You Should Know – by Alban BergHe was one of the composers of the Second Vienesse School, studied with Schoenberg, was somewhat lazy, and might have had an illegitimate child at a young age. Though we tend to associate Alban Berg (1885-1935) with modernism and twelve-tone music, Berg lived and wrote with romantic aspirations. This romanticism was not applied to harmonic language (one of his life’s goals was to liberate music from tonality) but rather through his use of folk song, form, and dramatic convention. Many of Berg’s romantic tendencies were at odds with the teachings of his mentor and friend Arnold Schoenberg, creator of the twelve-tone method, and differences between the two left Berg struggling to adapt to some of Schoenberg’s methods. Tension between the two composers is visible in some letters exchanged by the men.Twelve-tone composition would be the largest musical dilemma Berg would encounter in his music. Which Berg accepted the system with zeal, such a system is contrived and, depending on its application, can limit the expressivity of a composer.
Schoenberg himself was known to occasionally break the rules that he designed. Rather than break the rules, Berg invented new techniques that would take advantage of the properties of a series. Theorists and musicologists still have no unified classification of these techniques though certain generalities and tendencies appear throughout all of his twelve-tone compositions.
As the composer’s final piece, the Violin Concerto is both a popular and iconic piece to hear and find Berg’s serial technique. Evident in this photograph, there was a strong teacher-student relationship between Schoenberg and Berg.As the first twelve-tone concerto ever written, you might expect the work to be filled with dissonances and intervallic jumps; virtuosity is common in violin writing. If that is your presumption, you are completely incorrect. Berg disliked virtuosity but was charmed by the lyricism produced by a solo instrument. Louis Krasner, the American violinist who commissioned this piece, offered Berg the commission because he identified the composer as “the most lyrically inclined of the three Second Viennese School composers.” Accordingly, most of the Violin Concerto is lyrical with a few sections that show off some fiddle work.Split into four sections over two larger movements, Berg’s Violin Concerto was written in memory of Manon Gropius, the daughter of two personal connections of Berg’s.
Comprised of only one row and borrowed material from a Carinthian folk and J.S Bach’s chorale “Es ist Genug”, similar material abounds throughout the concerto. Beginning with fifths presented between the orchestra and soloist, Berg eventually reveals the entire row in the violin.A basic analysis shows a few unique characteristics of the row. First, the contour is continuously rising, a characteristic that is heard often throughout the concerto. Schoenberg’s methods use pitch classes, which means that all octaves sharing the same note name are regarded as the same pitch. For example, take the lowest note (A) on a piano and then the highest A available on the keyboard. While you may be pressing two different keys that each sound different, that characteristic doesn’t matter in a pitch class system: they function as the same note. Octave and frequency are disregarded if the notes share the same name. Berg’s treatment of the row and contour suggests that he ignores pitch classes and treats the note as specific pitches with unique identities.A second property of the row are its inbuilt consonant triads.
If you look at the visual of the row, slurs between three notes represent one of these entrenched chords, g minor, D major, a minor, and E major. Through this, Berg has options to input tonal allusions throughout the music.Third, notes nine through twelve of the series form the beginning of Bach’s chorale “Es ist Genug”. This suggests that outside material was purposely built into the row. Personal correspondence from Berg actually shows that he spent a significant amount of time finding a Bach chorale that would fit the final four notes of his row.This analysis only scratches the surface of this row and Violin Concerto. The ways and applications that Berg applies to his material deserve a much longer article.
Just to give you an idea, the open 5ths at the beginning of the music are extracted segments of the row that are later used in non-row contexts. Some pitches are left over after all of these 5 th cycles conclude and naturally this residue later becomes a compositional unit itself.
Extraction techniques are not limited in use to the beginning fifths but appear often throughout the entire concerto, eventually serving as the foundation of the Carinthian folk song. My preferred recording of Berg’s Violin ConcertoIf the analysis portion of this article seems long-winded, it’s because this piece has a special place in my life. In my undergraduate music history course, the Violin Concerto was the subject of a.dreaded. fifteen page research paper, one that ended up 15 pages over the limit. During the course of that research, I listened to Berg’s Violin Concerto over forty times and never found myself bored from listening. Though Berg’s technique is remarkable, his pacing and form nearly perfect, I think what makes this piece superb is its highpoint.
Berg’s Violin Concerto tends to stay tame and soft with an occasional venture that shows the power of both the orchestra and soloist. An inferior composer would assume that lack of loudness means a loud bang to resolve everything is justified and will be effective. Potential energy constantly grows as the orchestra plays quietly with minimal resolution. Berg understands this and relies on potential energy and resolution to provide a highpoint of intensity without lots of noise. When the first verse of “Es ist Genug” is heard harmonized in the clarinet, you realize how intense the.cough. simple chorale tune is.
