Alban Berg (1885-1935)

[Mirror Image]

He's sort of one of my unofficial "three B's": Bartók, Berg and Britten.  Love too many works to count--by all three.

--Bruce

Yes, I have my own three B's as well: Bruckner, Bartok, and Berg.

Let me ask you, bhodges, to continue to keep this ball rolling, what is it about Berg's music that you enjoy so much?

[DavidW]

Has anyone seen the Schafer/Schone/Davis/LPO dvd of Lulu?  It's available on netflix and I wonder if I should add it to my queue.

[Scarpia]

Has anyone seen the Schafer/Schone/Davis/LPO dvd of Lulu?  It's available on netflix and I wonder if I should add it to my queue.

What risk is there in that?

[Wendell_E]

Has anyone seen the Schafer/Schone/Davis/LPO dvd of Lulu?  It's available on netflix and I wonder if I should add it to my queue.

Yes, and hell, yes!!!!

I've also got the Met version with Migenes, Levine conducting, and the recent Covent Garden production conducted by Pappano, but I think I like that Glyndebourne one you're talking about best.

[DavidW]

What risk is there in that?

I haven't heard the work before, if I'm imprinted with a poor performance I might grow to dislike it (well I would like to think that I would simply try another recording in the future but who knows.)

Yes, and hell, yes!!!!

I've also got the Met version with Migenes, Levine conducting, and the recent Covent Garden production conducted by Pappano, but I think I like that Glyndebourne one you're talking about best.

Alright message received!  It's on the top of my queue now!

[Sid]

I just saw a live performance of the Kammerkonzert here in Sydney last week. It was preceded by a talk on the Second Viennese School by musicologist, composer and radio broadcaster Andrew Ford. The whole work is based on the musical notations (motto themes) of the names of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern which are heard on the piano, violin and horn at the beginning respectively. Ford said that these themes are also tied to what each composer's music is like - the piano theme is the most complex, the violin has an air of "romantic rumination,"  and the horn's theme is a bit spiky. The symmetry of this work is pretty obvious as Ford explained it, eg. it's for 15 players in total (a number neatly divisible by 3), and in three movements. There's quite a bit of humour here too, not only in the reference to Berg's favoured waltz music, but also how in the first movement, which is dominated by the piano, the violinist plays four notes (in effect, "tuning up," as at the beginning of the later violin concerto). Ford also mentioned that this is not a strictly serial work - the technique was here, as always, used flexibly by Berg. The middle movement has the violin as soloist, a foretaste of what Berg would do in the violin concerto. & the finale has both soloists coming to the fore. The world of Wozzeck seems not too far away in this work, though the overall mood is perhaps a bit lighter. I enjoyed the concert (which also included Schoenberg's Serenade) and look forward to seeing Berg's String Quartet played live here in Sydney in December by the Melbourne-based Flinders Quartet...

[bhodges]

Yes, I have my own three B's as well: Bruckner, Bartok, and Berg.

Let me ask you, bhodges, to continue to keep this ball rolling, what is it about Berg's music that you enjoy so much?

I could go on about Berg for days (so I won't, since I don't have time  ).  Can't recall what piece I heard first--probably the Violin Concerto--but then got into the operas, the chamber music, and the Three Pieces for Orchestra.  (To be fair, wasn't until I saw Wozzeck and Lulu staged that I began to really love those.)

Somehow he managed to make twelve-tone rows sound beautiful (to my ears, as did both Schoenberg and Webern, but in very different ways).  There are moments in both operas that are ravishing, e.g., the orchestral interludes in Wozzeck, or the final scene in Lulu.

And a good reading of the Three Pieces (e.g., by Levine and the Met Orchestra) can leave you spellbound.  But then, I love hearing (and watching) a large orchestra at full blast.

--Bruce

[Mirror Image]

I could go on about Berg for days (so I won't, since I don't have time  ).  Can't recall what piece I heard first--probably the Violin Concerto--but then got into the operas, the chamber music, and the Three Pieces for Orchestra.  (To be fair, wasn't until I saw Wozzeck and Lulu staged that I began to really love those.)

Somehow he managed to make twelve-tone rows sound beautiful (to my ears, as did both Schoenberg and Webern, but in very different ways).  There are moments in both operas that are ravishing, e.g., the orchestral interludes in Wozzeck, or the final scene in Lulu.

And a good reading of the Three Pieces (e.g., by Levine and the Met Orchestra) can leave you spellbound.  But then, I love hearing (and watching) a large orchestra at full blast.

