Violin Concerto (Mountain)

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The violin concerto "In memory of an angel" (1935) is a concerto for violin and orchestra by Alban Berg . With the opera Wozzeck, it is one of the composer's best-known works.

Work history

Manon Gropius, Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler (1918)

In February 1935, the American violinist Louis Krasner commissioned a violin concerto. Since mountain nor in the composition of the opera Lulu worked, and also because he was initially hesitant about the form of the concert, he initially took no action until the end of April it deeply shocking news of the death of 18-year-old, of polio affected Manon Gropius received, the daughter Alma Mahler-Werfels from the marriage with the architect Walter Gropius . Berg set her a musical monument with the violin concerto, composed with the intention of "translating the traits of the young girl into musical characters".

The composition was on 23 July 1935 at particell completed and the fair copy of the score ended on 11 August. The violin concerto is Berg's last completed work. The premiere took place after Berg's death on April 19, 1936 with Louis Krasner under the direction of Hermann Scherchen at the music festival in the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona .

occupation

The instrumentation of the concert consists of the solo violin, 2 flutes (both also piccolo flutes ), 2 oboes (one also English horn ), alto saxophone (also clarinet ), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , 2 trombones , Tuba , timpani , percussion , harp and strings .

The performance lasts approx. 25 minutes.

Work description

Louis Krasner and Helene Berg with the score (1961)

The work is in two movements , each subdivided again by different tempos and thus follows the thematic intention of a requiem .

The first movement (Andante - Allegretto) is intended to trace Manon's short life, a built-in simple Carinthian folk tune refers to the childhood when Berg met Manon in Carinthia for the first time. With the first movement Berg drew a “musical portrait” of Manon. The music is of a lovely and gentle nature, in the Allegretto Berg depicts the nervous, cheerful, sanguine traits of the girl, using quotes from the Viennese waltz .

The 2nd movement (Allegro, ma semper rubato, free as a cadenza - Adagio) is a music of death and transfiguration. This effect is reinforced by the concluding quotation from the Bach chorale Es ist Enough from the cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60 .

Major and minor sounds contained in the twelve-tone row of the violin concerto

The work is based on a twelve-tone series (see twelve-tone music ), which can be described as the nesting of a G minor, D major, A minor and E major triad followed by a whole tone sequence.

The basic tones of the triad are related to each other in the ratio of a perfect fifth. The whole tone sequence at the end of the basic row also forms the first four tones of the chorale melody Es ist Enough.

In addition, the ascending figure of the row can be understood as a “ladder to heaven”, in the sense of a mystical view of life after death.

The Bach quote is at the end of the program ("It is enough, Lord, if you like it, just relax me [...]"). Before that, Berg weaves in a cross motif in the form of the Bach motif .

Number symbolism

Berg had a great fondness for years and dates, which he then used in his works.

The second movement of the violin concerto consists of 230 bars. The number 23 represented an important number for Berg: Many of his works were completed on the 23rd of a month, and he suffered his first asthma attack on July 23, 1908. The 22 (the date of Manon's death: April 22nd) is also used in his work related:

  • After the 22-measure rubato cadenza, the motif of death follows in measure 23, a rhythmic cell based on tango (cf. dance of death ).
  • The Bach chorale processing “It's enough! so take, Lord, my spirit ”comprises 22 bars for Berg - only 20 bars for Ahle / Bach.
  • The dedication to the memory of an angel has 22 letters.
  • The Bach motif sounds in measure 222 of the 2nd movement (the notes b, a, c, b follow one after the other).
  • The ten-bar introduction is structured in fifths. The perfect fifth is based on the ratio 3: 2 (see intervals ).
  • The tempo indication of 69 beats per minute is used several times (69 = 3 × 23).

It is also interesting that the final chord consists of 18 notes, which can indicate the years of Manon's life.

literature

  • Andreas Dorschel : Consolation for the inconsolable. Mahler's “Kindertotenlieder” and Berg's Violin Concerto . In: Musikfreunde Vol. 25 (2012/13), H. 5, S. 34–37.
  • Antony Pople: Berg: Violin Concerto . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 0-521-39976-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It's enough, so take it, Herr (Ahle, Johann Rudolf) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project