‘His Own Attempts at Explanation, just like his compositional work, lend themselves to misunderstanding’. This opinion dominates Webern literature now as in the past, though naturally not always in this formulation of Dohl's. Sometimes we read of contradictions, of imprecisions; errors of fact or of mental processes can be ‘demonstrated’; and, depending on the particular author's field of interest and study, these are treated with indulgence or gentle annoyance, with indignation or knowing dismissal. Who could expect of a composer—a composer, moreover, like Webern: naive, at times culpably naive, withdrawn from reality; with a music so ‘abstract’, so in need of help or redemption by means of interpretation—who could expect of such a composer pertinent and consistent, or at least apt, music-theoretical concepts or utterances? Hardly anyone, in fact, seems to have dared to expect this kind of thing of Webern so far. That this might indeed involve some daring can be recognized from the conditions, the fuss, and circumstance with which Webern is approached. Whether they have sprung from the soil of serial music or not, all the systematic investigations, the numbering of note-rows, classifying of pitches, durations and so on, considerations of ‘structure’ (many investigations, too, of ‘form’, of symmetries)—they all seem like precautions against the music. Since the music is not trusted, the traditional music-theoretical concepts presented by Webern (and Schoenberg, too) are also regarded as unsuited for coping with the music. Instead, attempts are made using, for instance, the idea of a cell (usually a three-note basic cell) and its metamorphoses—an idea which is at least as anachronistic as the traditional ones, is scarcely strong enough to bear the burden of explication, and is exactly as vulnerable to criticism on scientific and ideological grounds as a serious preoccupation with Webern's own statements is alleged to be.

During his Tango Marathon at the Almeida Festival last June, the formidable American pianist Yvar Mikhashoff threw in an extra, unheralded example by Stefan Wolpe dating from 1927, which had been passed on to him by Wolpe's pupil, cataloguer, and biographer Austin Clarkson only a couple of weeks before. Not unexpectedly—coming from a socially conscious 25-year old working in Weimar Republic Berlin—the piece opened in a mode of Neue Sachlichkeit stylization similar to Weill, but was soon subjecting its material to a most un Weill-like cross-cutting and discontinuity. Evidently that radical sense of a musical language being freshly created before one's very ears, which at once lends Wolpe's later music such immediacy from moment to moment and makes it so demanding to grasp in the large, was latent from the start.

The Passage of Time naturally removes us from first-hand personal experience with significant historical events and/or important persons that were part of those developments. Since the musical aesthetics and techniques of Arnold Schoenberg and his circle originated and began to develop in Vienna over 75 years ago, future students will have to rely on written rather than direct personal sources of information to gain insight into the music of that era. Our loss of primary contact with the Vienna Schoenberg circle is further complicated in that its members generally met and worked in intimate and esoteric situations. These conditions were in large part due to the conservative tastes of the Viennese public, so that new works in all the arts were generally not able to find public support.

When René Leibowitz was preparing the first performance of the Piano Concerto op.4 in 1949 (it was for this occasion that Spinner made the transcription for chamber orchestra, which is the only version of the piece that is known, printed, and performed), he asked Spinner for some details about his work and himself. The answer was characteristic:

…Nun schliesslich, Sie würden gerne Einzelheiten von mir wissen: Ich bin 42, habe eine Frau und ein Kind (Margaret, 6 Jahre), das ist ganz privat narürlich (aber für mich sehr wichtig, darum erwähne ich es)! Ich habe bei Webern studiert. Was ich bis jetzt geschrieben habe, fängt mit der Sonate für Violin und Klavier op.1 an, dann ein Streichquartett op.2, eine Sonate für Klavier op.3. Op.4 kennen Sie bereits.