For Webern, Brief means Long

Bernard Holland had a very odd line in his column last Sunday on juvenalia:

Then there is poor Anton Webern, whose reputation rests for a great many concertgoers on youthful Mahlerian effusions like "Im Sommerwind," a brief, playable piece that serves as a convenient escape for orchestra administrators wanting to appear hip without actually having to risk alienating listeners.

I discovered Im Sommerwind from the newer Webern Box set. I found it to be quite a shock -- somehow, I wanted Webern to be be born fully formed, ready to write his Op. 1 Passacaglia. But that wasn't true, and so we're left with a handful of student pieces.

What's so striking about the orchestral idyll is the aspect that Holland manages to get completely wrong: it is anything but brief. At sixteen minutes, it's actually the longest thing Webern ever wrote. Webern's trademark concision isn't there yet. Instead this piece models itself on Mahlerian and Wagnerian expansiveness.

Probably the best description of it is that there's nothing wrong with it. Its sixteen minutes go by with great proficiency on Webern's part, but it doesn't sound like him at all. It's clearly the work of a raw talent in need of guidance. Fortunately for us Webern met Schoenberg soon after completing the idyll, and before too long wrote the perfect passacaglia.

I wouldn't say there's an inherint problem with programming Im Sommerwind. It's only problematic if it gets chosen as the token Webern piece at the expensive of the masterpieces like his Op. 21 Symphony.