This analysis summarizes the form and pitch organization of Webern's Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5, No. 1 in 3 sentences: The piece follows a sonata form structure with an exposition, development, and recapitulation delineated by recurring symmetrical eight-note chords. Major third-based tetrachords and hexachords are transposed throughout the piece to connect its sections. Pitch collections are related through transpositional combination, culminating in the presentation of the aggregate at the climax and conclusion.

1. ANALYSIS OF WEBERN’S
FIVE MOVEMENTS FOR STRING QUARTET, OP. 5, NO. 1
Zane Gillespie
Doctoral Comprehensives
October 30, 2012

2. 1
The music of the common practice period relies upon the articulation of form via
tonal shifts. The presentation of thematic areas in major-key sonata form, for instance, is
never independent of functional tonality. The distinction between tonic first themes and
dominant second themes in the exposition is, with reference to history, an indispensable
component of an awe-inspiring platform for compositional craftsmanship.
However, in post-tonal music form must be delineated quite differently. The
formal lucidity afforded music by common practice tonality is counterbalanced by the
comparatively enigmatic elusiveness of music whose formal areas must be articulated by
other means, like, for instance, Webern’s impressive pre-twelve-tone works. In this essay,
I will try to formulate a rationale for form based on pitch organization in one of these
works, the first movement of the Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5, No. 1.
There are many musical evidences that measures 7 – 13 constitute a distinct
formal section, the second thematic group (Tempo II q = ca 88). There are occurrences in
this passage that are not found in either the preceding section or the one that follows, like
the tender (sehr zart) melodic lines in the first and second violins and viola. The tremolo
major thirds related by a half step, the pitch content of which may be described as two
minor seconds separated by a minor third, and which are played sul ponticello (am steg)
in the viola, are also something that distinguishes this section as is the tetrachord formed
by their pairing: Eb, E, G, G#. This tetrachord is actually a transposition up a perfect fifth
of the cadential chord at the end of measure 6: Ab, A, C, C#. The first three pitches of the
first violin that are slurred together (B, C#, C) obviously refer to the minor seconds of the

3. 2
tetrachord which opens this section while simultaneously introducing a major second, an
interval which, like the tritone, is not found in the opening tetrachord. These pitches also
figure prominently as a motive, descending stepwise, that undergoes a certain rhythmic
expansion in the cadence in measures 12 – 13.1
In all these ways, measures 7 – 13 are set
apart from the sections that frame it. If measures 1 – 6 constitute a single section, namely,
the first thematic group (Tempo I q = ca 100), measures 7 – 13 make up a contrasting
section. Measures 14 – 17, as will be seen, are a canon like that which takes place in the
first section in measures 2 – 4. The result so far is a kind of ABA form.
Similarly, there are many musical evidences to suggest that the passage from the
end of measure 19 through measure 26 recalls musical ideas from the second thematic
group, like the melodic material that strongly resemblances that from the cello and violins
as well as a pizzicato melodic minor-sixth imitation of the sul ponticello harmonic major-
third accompaniment from measures 7 – 13. The trichord in the cello from which is
obtained the melodic material above it in the second violin and viola in measure 23 also
distinguishes this section as a derivation of the second thematic group. As alleged, the
cello’s trichord accounts for the pitch content and pitch organization of the second violin
and viola in this measure. For instance, the trichord formed by the pitch succession C#-
Bb-D in the viola is the cello’s trichord transposed up a major second while the trichord
formed by the pitch succession G#-F(E#)-A in the second violin is the same trichord
transposed down a minor third. Excluding redundant pitches, if one were to take the
1
Jim Samson, “Atonality and Tradition,” in Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and
Atonality 1900 – 1920 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1977), 174.

4. 3
cello’s trichord and combine it with an inversion of itself that had been transposed up a
major third, one would derive the tetrachord (G#, A, B, C) that, when transposed up a
major third/diminished fourth, is the first four notes of the viola (m. 23), the first four of
the five notes that make up the second violin’s sixteenth note figure when transposed
down a major third (m. 23), and, more importantly, when transposed up a perfect fourth,
the cello melody at the outset of the second thematic group. In this way, measures 19 –
26 may be interpreted as a development of measures 7 – 13. If measures 14 – 17
correspond to measures 1- 6, measures 19 – 26 correspond to measures 7 – 13. After a
brief transitional passage, measure 37 appears to mark the beginning of some kind of
recapitulation that combines both thematic groups. The result is a form that can be
divided into the three parts of sonata-allegro form: Exposition (measures 1 – 13),
Development (measures 14 – 36), and Recapitulation (measures 37 – 55).
Three statements of a single symmetrical, that is, intervallically palindromic chord
of eight notes further delineate this form.2
It occurs in measures 5 and 6, at the end of the
first thematic group; in measure 17, at the end of the canonic development of group two
material; in measure 55 at the very end of the piece; and in measure 49, near the end of
the movement, just before what appears to be a coda (see Example 1).
2
Stanley Persky, “A Discussion of Compositional Choices in Webern's Fünf Sätze für
Streichquartett, Op. 5, First Movement,” Current Musicology 13 (1972): 68-74.

