Berg - Violin Concerto

[Daverz]

I've always found this a difficult work to love.  I have recordings by Perlman, Mutter, Suk (with Neumann), Grumiaux, Szeryng, and Zehetmair, so it's not for want of trying.  In fact, I think the only Berg work that has connected with me so far is the Lyric Suite.

[quintett op.57]

What about this one?

[m_gigena]

Wanna know how it sounded on the world premiere?

Sorry, that's not possible. But click here to check how things went on its second performance.

This is not the world premiere at Barcelona, where Webern cancelled
and Scherchen stepped in, but the second performance ever, given at
London on 1 may 1936. The soloist again was Louis Krasner, the
orchestra part was played by BBC Symphony Orchestra.

[BorisG]

Szeryng/Kubelik

[quark]

Szeryng/Kubelik, Suk/Ancerl, Watanabe/Sinopoli, Zehetmair/Holliger are worth listening among those already mentioned.
A version worth listening that no one mentioned yet, is the one by Stern/Bernstein.
I'd be very curious about what Hillary Hahn and Lisa Batiashvili could do with the Berg, after listening to their beautiful version of the Schoenberg (Hahn) and the Shostakovich 1 concertos (both).

[mjwal]

These things are so subjective: I have not felt the creative fire leap across & sizzle my synapses with the majority of recordings I have heard of this work - Mutter, Szeryng, Stern, Zehetmair are not recordings that I feel impelled to return to. I discovered the Gitlis only recently and was compelled by it despite the less than overwhelming orchestra; Grumiaux and Suk/Ancerl are certainly very fine performances - but the two or three that still put my CNS in an uproar are Szigeti  with Mitropoulos and Krasner w/Busch (live) or Rodzinski (I don't know the prior performance conducted by Webern). I have read that the Menuhin/Ansermet is very good - anyone know it?

[quark]

@mjwal: as a collector, I own many more recordings than the ones I know. I'll give the ones you suggest a listen (Grumiaux's already on the iPod) and see what I think. I must say that the Berg is an impervious piece of music for a non-professional like me (I mean: someone without a specific training in composition/musical theory).
My preferences could also be due to my having been in a particularly receptive state of mind that very time I listened to the recordings I mentioned, whereas I did not respond to other because of my and not the performers' fault.

[Mirror Image]

Will somebody please explain to me just what there IS to like in Berg VC?

I find it to be total, unadulterated, NOISE. Without a scintilla of beauty or tunefulness

I know this member hasn't posted in some years, but not all music is supposed to be beautiful or even tuneful. Believe it or not there are two tunes in Berg's Violin Concerto: the first is quotation from a Corinthian folk melody Berg heard as a kid and the other is from a Bach chorale. These are the only real "tunes" in the whole piece, but if you listen attentively you'll find half-melodies that lure the listener in.

[karlhenning]

Obviously, no opinion which dismisses any composition as total, unadulterated NOISE is to be taken at all seriously.

(Unless he's talking about "Weasels Ripped My Flesh," in which case it's quite a good thing.)

[mjwal]

Obviously, no opinion which dismisses any composition as total, unadulterated NOISE is to be taken at all seriously.

(Unless he's talking about "Weasels Ripped My Flesh," in which case it's quite a good thing.)

But even there, Karl, there's the bit where he quotes the Symphonie Pathétique ...

[karlhenning]

You’re thinking of  "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask"!

(Which of course is more erotic than Scriabin . . . .)

[DieNacht]

Have

- Szigeti,Mitropoulos,MinneaSO/1945
- Mutter,Levine,ChicagoSO/dg
- Kogan,Rozhdestvensky,USSRSO/1966, Russian Revelation 
- Hoelscher,Wakasugi,KölnRSO/emi dhm
- Perlman,Ozawa,BostSO/dg 80
- Gitlis,Byrns,ProMus/vox - fona label
- Krasner,Webern, BBC SO

and a rare Romanian LP, coupled with a beautifully played Respighi "Concerto Gregoriano":
- Jenny Abel,Andreescu,MoldPO/electrecord 1977

   I tend to listen mostly to a good-sounding, "Romantic" and passionate rendering that invests some warmth in the rather unapproachable work - meaning Kogan and Mutter. Kogan´s is a live recording from the first-USSR-performance, on October 3rd, 1966; a lot of notable musical personalities must have been present on that occasion ...

[mjwal]

You're thinking of  "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask"!

(Which of course is more erotic than Scriabin . . . .)

Yes, that's it - of course, I was thinking of the title of the whole LP and you meant the title track, a final short orgy of sound that I had "forgotten".
Isn't there a Zappa thread on this forum? On a personal note, I saw Zappa at one of his last appearances - in Frankfurt with the Ensemble Modern performing what was, I think, called The Yellow Shark. Everyone knew he was dying but the man had such presence and ironic wit.

[quark]

I had never listened to Grumiaux playing the Berg. It's definetely a good performance, although I can't say I fell in love with it. But I must listen again so the jury's still out. One thing I did not like is the way he plays the double stops a while after the beginning of the 2nd movement (I must check with the score to be more precise). He plays them "sforzato" without the diminuendo that normally one hears (I guess they are normally played 'martele'). But it's definitely not enough to make me say I don't like the performance as a whole so we'll see.
With the Berg concerto it's almost always 'per aspera ad astra' for me and love doesn't normally comes at first sight. But it did in the case of Ivry Gitlis's performance (just as it did when I heard it performed by Stern). That's a performance I really love and how I think the Berg should be performed. That's music of romantic expressiveness written in a (spurious) dodecaphonic language! Gitlis (and Stern) almost make me forget about the language, while letting the emotional contents go though. Fantastic!