An exercise of structural paraphrasis based on the analysis of Webern’s Quartet Op. 22

Abstract

In this article, the first movement of Webern’s Quartet Opus 22 is analyzed with respect to three levels of observation: foreground, which consists of observing the texture segmented into pitch class sets, especially trichords, and how these sets relate one to another in terms of transpositional and inversional operations; middleground, which consists of observing how inversional simmetry confers coherence to some pitch class sets; and background, which consists of observing how a twelve-tone row is the basic structure that supports the entire work. This process is followed by an exercise on structural paraphrasis.
Keywords: Webern. Quartet Opus 22. Inversional symmetry. Structural paraphrasis.