5. 4
T8
T2 T6
Example 1 A recurring eight-note chord that supports an analysis that divides the
piece into three parts.
These chords are pitch transpositions of one another – the first and second chords
are related at T2, the second and third at T6, and, therefore, the first and third at T8. Thus,
the palindromic intervallic structure is the same in each case, a structure that can be
interpreted as consisting of four interlocking major thirds or alternatively as two
identical tetrachords related by transposition at T2, each tetrachord consisting of two
major thirds at the interval of a minor third. It is abundantly clear that the major third is
very important to the composition of these chords, but the importance of this interval is
also particularly central to the entire piece, resonating throughout.
A close look at the opening measures will reveal some very striking echoes. The
cello doubling the violin at two octaves, and the viola doubling the violin at one octave
play two dyads – C-C# and F-E respectively – that together form a tetrachord that has
mm. 5 – 6
A
F#
C#
B
Bb
G#
Eb
C
mm. 17 & 55
B
G#
D#
C#
C
Bb
F
D
m. 49
F
D
A
G or
F#
E
B
G#
m3 <
P4 <
M2 <
m3 <
P4 <
M2 <
M3
M3
M3
M3
D
F#
F
A
E
G#
G
B
T2

6. 5
much in common with the intervallic structure of the symmetrical chords above,
especially the one in measures 5 and 6 for the reason that follows: this opening tetrachord
(C, C#, E, F) becomes Ab, A, C, C# when transposed down a major third. These are the
pitches of the cadential chord in harmonics that closes the first section, which also seem
to have been extracted from the symmetrical chord in measures 5 and 6. And whereas the
tetrachords which make up the palindromic chord may be interpreted as two major thirds
at the interval of a minor third, the tetrachord which both opens the piece and closes the
thematic group may be interpreted as two major thirds at the interval of a minor second
(see Example 2).
Example 2 The opening tetrachord is seen to consist of two major thirds related by
a half-step.
As the piece continues, major-third based tetrachords are heard again and again.
As mentioned earlier, the tremolo major thirds in the viola beginning in measure 7 are
related by a half step, comprising a tetrachord Eb, E, G, G#, that is actually a transposition

7. 6
up a perfect fifth of the cadential chord (Ab, A, C, C#) at the end of measure 6. This
obviously serves to link the second group to the first. Indeed, this transposition along
with that which occurs in measures 37 – 43, in which all second group material is
transposed up a perfect fourth (thereby returning the Eb, E, G, G# tetrachord back to the
level of group one’s cadential chord), is the reason it seems most logical to construe
measure 37 as the beginning of the recapitulation of a movement the total form of which
is best understood in terms of sonata-allegro.
A canon begins in measure 14 in the first violin, and then continues in the viola,
then the second violin, and finally the cello. The four-note canonic subject is taken from
the cello in measures 8 and 9; in fact, the initial entry of the canonic subject states the
cello’s figure at its original transpositional level, and so contains the tritone Ab-D. The
first and second statements of this melodic figure have the same pitch-class content. The
third and fourth have been transposed up a major second and so produce the tritone Bb-E.
Both tritones are reproduced when these four entries are subsequently transposed by a
tritone. These dyads not only appear in the first canon in measures 2 – 4 (see Example 3),
but together form yet another tetrachord consisting of two major thirds at the
tritone/diminished fifth: (E, Ab[G#]) | (Bb, D)
T6

8. 7
Example 3 The beginning of the canon in measures 2 – 4, showing the same tritones
in its subject that appear later in the subject of the canon which begins at measure 14.
There is a particularly outstanding occurrence that seems to follow necessarily
from the initial conditions set by major-third based tetrachords like those which make up
each half of the octachords of Example 1, the hexachord (C#, D, F, F#, A, Bb) that
appears in measure 47 (see Example 4).
Example 4 A dramatic presentation of a hexachord composed of major sevenths
(inverted minor seconds) transposed according to a series of major thirds.
E Bb E Bb
AbD

9. 8
This is one of the reasons why the piece sounds so climactic here and in this
measure’s immediate vicinity. Regarding octave-related pitches as functionally
equivalent, the sequence in Example 4 may be said to be composed of minor seconds
transposed a major third, just like the opening tetrachord:
M3
(C-C# | E-F)
M3
And, thus, like the tetrachord harvested from the symmetrical chord of measures 5
and 6 for use as the cadential chord which ends the first group:
M3
(Ab-A | C-C#)
M3
Transpositional combination (TC) is the combination of a pitch collection with
one or more transpositions/inversions of itself to create a larger collection.3
In a very real
sense, the analysis of this piece has largely been a study in pitch collections that may be
said to have the TC property. For example, the two tetrachords above are actually subsets
3
Joseph N. Straus, “Some Additional Relationships,” in Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, 3rd
ed.
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005), 98-99.

