Anton Webern
Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and ste ...
's Concerto for Nine Instruments,
Op. 24 (German: Konzert für neun Instrumente), written in 1934, is a
twelve-tone
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law ...
concerto for nine
instruments
Instrument may refer to:
Science and technology
* Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft
* Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific l ...
:
flute,
oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
...
,
clarinet,
horn,
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standar ...
,
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrat ...
,
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
,
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
, and
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...
. It consists of three
movements:
The concerto is based on a
derived row
In music using the twelve-tone technique, derivation is the construction of a row through segments. A derived row is a tone row whose entirety of twelve tones is constructed from a segment or portion of the whole, the generator. Anton Webern often ...
, "often cited
uch as by Milton Babbitt (1972)">Milton_Babbitt.html" ;"title="uch as by Milton Babbitt">uch as by Milton Babbitt (1972)as a paragon of symmetry">symmetrical
Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definit ...
construction".
The tone row is shown below.
, the concerto is "a work of incredible conciseness... and of unique concentration... . Although I did not understand the work completely, I had the feeling of finding an aesthetic and stylistic unity as great as I could wish for.
.
The second movement "limits quite severely the values of many domains," for example featuring "only two