Main
Chronology of Webern's Life & Works


Chronology of Webern's Life & Works
by Paul Griffiths
Sammlung Anton Webern
Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel
    1883
  • 3 December: Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern born in Vienna, to Carl von Webern, a mining engineer, and his wife Amalie, née Geer. (The noble particle "von" was dropped in Austria after the First World War, though Webern revived it in the 1930s and 1940s.) His early boyhood is divided between the capital and Preglhof, the family's summer estate in Lower Carinthia.

    1890
  • The family moves to Graz.

    1894
  • The family moves to Klagenfurt, where he has piano and cello lessons with Edwin Komauer and starts playing the cello in trios with his sisters, Maria (13) and Rosa (8).

    1899
  • First compositions: Two Pieces for cello and piano, song "Vorfrühling".

    1900
  • First surviving notebooks, including records of concerts attended in Klagenfurt and Vienna during the 1900-01 season.

    1901
  • Easter: Trip to Graz, for Tristan.

    1902
  • January: First, positive acquaintance with Mahler's music - the Second Symphony in piano reduction.
  • Easter: Trip to Vienna, for Götterdämmerung.
  • August: Trip to Bayreuth, for Parsifal and Der fliegende Holländer, as graduation present from father. Returns via Munich, impressed there by paintings by Segantini and Böcklin.
  • September: Enters university in Vienna. Studies music and goes regularly to opera and concerts. Only compositions since 1899 are four more songs.

    1903
  • 25 January: First hears Beethoven's Ninth, "the holiest hour of my life up to now!" Liszt, Bruckner, Wagner and Wolf (whose funeral he attends in February) are also in his pantheon. He goes on composing songs.

    1904
  • Spring: Visit to Pfitzner in Berlin, with a view to taking composition lessons. Project abandoned when Pfitzner speaks disparagingly of Strauss and Mahler.
  • Summer: First big composition, the orchestral idyll Im Sommerwind.
  • Autumn: Starts lessons with Schoenberg.

    1905
  • May: Walking holiday with cousin Wilhelmine Mörtl, with whom he falls in love.
  • Summer: One-movement String Quartet shows growing powers.

    1906
  • June: Receives doctorate for edition of Heinrich Isaac's Choralis Constantinus.
  • 7 September: Death of Amalie von Webern. The loss colours all his music up to his op.6.

    1908
  • Completes Passacaglia for orchestra op.1, and therewith concludes studies with Schoenberg. Starts settings of Stefan George poems (including the chorus Entflieht auf leichten Kähnen op.2), which follow Schoenberg into atonality.
  • July: Takes first job, conducting in Bad Ischl. Establishes pattern of leaving posts almost as soon as (or before) he has started work, scorning repertories and audiences.
  • 4 November: Conducts first performance of the Passacaglia, at the Musikverein in Vienna.

    1909
  • July: Conducting job in Innsbruck, soon abandoned. Otherwise spends summer at Preglhof, completing George songs opp.3 and 4, Five Movements for string quartet op.5 and Six Pieces for orchestra op.6
  • 12 September: Attends first performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, in Munich. Meets Mahler for last time and receives sketch from him. Then begins full season as coach at the Volksoper in Vienna.

    1910
  • May: Conducts in Bad Teplitz, for a few weeks.
  • Summer: At Preglhof writes Violin pieces op.7 and Rilke songs op.8.
  • September: Takes conducting job in Danzig for full season.

    1911
  • 22 February: Marriage with Wilhelmine, in Danzig.
  • 9 April: Birth of first child, Amalie, in Berlin.
  • 18 May: Death of Mahler, in Vienna. Attends funeral.
  • Summer: At Preglhof writes quartet and orchestral pieces, including some bound for opp.9 and 10.
  • 6 October: Follows Schoenberg to Berlin while on and off angling for job in Prague.
  • 20 November: Attends first performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, in Munich.

    1912
  • Father sells Preglhof.
  • June: Takes post in Stettin.
  • 16 October: Attends first performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, in Berlin.

    1913
  • January: Departs from Stettin on sick leave.
  • 17 February: Birth of second child, Maria, in Stettin.
  • 23 February: Attends first performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, in Vienna.
  • March: Family reunited in Vienna. First performance of Six Pieces op.6 at Schoenberg's noisily received concert there on 31 March.
  • Early Summer: Stay in Mürzzuschlag with Wilhelmine's aunt. Completion there of Six Bagatelles for string quartet op.9 and Five Pieces for orchestra op.10.
  • July: Arrives in Prague to assume position, but leaves almost immediately.
  • August-October: Treatment with Alfred Adler, in Vienna.

    1914
  • Spring-Summer: Three Little Pieces for cello and piano op.11.
  • 28 July: Outbreak of war, which frustrates plan to return to Stettin.

