus Gottwald comments on his transcription of Anton Webern’s Im Sommerwind (1904) as follows: “First of all I had to eliminate all those parts of the source material that had strictly instrumental designs, reducing the work – to quote Wolfgang Rihm – to its singable remnant. What was so surprising, however, was that such a reduction did not lead to a meaningless sequence of fragments, but that the fragments turned out to be – with regard to harmony and motifs – so closely related to each other that the result proved an impressive ‘work within a work’. The reduction uncovered something that could be called the ‘essence’ of the work. In order to make the singable remnant singable, I used fragments from Bruno Wille’s poem Im Sommerwind, which Webern had used as a basis for his composition.”/ Répertoire / Choeur Mixte SATB

Par WEBERN ANTON. / Répertoire / Voix, Violon (Alto), Clarinette (Sib) et Clarinett

Nach Alban Berg ist Anton Webern der zweite Komponist der Wiener Schule, der in den Henle-Katalog aufgenommen wird. Weberns Musik ist bekannt für ihre extreme Knappheit und strenge Organisation. Die Aufführung der Variationen op. 27 dauert noch nicht einmal zehn Minuten - eine kurze Zeitspanne, in der die Zuhörer wahre Extreme durchleben. Webern hat das Stück mit mehreren Pianisten einstudiert, und aus dieser Zusammenarbeit sind überraschend emotionale Interpretationshilfen überliefert. Nach Einsichtnahme aller verfügbarer Quellen legt der Herausgeber Ullrich Scheideler nun einen neu überprüften Notentext vor und dokumentiert überdies die verwickelte Entstehungsgeschichte und Weberns aufschlussreiche Hinweise zum Vortrag. Ein Klassiker der Moderne, nun auch in Henle-Blau. / Piano / Chanson En Séparée