Passacaglia

Though it may not seem it, Webern's Passacaglia is a model of economy. In 1908, it was top of the line. By the time he'd knock off for good, he'd have moved that top of the line to one of those rare, irreproachable heights where a mode of thought reaches its apotheosis, and thereafter, renders anything else in a similar vein a pallid retread, which, to come back to the piece at hand, some would say of his Passacaglia, calling it a final embrace of German romaticism, a portrayal which dovetails nicely with the similarly false artistic trajectory that has been created for Schoenberg.

All the best of Webern is here: The timbral counterpoint; the stunning, microscopic, symmetrical transformations; dynamic schemes; even his most iconic cell structure is present at the outset. It would be a ridiculous form of organicism to suggest the work is a germ for the thirty that would follow, the type of contortionist compliment that critics rely on all too often.

The rather more genuine compliment is that, though the work could be attributed to other hands, there is no mistaking Webern's voice. Ralph Fiennes' dissection of a forged Picasso in The Good Thief, wherein he goes so far as to cite the influence of beached Etruscan vases, comes to mind, and certainly one could exhaustively catalogue the influences in this short score, but the voice of Opus 31 is unmistakably that of Opus 1, which is compliment enough, and a truly rare feat of composition, especially given what a revolutionary voice it is.