Violin Concerto by Alban Berg (Breitkopf)
Violin Concerto by Alban Berg. Breitkopf, full score, €54.
In 1935, the Austrian composer Alban Berg—a student of 12-tone innovator Arnold Schoenberg—set his opera Lulu aside to write his best-known piece, the Violin Concerto, which was commissioned by American violinist Louis Krasner. After Berg started working on the piece, he learned of the death due to polio of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Berg’s friends Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius. Berg decided to dedicate the piece to her. Her death inspired him to write the most moving of all musical tributes: “To the memory of an angel.”
The work was premiered in 1936 by the Ukranian-born, Boston-based violinist Krasner with the Vienna Philharmonic.
It was the last work completed by Berg before his own death before the work’s premiere.
In two movements (each further divided into two sections), an Andante in classical sonata form is followed by a dance-like Allegretto. Movement two is cadenza like, containing difficult passage work for the soloist, with intricate and dramatic orchestration. A fourth and final Adagio section is calm and resigned, containing a lament quoting Bach’s chorale, Es ist genug (It Is Enough). The last four notes in Berg’s 12-tone row, ascending whole tones, are the first four notes of the chorale. Except for a recurring nostalgic Carinthian folk song, the remainder uses 12-tone and serial techniques.
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