    1915
  • February: Volunteers for army service.
  • 17 October: Birth of third child, Peter, in Vienna.

    1916
  • 23 December: Discharged from army.

    1917
  • August: Takes up conducting post in Prague.
  • Completes Four Songs op.12.

    1918
  • June: Returns to Vienna, settling near Schoenberg in the suburb of Mödling. Starts writing songs with instrumental ensemble, his almost exclusive medium for the next seven years, giving rise to opp.13-18. Life henceforth revolves around composition, conducting, family and excursions to the mountains.
  • 29 December: First concert of Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances, in which he is involved as arranger and performer for the next three years.

    1919
  • 10 August: Death of Carl Webern.
  • 30. November: Birth of fourth and last child, Christine

    1920
  • August-October: Brief return to Prague job.

    1921
  • Summer: Completes Trakl songs op. 14
  • Autumn: Starts as conductor of the Mödling Men's Choir (until 1926).

    1922
  • 27 May: Begins association with Workers' Symphony Concerts in Vienna, conducting Mahler's Third. Conducting assignments in Vienna will peak at around ten concerts in 1932, with a repertory emphasizing Beethoven and Mahler, then Mozart, Schubert, Bruckner and the Schoenberg school.

    1923
  • 6 June: Conducts his op.1 and the first performance of Berg's op.6 nos.1-2, in Berlin.
  • December: Begins association with Vienna Singverein.

    1924
  • July: Conducts first performance of his op.14 songs, at Donaueschingen Festival.
  • 9 October: Conducts first performance of his op.15 songs, in Vienna.
  • Autumn: First serial compositions: a Children' s Piece for piano and the first song of op.17.

    1925
  • October: Starts teaching at the Israelitic Institute for the Blind (until 1931).

    1926
  • January: Completes two Goethe songs op.19
  • June: Conducts Schoenberg's Wind Quintet and his own op.10 at ISCM Festival, in Zurich.
  • Meets Hildegard Jone, henceforth his almost exclusive source for texts to set.

    1927
  • 31 March: Conducts first performance of Berg's Chamber Concerto, in Vienna.
  • Spring: Completes String Trio op.20.
  • 1 May: Conducting debut for Austrian radio.

    1928
  • Completes Symphony op.21

    1929
  • 2 December: First of almost annual engagements with BBC in London, op.10 on programme.

    1930
  • 24 February: Conducts first performance of his Symphony, in Vienna.
  • Completes Quartet op.22.

    1931
  • 16 January: Starts Concerto for nine instruments op.24.
  • Records orchestral songs by Brahms, Schoenberg and Eisler.

    1932
  • 15 January: Starts giving private lectures, continued until near the end of his life.
  • 21 February: Conducts concert of American music in Vienna.
  • 5/7 April: Conducts concerts in Barcelona, including his opp.1 and 6 and Mahler's Fourth.
  • June: Conducts three concerts at ISCM Festival in Vienna.

    1933
  • 1 February: Starts first songs since 1925.
  • 10 December: Conducts last Workers' Symphony Concert, which is also last appearance of Vienna Singverein, both dissolved with the advent of Nazism.

    1934
  • Summer: Completes Concerto op.24. Songs opp.23 and 25 also completed this year.

    1935
  • 25. April: Conducts BBC concert, including his op.1 and op.6 and his Bach Ricercare orchestration.
  • Das Augenlicht for chorus and orchestra op.26

    1936
  • April-May: Breaks down while rehearsing first performance of Berg's Violin Concerto, in Barcelona, but conducts the work successfully for BBC in London (1 May). BBC performance of Bruckner's Seventh (3 May) is his last conducting engagement.
  • Summer-Autumn: Variations for piano op.27.

    1938
  • 12 March: The Anschluss: Austria is annexed to Germany.
  • April: Completes String Quartet op.28.

    1939
  • March: Receives last payment from Universal Edition, his Vienna publisher. The String Quartet is published this year by Boosey & Hawkes, the last of his works to appear in print during his lifetime, but his financial situation becomes desperate.
  • 3 September: Britain and France declare war on Germany.
  • Completes First Canata op.29.

    1940
  • April-November: Variations for orchestra op.30

    1943
  • 3 March: Attends first performance of his Variations op.30, in Winterthur - his last trip abroad and the last time he hears a work of his own.
  • Completes Second Cantata op.31.

    1945
  • 14 February: Death of Peter Webern, in a bombed train.
  • 31 March: Leaves Mödling with wife and eldest daughter for Mittersill, near Salzburg, where other daughters had been since the previous summer. Family there also includes his six young grandchildren.
  • 7 May: German surrender.
  • 15 September 1945: Death of Webern, shot accidentally by an American soldier.