--Bruce

Berg was my gateway into 12-tone music. I still can't stomach some of Schoenberg's or Webern's music, but I enjoy a lot of their works, but there's just something about Berg that keeps me coming back. Like you said, he made those tone rows just sound so beautiful and I love his attention to the overall dynamics of his music. He makes those spiky sounding transitions that are so evident in a lot of 12-tone music sound seemless and lyrical.

[Sid]

It's a bit wierd, here we have people talking about how 12 tone rows sound, but in reality, you can't hear them - to most of us they are hidden. Unless you're a conductor with the score, of course...

[Mirror Image]

It's a bit wierd, here we have people talking about how 12 tone rows sound, but in reality, you can't hear them - to most of us they are hidden. Unless you're a conductor with the score, of course...

I can hear them, Sid. You don't need the score in front of you to tell that the music composed uses the 12-tone system. This method of composition has a certain sound, but of course, it's up the composer to choose the 12 notes they want to use. It lies within the composer's imagination.

Listen to Berg and then go listen to Franz Schmidt. The differences in the methods used are like night and day.

[Sid]

I was not talking in terms of distinguishing Berg's style, but his use of 12 tone rows. Without a thorough knowledge of the score, it is well nigh impossible to hear where "the row" pops up. We talk about 12 tone melodies without really knowing exactly where the melody is. That's why these are not tunes that one would whistle on the street. But I was talking to Andrew Ford after his lecture last week, and he said that part of the attraction of serial music is that it often leaves many questions unanswered; I still don't "get" a piece like the Lyric Suite for string quartet after listening to it for 15 years (and that's ok). Neither Schoenberg, Webern or Berg used the method strictly - they were flexible - so from even a strictly technical point of view they had an element of the impulsive (or romantic?) artist in them. Studying the score, conductors and composers could probably find "the row" - it was easy according to Ford for him as a music student to find it in Webern's music - but I don't think it's easy to answer why they did certain things in a certain way, developing their themes. They were just as creative as composers of the past...

[Mirror Image]

I was not talking in terms of distinguishing Berg's style, but his use of 12 tone rows. Without a thorough knowledge of the score, it is well nigh impossible to hear where "the row" pops up. We talk about 12 tone melodies without really knowing exactly where the melody is. That's why these are not tunes that one would whistle on the street. But I was talking to Andrew Ford after his lecture last week, and he said that part of the attraction of serial music is that it often leaves many questions unanswered; I still don't "get" a piece like the Lyric Suite for string quartet after listening to it for 15 years (and that's ok). Neither Schoenberg, Webern or Berg used the method strictly - they were flexible - so from even a strictly technical point of view they had an element of the impulsive (or romantic?) artist in them. Studying the score, conductors and composers could probably find "the row" - it was easy according to Ford for him as a music student to find it in Webern's music - but I don't think it's easy to answer why they did certain things in a certain way, developing their themes. They were just as creative as composers of the past...

I just enjoy the music, Sid. Let's not get too technical about it. You did mention something that was quite odd when you said:

They (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) were just as creative as composers of the past...

What in the world does this have to do with anything? Of course they were creative. They're recognized today for their art and creativity. Isn't this common knowledge?

You seem very argumentative today. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed again?

[Mirror Image]

I've got a good question for you guys: what vocalist, in your opinion, has the scariest scream in Lulu-Suite?

For me, it has to be Judith Blegen in the Boulez/NYPO recording. Usually, I'm prepared for the scream, but my goodness, she really scared the s@#* out of me!

[Sid]

Yes, that soprano solo made an impact on me as well, the first time I heard the Lulu Suite. What impressed me most, however, is the extreme vocal agility needed to perform it. I've still got the same CD I bought in the '90's from Woolworths for about $2 (they don't sell these kinds of things anymore, but they used to then). It's on the German budget label, PILZ. The soprano is not credited, but the orchestra is the Nuremberg Symphony conducted by Othmar Maga. It also contains Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 2 & a violin sonata by Hindemith. I remember hearing another recording on radio, and I believe the conductor was Abbado with the Berlin Phil.

Despite his small output, Berg produced some amazing works, not only the two operas, but the rest of his stuff are top-notch as well. I really like the String Quartet & Wozzeck, the first works that I got to know by him in the mid-'90's. I think that the 1970's must have been an exciting time for Berg fans, with the performance of the completed version of Lulu. The late Australian conductor Stuart Challender, who loved promgramming Berg with the Sydney Symphony, said that Lulu was the most luscious and romantic score that Berg ever produced. Listening to it on radio a while back, I found it hard not to agree - some of the aspects of how he orchestrated it (or the way it was re-orchestrated?) reminded me strongly of Wagner or Mahler...

