Berg: Drei Orchesterstücke, Op. 6 (Three Pieces for Orchestra)

Alban Berg (1885-1935) is, arguably, the most approachable of the three great serialist composers who were working in Vienna at the turn of the century – Schoenberg and Webern being the other two. Of the three, it was Berg whose technique was less stringently atonal: his music has a romantic lyricism that is largely absent from the later music of his two friends.

This is no better illustrated than in his last work, the gorgeously wistful Violin Concerto of 1935, a work that is dedicated 'To the Memory of an Angel' – the angel being the recently deceased 18-year-old, Manon Gropius, daughter of the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and Mahler's surviving widow Alma.

The other works in this set help to make it the perfect introduction to Berg's music, from the Suite from his notorious opera Lulu to the beautiful Lyric Suite and the early lyricism of the Seven Early Songs.

Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces of 1913–15 rank along side Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Rite of Spring as one of the most remarkable and explosive large-scale orchestral works of the early 20th century. The sound world, although Mahler-esque in places, is Berg’s unique voice: highly chromatic, dark, brooding, wistfully melancholic, often romantic. Schoenberg, his teacher, advised the young Berg not to try to emulate his fellow pupil Anton Webern in working in ultra-condensed forms. Schoenberg recognised Berg’s natural gift for melody and colour, and that these required a broad canvas and full orchestra to be effective.

The Violin Concerto from 20 years later was composed when Berg was financially crippled as the Nazi party had condemned his opera Wozzeck as ‘degenerate’, and the royalty income had dried up. He was working on his second opera Lulu when news reached him that Manon, the teenage daughter of Mahler’s widow Alma and Walter Gropius, close friends of Berg, had died after a long and painful illness. The concerto is one of the most personal and emotional utterances by any composer. It has also come to light that Berg makes reference to Mizzi, a 17-year-old housemaid with whom he had a passionate affair and a daughter. The work was premiered in 1935, and in December of that year Berg died of septicaemia, leaving Lulu unfinished.

Recording made in 1983/4

‘Kremer gives a beautifully tender account of the first movement of the Concerto, aided by a markedly slower opening tempo than usual and by a really hushed pianissimo at the outset. The result is that the change of mood and tempo when the music moves from andante to allegretto are immediately perceptible: the allegretto has not been pre-empted by earlier accelerations, as can easily happen.’ Gramophone, July 1985

New booklet notes

Berg’s chamber music version of the Strauss waltz ‘Wine Women and Song’, Op.333 is considered one of the curiosa of his oeuvre, and even today is seldom performed. Coupled here with Berg’s more substantial orchestral works, Christaner Iven is a great singer and is equally talented as an actress.

Since taking audiences by storm in his first appearance with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in April 2004, conductor Daniele Gatti has been a regular and welcome guest with the orchestra. His concert performances are characterised by highly individual interpretations of traditional orchestral repertoire and a fondness for less common repertoire, with a particular preference for the Second Viennese School and related movements. On this CD, Gatti's first recording with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he conducts two key works by Alban Berg: the early Drei Orchesterstücke and the suite from the unfinished opera Lulu, Berg's swansong. Under his baton, both works, which Gatti conducted from memory in these concerts, are given highly ominous, atmospheric performances.