Variations for piano (Webern)

[6] By the early 1930s, Webern was one of the composers and artists criticised by the Nazi Party, which was rapidly gaining power.

By 1934, Webern's conducting career, a major source of income for the composer, was practically over, and he earned his living by teaching composition to a few private pupils.

Despite the considerable financial disadvantages of this situation, the lack of a stable job provided Webern with more time to compose.

In a letter dated 18 July, Webern wrote: "The completed part is a variations movement; the whole will be a kind of 'Suite'".

However, to refer to an entire work by the form of its last movement is very unusual, and numerous attempts have been made to explain the title.

[15] Finally, Kathryn Bailey's analysis suggests that the first movement is a sonata form, her ideas supported by Webern's own remarks in the original manuscript, published in 1979 by Peter Stadlen.

Principal forms of Webern's tone row from movement 1. [ 9 ] The first simultaneous pairing of row forms is P1 and R8, and as with the principal forms, each hexachord fills in a chromatic fourth, with B as the pivot (end of P1 and beginning of IR8), and thus linked by the prominent tritone in the center of the row. [ 10 ]