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String Trio, Op. 20 (1927) I. Sehr langsam II. Sehr getragen und ausdrucksvoll Members of the Juilliard String Quartet The chamber works of Anton Webern, especially those written after his adoption of the 12-tone technique in the late 1920s, present the listener with an enigmatic combination of austere structural integrity and intense, koan-like expressivity. In the Trio for Strings, which Webern began writing in 1926, completed in 1927, and premiered in 1928, the composer seems at first glance to be at his most rarefied. The piece is made of the most tenuous of musical materials; indeed, it is characterized by what scholar Julian Johnson has described as an “ungraspability of surface.“ Its occasional fits of restless melodic energy are separated by veils of sustained notes and static harmonies that presage minimalist ruminations (indeed, minimalist pioneer La Monte Young's groundbreaking Trio for Strings was composed under the influence of heavy doses of Webern's cha
