Untitled - The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
20
the Romantic Age. We may be certain that
Strauss also intended to serve as a parting
valentine as well to his wife of fifty-five
years, Pauline, who had had her own fine
career as a soprano soloist.
The Four Last Songs are a luxuriant trove
of melody and probing harmonies - all in
service to the evocative poetry of the solo
voice, which lingers like soft sunlight over
a mystic forest of orchestral tone.
Alban Berg
Austrian composer
Born February 9, 1885, Vienna
Died December 24, 1935, Vienna
Sieben frühe Lieder -
Seven Early Songs
Nacht
Schilflied
Die Nachtigall
Traumgekrönt
Im Zimmer
Liebesode
Sommertge
These are the first performances of this work
on the Classics series; duration 17 minutes
Though he was immensely gifted, Alban Berg
is known to the music world for just a handful
of titles. These include his operas Wozzek
and Lulu (unfinished in full score), the Violin
Concerto and Lyric Suite for orchestra, and
just a few chamber pieces and song cycles,
including his Seven Early Songs.
Berg was the third of four children in an
upper-class family in which cultural values
were keen. Like his siblings, he received
instruction from a governess, including
lessons on the piano for which he revealed
exceptional aptitude. He was also
passionately drawn to literature, especially
the verse of the German Late-Romantics.
By his early teens Berg began to mix
metaphors by setting his favorite verses to
music. Without his knowledge, his family
managed to get copies of a few of Berg’s
songs (he had already composed about
80) to the celebrated Arnold Schönberg
who agreed at once to accept Berg as a
composition student without a fee.
For the young and idealistic Alban Berg,
under Schönberg’s influence the world of
music became vast domain of possibilities,
i.e. where every note carried a harmonic
universe unto its own. The ultimate result
was that Wagner’s ‘music of the future’ had
opened the door to ‘atonality’ - i.e. music
without a key center. No more D major, no
more B minor. In musician’s terms, no more
tonic, nor dominant, no more leading
tones nor modulation. Indeed, a revolution
that seemed almost frightening to those
who loved Bach, Tchaikovsky or Mahler.
But there is a delightful catch to all this.
‘Atonal’ - without a key center, does not
mean ‘atunal’ - without a melody. In Berg,
as in Schönberg and others of the era,
there are themes and wonderful melodic
lines everywhere - it is only the harmonies
that are ‘atonal.’ However, we are a bit
ahead of ourselves.
Berg’s Seven Early Songs were composed
between 1905 and 1908, revealing a
composer who was indeed en route ‘to
the future.’ Orchestrated in 1928, the
songs are replete with a wonderful lyrical
sense, based on melodies and harmonies
which reach to the chromatic cosmos, but
remain ‘terra firma’ in tonal construction.
But his imminent progression into the realm
of atonality was surely hinted and glinted
in the songs.
We should also note the composer’s
choice to ‘word-paint’ (a term from
Renaissance art songs) with timbres and
tempos, embellishing the songs with
evocative orchestrations as savvy as any
in all of music. While the same can be
said for Strauss’ Four Last Songs, what is
striking here is the reach of Berg’s abstract
mix of lyrics and voice with a select
palette of symphonic color, very closely
allied to the meaning and rhythm of the
original poetry. One might say the artistry
of each setting belies the science behind
their conception, in particular for a twentysomething
composer in the first decade of