ArkivMusic has inadvertently created one of the handiest tools around for judging a composer’s popularity with the general public—at least in the august judgment of the record labels. Arkiv’s online database indicates the number of albums available containing a particular composer’s music, not necessarily albums devoted exclusively to that composer, but with that composer’s music present on at least one track. The database doesn’t indicate the size of an album, either—i.e., Brilliant Classic’s complete Bach set counts as a single album, for example, despite containing nearly 200 discs. Arkiv sells CDs currently in print and available in the United States, so its offerings are not all-inclusive by any means.
It isn’t statistically impeccable, in other words.
But given those caveats, Arkiv’s numbers do indicate, however coarsely, the overall market atittude towards individual Western composers. There are no surprises at the top of the list; both Mozart and Bach break the 6000 mark, with box-office champ Mozart making it almost to 7000 at a whopping 6943 albums available. Beethoven nips at their heels with 5,268 albums. Then come the middleweights: Brahms, Schubert, Verdi, and Tchaikovsky all rank in the 3000s, while the 2000s are the bailiwick of Handel, Schumann, Wagner, Debussy, and Haydn. At the very low end of four figures come Elgar (1,018) and Johann Strauss, Jr. (1,026). Nobody ranks in the 900s, but Vaughan Williams, Bellini, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Sibelius stand proudly together in the 800s.
These aren’t necessarily popularity rankings—a composer with only a few CDs out could theoretically outsell others with buckets on the market. More importantly, these figures say nothing whatsoever in and of themselves about the musical worth or historical significance of a composer. However, the heavyweights on the list all tend to be the heavyweights in public opinion as well. It’s hard to argue with names like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Note that Debussy is the only twentieth-century composer ranking in the 2000s or above. In the 1000 range the modern guys start showing up in greater numbers: Ravel, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky. But most modern composers rank well below the 1000 mark—Aaron Copland comes in at 568; i.e., about 8% of Mozart’s offerings.
On the Arkiv Hit-Parade Chart, Anton Webern tallies up a modest 148 offerings, putting him in company with Peter Warlock, Erno von Dohnanyi, Federico Moreno-Torroba, Luigi Cherubini, Elliot Carter, and 17th-century German master Samuel Scheidt. I should mention that of those 148 Webern albums, only 24 are devoted exclusively to him, while 24 more are part of "Second Viennese School" collections. The remaining 100 are all parts of broader collections in which Webern’s music plays a modest, even minuscule, part. So I’d estimate an adjusted number of around 70 or so. That’s pretty skimpy.
So despite all the ballyhoo about Webern’s significance to 20th century music, the record companies (and the CD buying public) display a distinct indifference. I suppose it could be worse: Haydn’s contemporary Franz Querfurth, a composer so obscure that he isn’t even mentioned once in Grove’s, is represented by one single track on one single album. (There are a lot of one-track-one-album folks out there.)
I share that commercial apathy towards Webern. I consulted my gargantuan record collection—stored on a computer hard drive to the tune of nearly 2 terabytes of disc space—and found that I had precisely two Webern pieces. One was the never-played filler on a recording of the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, and the other was the single Webern track from the music-appreciation CDs I use at UC Berkeley. Clearly I had never bought a CD specifically for Webern. The only Webern works l had heard live were on somebody’s recital. Back in my student days I slogged through the Concerto for 9 Instruments, Op. 24 in a dismal performance led by an unfocused, uninspired conductor.
Webern’s music has never appealed to me. I’ve heard counsel for the defense. Ah, but those sparse sounds are so beautiful, people say. Well, OK—but my next-door neighbor had an elaborate Japanese wind chime in the backyard, and it created sparse, beautiful sounds. It also irritated the hell out of me, gratuitous noise pollution and all that. Her new downstairs tenant demanded its banishment, to my delight. (I wouldn’t have dared gripe about it myself, given the amount of music I’ve obliged her to tolerate over the years.)
