This Week in Classical Music: February 5, 2024. Berg, Part I, Early Years.Alban Berg, a seminal German composer of the first half of the 20th century, was born in Vienna on February 9thof 1885. Berg, with Anton Webern, was a favorite pupil of Arnold Schoenberg and was one of the first composers to write atonal and 12-tonal music. While Schoenberg was often cerebral, even in his more expressive works and Webern a much stricter follower of the technique in his succinct, perfectly formed pieces, Berg’s music was more lyrical and Romantic, even as he abandoned the tonal format. Berg’s background was very different from his Jewish teacher’s: his Viennese family was well-off, at least while his father was alive (he died when Alban was 15), they lived in the center of the city (Schoenbergs lived in Leopoldstadt, a poor Jewish neighborhood). Berg was a poor student: he had to repeat the 6th and the 7th grades. Even though Alban was interested in music from an early age and wrote many songs, he clearly wasn’t suited for studies in a formal environment and lacked the required qualifications, so, instead of going to a conservatory he became an unpaid civil servant trainee. In 1904, without any previous musical education, he became Schoenberg’s student. By that time Schoenberg, who was struggling financially and took students to support himself, had already written Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and a symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande. Both had a fluid tonal canvass as Schoenberg was already researching the atonal idiom, but it would be another three years till he’d write his Quartet no. 2, his first truly atonal piece; all these developments took place while Berg was his student. Berg studied with Schoenberg till 1911, first the counterpoint and music theory, and later composition. During that time he sketched several piano sonatas and later completed one of them, published as his op. 1. That was a big departure, as before joining Schoenberg all he could write were songs.
We should note that the pre-WWI years in Vienna were a period of tremendous cultural development; despite the overall antisemitism of the Austrian society, many of the leading figures were Jewish, and sexuality was explored deeply for the first time. In music, it was Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Franz Schreker, Egon Wellesz, Ernst Toch, and of course, Webern and Berg, with many younger composers to follow. Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Musil and Stefan Zweig were important novelists and playwrights (Frank Wedekind, their German contemporary, was the source for Berg’s opera Lulu). The painter Gustav Klimt was Berg’s friend, and so was the architect Adolf Loos. And we shouldn’t forget Sigmund Freud, who was not just a psychoanalyst famous around Vienna but a leading cultural figure.
A characteristic episode happened in March of 1913 when Schoenberg conducted what became known as the Skandalkonzert ("scandal concert") in Vienna’s Musikverein. Here’s the program: Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra; Zemlinsky: Four Orchestral Songs on poems by Maeterlinck; Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1; Berg: Two of the Five Orchestral Songs on Picture-Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg. Mahler's Kindertotenlieder was supposed to be performed at the end, but during the performance of Berg’s songs fighting began and the concert was cut short. The Viennese public’s response could be expected, if not necessarily in its physical form (after all, their favorite music was Strauss’s waltzes), but how many American presenters would dare to program such a concert in our time, more than 100 years later? We can listen to Berg’s songs that were performed during the concert, no. 2 of op. 4 here and no. 3 here. The soprano is Renée Flemming; Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
We’ll continue with Berg and his two masterpieces, operas Wozzeck and Lulu, next week.
Alban Berg, Part I, Early Years, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: February 5, 2024. Berg, Part I, Early Years. Alban Berg, a seminal German composer of the first half of the 20th century, was born in Vienna on February 9th
of 1885. Berg, with Anton Webern, was a favorite pupil of Arnold Schoenberg and was one of the first composers to write atonal and 12-tonal music. While Schoenberg was often cerebral, even in his more expressive works and Webern a much stricter follower of the technique in his succinct, perfectly formed pieces, Berg’s music was more lyrical and Romantic, even as he abandoned the tonal format. Berg’s background was very different from his Jewish teacher’s: his Viennese family was well-off, at least while his father was alive (he died when Alban was 15), they lived in the center of the city (Schoenbergs lived in Leopoldstadt, a poor Jewish neighborhood). Berg was a poor student: he had to repeat the 6th and the 7th grades. Even though Alban was interested in music from an early age and wrote many songs, he clearly wasn’t suited for studies in a formal environment and lacked the required qualifications, so, instead of going to a conservatory he became an unpaid civil servant trainee. In 1904, without any previous musical education, he became Schoenberg’s student. By that time Schoenberg, who was struggling financially and took students to support himself, had already written Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and a symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande. Both had a fluid tonal canvass as Schoenberg was already researching the atonal idiom, but it would be another three years till he’d write his Quartet no. 2, his first truly atonal piece; all these developments took place while Berg was his student. Berg studied with Schoenberg till 1911, first the counterpoint and music theory, and later composition. During that time he sketched several piano sonatas and later completed one of them, published as his op. 1. That was a big departure, as before joining Schoenberg all he could write were songs.
We should note that the pre-WWI years in Vienna were a period of tremendous cultural development; despite the overall antisemitism of the Austrian society, many of the leading figures were Jewish, and sexuality was explored deeply for the first time. In music, it was Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Franz Schreker, Egon Wellesz, Ernst Toch, and of course, Webern and Berg, with many younger composers to follow. Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Musil and Stefan Zweig were important novelists and playwrights (Frank Wedekind, their German contemporary, was the source for Berg’s opera Lulu). The painter Gustav Klimt was Berg’s friend, and so was the architect Adolf Loos. And we shouldn’t forget Sigmund Freud, who was not just a psychoanalyst famous around Vienna but a leading cultural figure.
A characteristic episode happened in March of 1913 when Schoenberg conducted what became known as the Skandalkonzert ("scandal concert") in Vienna’s Musikverein. Here’s the program: Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra; Zemlinsky: Four Orchestral Songs on poems by Maeterlinck; Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1; Berg: Two of the Five Orchestral Songs on Picture-Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg. Mahler's Kindertotenlieder was supposed to be performed at the end, but during the performance of Berg’s songs fighting began and the concert was cut short. The Viennese public’s response could be expected, if not necessarily in its physical form (after all, their favorite music was Strauss’s waltzes), but how many American presenters would dare to program such a concert in our time, more than 100 years later? We can listen to Berg’s songs that were performed during the concert, no. 2 of op. 4 here and no. 3 here. The soprano is Renée Flemming; Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
We’ll continue with Berg and his two masterpieces, operas Wozzeck and Lulu, next week.