[Mirror Image]

Bruce,

You will be happy to know I stumbled upon a used, like new copy of that Levine/MET Orchestra Sony recording that you praised earlier in this thread for around $14, which I guess isn't too bad considering this recording doesn't look like it's going to come back into print anytime soon. I can't wait to hear it! Levine shows such an affinity for this music or at least judging from his recording with Mutter he does.

[bhodges]

Well, hope I haven't "oversold" the Levine/MET Berg recording--but $14 is a fantastic price, considering what I've seen it for some places. 

PS, this might be a good time to repost this link, from a site called Themefinder.  They have a list of Berg, Schoenberg and Webern's tone rows used in various works:

http://www.ccarh.org/publications/data/humdrum/tonerow/

--Bruce

[Mirror Image]

Well, hope I haven't "oversold" the Levine/MET Berg recording--but $14 is a fantastic price, considering what I've seen it for some places.

Bruce, no you haven't "oversold" this recording, in fact, I have been looking at for awhile, but the price just was too high the various times I was looking at it. Levine loves Berg's music and you can feel it in that Mutter performance. Renee Fleming singing on Lulu Suite and various excerpts from Wozzeck will be great.

[Mirror Image]

VIOLIN CONCERTO
Few twentieth-century works are as wrenchingly moving as Berg's Violin Concerto, written in response to the death in 1935 of Manon Gropius, the 18-year-old daughter of Alma Mahler and architect Walter Gropius. The violinist Louis Krasner had already commissioned a concerto from Berg, who broke off from Lulu to write the piece, dedicated "to the memory of an angel". Berg scholars, who enjoy nothing more than the composer's cryptological and numerological obsessions, have uncovered "a secret programme" of references to Berg's mistress, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, and to Berg's illegitimate daughter, progeny of a youthful affair with a servant girl in the Berg household.

Be that as it may, the Violin Concerto needs no secret programme to work its magic. Reconciling the twelve-tone system with traditional tonality, Berg quotes from Carpathian folk tune in the opening movement, and from the Bach chorale Es ist genug (It is enough) in the second movement. The concerto begins as if the soloist were tuning the violin against the orchestra, but tension quickly mounts as the music becomes more agitated. As in Lulu, Berg then reverses the process, the music slowing, growing ever quieter until the Bach chorale steals in, and violin and orchestra sink into a mood of loss and resignation.



Anne-Sophie Mutter's panache plays rich dividends in a work demanding a match between free fantasy and cast-iron discipline. Under James Levine, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra provides sumptous but delicate support throughout.

Hey James I actually started a thread that's dedicated to this wonderful work. I think may have checked it already: http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,16812.0.html

Since you mentioned it here (and appropriatedly on the Berg thread), I have to agree with your analysis on this concerto. The work doesn't need any programme for it to cast its spell on you, but I think the hidden references throughout the work only add more mystery and drama.

[Mirror Image]

I can't believe Berg only has five pages! He was a major composer of the 20th Century! This shows me that not many people here are that adventurous with their listening, which is disappointing. Classical music is definitely in decline these days. 

Anyway, rant over, can anybody suggest any books on Alban Berg that would be informative? Please only suggest books that you've read.

[springrite]

I can't believe Berg only has five pages! He was a major composer of the 20th Century! This shows me that not many people here are that adventurous with their listening, which is disappointing. Classical music is definitely in decline these days. 

Anyway, rant over, can anybody suggest any books on Alban Berg that would be informative? Please only suggest books that you've read.

Like you, Berg is easily my favorite among the Second Vienese School (and beyond). I still remember being mesmerized by Wozzeck (6 LIVE performances in a row) and Lulu (MET broadcast, which I listened to on the radio as I worked in a hotel cleaning rooms. I switched on the radio as soon as I entered each room!).  My favorite work is probably the Chamber concerto, followed closely by the two operas and the VC.

As for books, I have this one, and I think it is good, though I have not read any other books on the composer, so I can't say if it is the best book on Berg). But this bit on the back page of the book may give you an idea:

In this book, published with the approval of Berg's widow, Dr. Carner follows his biography with a close analysis of Berg's works one by one. Dr Carner makes much of the long and fruitful relationships in Vienna and Berlin between Berg and his teacher Arnold Schonberg (1874-1951), adding greatly to our knowledge by extensive quotation from the largely unpublished Berg-Schonberg correspondence.