Anton Von Webern

Rating:
Summary: Solid introduction the fascinating composer
Review: Webern's music seems to me to be something of an acquired taste. This biography, however, is perfectly designed to encourage one to acquire a taste for the strange atonal wisps of sound that comprise a good part of this composer's ouevre.

Rather than getting bogged down in technical discussions of Webern's serial techniques, the author gives us the composer's life; stopping at crucial musical signposts to explain how his thought evolved. In each case, we're given an idea how to approach the given piece.

Webern's music often seems unearthly, and he comes across as a bit unearthly (or at least very impractical) himself. Still, we get a human portrait of him, which further encourages us to see the passion in his music.

As with all the books in this wonderful series, it contains copious quantities of drawings and photos, a complete list of compositions and a wonderful bibliography for further reading.

If you've always wondered what the big deal about Webern was (to the extent that he influenced 50 years of music, frequently by people who seem not to have understood his muse), this is a good place to start finding out.