10. 9
of the hexachord of Example 4, intervallically speaking. That is to say because they are
related by transposition, when combined, they form the hexachord Ab, A, C, C#, E, F
which is identical to the hexachord of measure 47 transposed down a perfect fourth.
These explicit connections comprise one of the reasons why the climax, which begins
with the accelerando toward the end of measure 42, is so impressive.
The opening dyad, by virtue of transpositional combination, creates a coherent musical
path, one that culminates and concludes in measures 49 and 50 with the third
transpositional manifestation of the symmetrical chord:
C, C# + E, F = C, C#, E, F
C, C#, E, F + Ab, A, C, C# = Ab, A, C, C#, E, F
Ab, A, C, C#, E, F C#, D, F, F#, A, Bb
Ab, A, C, C#, E, F + Bb, B, D, D#, F#, G = the Aggregate
Initial Dyad
T4
Initial Tetrachord
Cadential Chord
T8
Climax Hexachord
T7
T2

11. 10
From the end of measure 4, the aggregate is subdivided into the palindromic
chord A, F#, C#, B, Bb, G#, Eb, C with D and G serving as upper and lower leading tones
to C# and G#, respectively, and E and F serving as respective upper and lower leading
tones to Eb and F#. Notice that the completion of the Aggregate coincides with the end of
the first thematic group as is often the case at the end of distinct sections. Apparently, this
is a common non-tonal means of formal segmentation, a rappel de l’ordre in lieu of tonal
organizational means.4
For the beginning of the second thematic group, the Aggregate is transposed up a
perfect fifth, and is partitioned into the hexachord Eb, E, G, G#, B, C, which is the parent
of the Climax Hexachord of measure 47 transposed up a perfect fifth. The first four notes
of this hexachord are, of course, found in the viola thirds, but the last two notes make up
two of the first three notes (slurred together) in the first violin in measure 9. The
remaining note, the C#, belongs to the transposition of the Eb, E, G, G#, B, C hexachord
down a major second (one might even say it is the “keynote” of this transposition) to
which the viola thirds shift before being taken up by the violins.
In measure 17, the symmetrical chord (transposed up a major second) seems to
signal the modulatory function of the development section which begins in measure 14. It
is from this transposition of the symmetrical chord B, G#, D#, C#, C, Bb, F, D that the
cello trichord of measure 23 is culled.
4
Paul Kabbash, “Aggregate-Derived Symmetry in Webern's "Early Works",” Journal of Music
Theory 28, no. 2 (Autumn 1984): 225-250.

12. 11
G#, B, C + G#, A, C = G#, A, B, C
This transpositional combinational product is the tetrachord which, at various
transpositions, has already been shown to account for the pitch content and pitch
organization of the viola and violin in measure 23, as well as the cello line of the opening
of the second group.
At the beginning of the recapitulation in measure 37, the cadential chord is
transposed back from its accompanimental usage by the violas in measures 7 – 8 to its
original tonal level, meaning that all second group material in this section has been
transposed up a perfect fourth. Stated differently, the Aggregate is transposed up a perfect
fourth (down a perfect fifth) from the tonal level of the second group, and may be
subdivided into the hexachord Ab, A, C, C#, E, F which is the parent of the Climax
Hexachord of measure 47. The first four notes of this hexachord are, of course, found in
the return of the cadential chord, but the last two notes make up two of the three notes in
the second violin in measures 42 – 43, that is, after the first violin drops out. The
remaining note, the F#, belongs to the transposition of the Ab, A, C, C#, E, F hexachord
down a major second. The organization of the pitch content, especially in the thirds and
sixths of the cello and viola seem to toggle between the two hexachords that together
form the Aggregate. The descending motive derived from the first three slurred notes of
the first violin in measures 9 – 10 very overtly reappears in measures 42 – 43 (where it
has, of course, been transposed up a perfect fourth) and in measure 46 (where it has been
reordered and transposed up by another perfect fourth).
Cello Trichord Inversion Transposed up a M3

13. 12
The climactic C#, D, F, F#, A, Bb hexachord in measure 47 which, as has been
shown, is the transpositional combinational product of both the opening tetrachord (itself
a product of transpositional combination) and its transposition as the cadential chord of
measure 6.
C#, D, F, F#, A, Bb + D#, E, G, G#, B, C = the Aggregate
In measures 49 – 50, the Aggregate is partitioned into the original symmetrical
chord transposed up an augmented fifth F, D, A, G, F#, E, B, G# with the Bb and D#
serving as upper and lower leading tones to A and E respectively, and C and C# serving
as respective upper and lower leading tones to B and D.
The final appearance of the symmetrical chord at the end of measure 55 is
identical to its appearance in measure 17, occupying the same transpositional level.
Perhaps this is due to leading-tone/voice-leading considerations which would allow the
C-C# dyad with which the piece began (reiterated a total of eight times from measure 51
through measure 55: once with the viola and cello doubling each other at the octave, four
times in the first violin, once in the cello, once in the viola, and then again in the first
violin) to once again serve as upper and lower leading tones, this time however to B (the
top-most note of the palindromic chord) and D (the lowest), respectively.
Climax Hexachord
T2

14. 13
The use of transpositional combination is so consistent in the piece that it takes on
the status of a surrogate tonality, that is, a means of recalling order in the aftermath of the
dissolution of common practice tonality.