Berg, A.: Violin Concerto / Lyric Suite / 3 Orchestral Pieces

Description

Alban Berg (1885-1935)Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6 • Three Pieces from the Lyric SuiteViolin ConcertoIt is a testament to Schoenberg’s thoroughness as a teacher that when he took on Alban Berg as a pupil, the nineteen-year-old could write little more than songs in strophic form, but that Berg graduated from Schoenberg’s class in 1910 with the complex and innovative String Quartet, Op. 3, behind him. After this there was something of a parting of the ways, Berg pursuing the formally, though not expressively, small-scale forms of the Altenberglieder (1911) and the Four Clarinet Pieces (1912). It took typically hard-hitting criticism from his mentor to refocus his thoughts on larger forms. Initially a vocal symphony, no doubt following the precedent of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, was planned, but what resulted was the Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6. The first two were ready for Schoenberg’s fortieth birthday on 13th September 1914, but the whole work was not finished until the following year, and Berg had to wait until 1930 for the first complete performance. Präludium emerges tentatively from the depths, erupting briefly, then building gradually to a powerful orchestral climax. The mood, poised between yearning and agitation, becomes one of troubled calm in the long coda, the music returning to the shadows whence it came. Reigen anticipates Ravel’s La valse in its many-layered play on dance rhythms, against a background of ominous import. The music passes through several fractured climaxes, before arriving at a passage of sustained calm. Kaleidoscopic patterns on high brass and woodwind sound out over isolated tuba notes, concluding with a soft brass chord. Marsch is more of a fantasy on march rhythms than a clear-cut genre piece. Over soft tramping rhythms, the clarinet has the motif which will inform all stages of its complex progress. A related idea brings temporary calm, before the music surges towards its Mahlerian climax, replete with fateful hammer blows recalling the older composer’s Sixth Symphony. Complete collapse is avoided as the music moves through a sequence of blurred reminiscences and strident brass responses, seeming to play itself out in a tranquil coda. The martial overtones, however, are set to prevail one last time. After the success of his opera Wozzeck (Naxos 8.660076-77) at its première in 1925, Berg returned to instrumental writing with his Chamber Concerto (1925) and Lyric Suite for string quartet (1926). Encouraged by the Kolisch Quartet’s successful première of the latter, Berg arranged the second, third and fourth of its six movements for string orchestra. The original quartet is dedicated to Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942), a quotation in the third (originally fourth) movement from the latter’s Lyric Symphony proof of a mutual friendship, as well as hinting at respective and long-undiscovered ‘love intrigues’ involving both com