Der musikalische Aphorismus in der Wiener Schule

In the short instrumental pieces of the Vienna School, composed between 1909 and 1914, the literary aphorism finds its genuine musical counterpart. This thesis examines the prerequisites of the aphoristic style and its manifestation in terms of form, content, and compositional technique, using three selected compositions as examples. Despite some superficial similarities and close aesthetic kinship—which the school’s image traditionally emphasizes—the three Viennese composers each realized the shared aesthetic goal of music that is both accessible and highly condensed in their own distinct ways. The fundamentally different strategies become clear through a comparison of the pieces. Furthermore, by comparing them with Schumann’s Träumerei, the essay explores the extent to which—even though “the harmonic foundation has changed”—all other elements of the music up to that point are also present in the new work (Berg), thereby establishing a connection to the past. Just like the compositions themselves, the analysis resists any pre-systematized methods; for the specific compositional techniques are to be discovered in the works themselves, yet at the same time point beyond them.

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