The Structuring of Tonal Space in Webern's Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9

Abstract

For reasons of chronology and style, Webern's Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 are generally understood to have been composed in an unsystematic, intuitive fashion. The present study seeks to question this assumption, suggesting that these short pieces in fact employ a specific approach to pitch grammar involving the consistent deployment of chromatic wedge structures. This technique, termed the structuring of tonal space, serves to explain note‐to‐note processes as well as aspects of larger‐scale formal design.

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

“…Return to text 53. The idea of radically normalizing octave displacements in post-tonal music to reveal smooth voice leading is familiar from, for instance, Benjamin Davies's (2007) analysis of Webern's Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, op. 9.…”