This soft highpoint and resolution are not only audibly stunning but meticulously crafted and placed.20th century concerto literature is filled with gems and masterpieces.What makes Berg stand out is his lack of virtuosity, his lyricism, introspection, sympathy, and mastery of music composition. Personally, I can’t decide whether this or Bartok’s Violin Concerto is the greatest violin music from the first half of the 20 th century. Take some time and listen to what ended up as Berg’s final testament. Perhaps if you’ve been suffering you will find some hope among the textures of this music.
The Beethoven and Berg violin concertos aren’t commonly paired on disc. However, in this case it seems like an inspired piece of programme planning, with an account of the Berg that plumbs its depths of melancholy, setting off a radiant, life-affirming performance of the Beethoven.Berg could be accused of giving too many instructions to his performers, of not allowing enough room for individual interpretation. He certainly presents them with plenty to think about; in the waltz-like second section of the concerto’s second movement, Isabelle Faust is required, within a few bars, to characterise her part as scherzando, wienerisch and rustico. She succeeds brilliantly; one feels, in this and other places, that such precision actually helps her to convey the intensity of feeling that lies behind this concerto dedicated ‘to the memory of an angel’.Faust’s stylish way with the waltz episodes brings a suggestion of gaiety that renders more poignant the effect of the dark, complex harmony – a bright memory rendered sad and bitter.
In the second movement, after the fierce virtuosity she brings to the declamatory opening section, she chooses the alternative version of the canonic cadenza (suggested by the composer) where she is joined by a solo viola, rather than realising unaided the four-part counterpoint. This passage sounds truly beautiful, like an uneasy oasis of calm in the middle of turbulent conflict, and I’ve become convinced it’s the best way to hear the music. Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart also take careful notice of the score’s myriad directions, and the effect is similarly to liberate the intensity and beauty of the music. After the harrowing climax at the end of the first part of the second movement, where the Bach chorale (whose melody is related to Berg’s 12-note row) makes its appearance, the effect of having the grieving voice of the solo violin answered by the clarinet choir more quietly, but also slightly faster, and so less weighed down, is perfectly realised – we immediately appreciate why Berg wrote it so.Few recordings of the Berg have achieved this level of detailed commitment from soloist and orchestra. One that does so is Josef Suk’s, made in 1968 with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Karel An∂erl, and they manage to stay closer to Berg’s metronome markings – some passages in Faust’s recording are on the slow side, though I can’t see that it spoils the performance in any way.
And this new account enjoys more mellifluous recorded sound, with far superior definition.Beethoven may not give as many directions as Berg, but from the very first bars the Orchestra Mozart’s woodwind choir show the same care over detail, the instruments perfectly balanced and with a commitment to bringing out the music’s soulful, expressive character. This sets the tone for the performance, Abbado encouraging his players to maximise the expressive quality of each theme, while keeping a firm hand on the unfolding of the larger design. He and Faust see eye to eye in wishing to preserve a proper Allegro ma non troppo for the first movement and not to be awed by the work’s reputation into presenting it as a grand, Olympian utterance with little vitality (as on the Maxim Vengerov/Rostropovich recording). It’s not just a matter of tempo, either; to all the running passages in the first movement and finale, Isabelle Faust brings a spirited style that at moments becomes positively fiery. A notable example is her cadenza in the finale (track 5, 6'20'). Faust bases her cadenzas and lead-ins on those Beethoven wrote for his adaptation of the work as a piano concerto. This is often an uncomfortable option: Beethoven’s cadenzas (that in the first movement includes an important role for timpani) take the music in surprising directions – more extrovert and playful – and it’s quite difficult to arrange some passages idiomatically for the violin.
Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky
However, by judicious omission, brilliant playing and sheer conviction, Faust finds a solution that’s both authentically Beethovenian and violinistically convincing.The Larghetto’s initial theme is most sensitively shaped by the Orchestra Mozart strings and, at Faust’s entry, she is accompanied by especially beautiful solo clarinet and bassoon lines. In this movement, Faust finds a particularly wide range of tone colour, twice receding to the merest whisper and in several places practically omitting vibrato, relying for expression on changes in bow speed and pressure, so creating a powerful sense of concentration in the melodic line. It’s entirely characteristic of this performance that the sudden orchestral outburst at the end of the Larghetto, heralding the cadenza that leads to the finale, which so often seems inappropriately formal, here comes as a shocking surprise, a rude awakening from an exquisite dream.In recent years, there have been several fine recordings of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Faust’s performance has a grandeur that Christian Tetzlaff’s sweeter, more intimate account doesn’t attempt to match. Janine Jansen has the grandeur but doesn’t quite rival Faust’s expressive range or emotional intensity. Outstanding performances of both concertos, then; I’ll want to return to them often.