Ah, but it’s a classic! I remember a student saying in rebuttal to ever-so sensible queries from her classmates regarding her decision to program a Webern piece that she considered to be gibberish.
My success as a lecturer and writer on music to general audiences is largely due to my knack for putting myself in my listeners’ shoes. I’ve become quite adept at anticipating what folks need to hear from me in order to connect with the composer or piece of music in question, instead of selfishly putting my own priorities or interests first. A lot of experienced musicians can’t, or won’t, do that. We’ve all read program notes that read like scholarly journal articles or pre-concert lectures that remain rooted in the seminar room.
My populist slant extends also to my tastes in music. My interests are extremely broad and include a lot of music that your average concert-goer doesn’t know. But at the same time I share, however broadly, the overall likes and dislikes of your basic stalwart and involved symphony patron.
What Webern I’ve heard has bored me to tears, so I’ve avoided acquiring more familiarity, in a classic Catch-22 downwards spiral. Thus I haven’t given Webern much of a chance.
In the interest of breaking the vicious cycle I acquired a big blob of Webern on 2 CDs conducted by Robert Craft, nice clear FLAC downloads courtesy of those fine folks at Passionato. Listed in iTunes, Webern’s output looks pretty substantial, but in terms of playing time it just flies by; everything is short. According to iTunes I have gone from having a tad over 3 minutes worth of Webern’s music to having 2.6 hours worth, quite a substantial increase.
Anton Webern: OK, pal, here’s your chance. Don’t blow it.
I’m approaching Webern as a concert-goer, not as a theory professor or a trained musician. I am restricting my exploration to listening only: absolutely no background reading, no following along with scores, no analysis, no nothing. The question: can it speak for itself as music—can it attract me, encourage me to listen more, intrigue me, get my glands involved, tickle my fancy, move me? And can it do all that without anybody telling me what I’m supposed to be hearing, thinking, or feeling?
As a sidenote, I should mention that the music of Osvaldo Golijov has recently entered my life, and it has spoken for itself magnificently—it has attracted me, encouraged me to listen more, intrigued me, gotten my glands involved, tickled my fancy, and moved me. And then some. So I’m not asking for anything out of the ordinary here. I’m just requiring that Webern make his case without an accompanying phalanx of academic commentators.
I started with that Concerto for 9 Instruments that I played as a conservatory student. I can usually remember all of the pieces I have played, no matter how long ago it was, but not this one. It isn’t remotely familiar. Gadzooks, I thought, we must have played it even worse than I thought. But I don’t think that’s the problem. I think the problem is that it’s like trying to remember a series of unrelated nonsense syllables. Oh, you can hear some patterns here and there—I have a vague recollection of playing a lot of two-interval patterns, and I note that in the second movement that’s what the piano is doing. I have little doubt that intellectually one could have some fun with the organizational principles involved. One could pontificate and theorize and philosophize and explain and lecture and write words, words, words, and more words. But my ear says so what? The Concerto is short so I gave it a good half-dozen listenings. My ear still says so what? My heart remains cool.
Some of the orchestral works have fared a bit better to my ear because some of them sound like modern-day horror-movie music or the background to episodes of Law & Order—you know, that creepy stuff that always starts playing when mousy housewife in Interview Room 1 reveals herself as the serial killer who has been applying her late husband’s chainsaw to every nun in town. I should think that the orchestral works Op. 5, 6, and 10 would make dandy underpinning for a Hannibal Lecter movie, esp. Op. 6 No. 4.
I’m not doing very well, not very well at all. I don’t care how meticulously assembled this music is, I’m not connecting. In fact, my overall impression is one of unbridled pomposity, an odd thing to say given the brevity and sonic modesty of Webern’s output. But that very style seems so unbearably cerebral, so calculated, so sterile. Grim, even. It’s so full of itself, so enamored of its sparseness and bleakness, that you just want to slap it.
Webern is going to have to seduce me all by himself, without any academic or commentarial Viagra. So far my musical pecker remains as limp as an overcooked noodle. But I’ll keep slogging on. For a while, anyway.