Alban Berg

Biography

Like Webern, he is the pupil of Arnold Schönberg. Under the influence of this last, it gives up the traditional tonal functions in 1909 and adopts the technique of the twelve sounds (Dodécaphonisme) in 1926. Berg lived the essence of its life in Vienna where, thanks to its financial independence, it devoted its life to the music.

It founded, with Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern, the Second school of Vienna.

Works

Young person, Alban Berg had already composed, as an autodidact, not far from eighty Lieder and some works for Piano with four hands under the influence of the Germanic romanticism. He had then among his idols Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner.

When in 1904, 19 years old, he became pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, it seemed that he did not arrive has to differently express his talent than by the voice. But under the teaching of this revolutionary Master of the modern Music, Berg was transformed. This period hinge of its life begin with the Sieben frühe Lieder the Sonate opus 1 (1908), for piano, became almost atonal but it is in 1910, with its third Opus, the first String quartet , which it separates from the piano and the voice and adopts already a frank atonalism.

It is with the opera that the work of Berg reaches its apogee, and in particular Wozzeck, completed in 1922 and created in 1925. The subject of this opera, which it draws from the part of Georg Büchner, is very marked by psychology and develops a rather typical social aspect of the Expressionisme. It mixes tradition there, with sometimes the use of the tonal music and of the romantic influences, and modernism, with atonality and of many techniques developed by Schoenberg such as the Sprechgesang and even the use of a series, without being still really developed with the direction dodecaphonic.

It is with the work which follows, the Kammerkonzert ( Concerto of room ), completed in 1925, qu ' it begins its dodecaphonic period which will last until the end. It will then compose of outstanding works such as the Lyric Suite (for string quartet, 1926), and the Concerto “with the memory of an Angel”, for violin and orchestra, in 1935. In this last, it reintroduces tonal agreements within the language dodecaphonic, which will enable him to join again with the past by quoting a Choral of Jean-Sebastien Bach, Es STI Genug (cantata BWV 60), and a popular song. Its last work, partially unfinished, was the first opera dodecaphonic of the history of the music: Excentric . One finds there, as in his preceding opera, of the psychological and social concerns important.

Chronological list

The eighty Lieder made up before it follows the lessons of Schoenberg as well as the transcriptions of its works or that of other type-setters are excluded from this list. However this one remains exhaustive within this framework.

The dates indicated are those of the writing and not of creation.

1905-1908 - Sieben Frühe Lieder , for Mezzo-soprano and piano.
1908 - Sonata for piano , opus 1
1909-1910 - Four Lieder , opus 2, for baritone and piano
1909-1910 - String quartet , opus 3
1912 - Altenberg Lieder , opus 4, for Soprano and Orchestra, according to texts of Peter Altenberg
1913 - Four parts for piano and Clarinet opus 5
1915 - Three parts for orchestra , opus 6
1917 -1922 - Wozzeck , opus 7, opera.
1923 -1925 - Kammerkonzert ( Concerto of room ), for piano, Violin and 13 instruments wind
1926 - Lyric Continuation , for string quartet
1929 - Der Wein , Lieder for mezzo-soprano and Orchestra according to texts of Stefan George and Charles Baudelaire
1935 - Concerto for violin, with the memory of an angel
1929-1935 - Excentric (Opera, unfinished act III)

Chronological list of the transcriptions

1921 - Wein, Weib und Gesang, COp 333 ( To like, drink and eat ) Johann Strauss transcribes by Alban Berg, for string quartet and piano
1928 - Three part of the lyric Continuation , for String orchestra
1928 - Sieben Frühe Lieder , transcribed for mezzo soprano and orchestra
1934 - Lulu Continuation , symphonic fragments of the opera Lulu , for soprano and orchestra
1935 - Adagio of the kammerkonzert transcribes for violin clarinet and piano

It is known that Berg corrected the orchestration that Ernst Křenek made Symphonie n° 10 of Gustav Mahler, that it had not been able to even complete to him.

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