Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 - December 24, 1935) was an Aus… Read Full Bio ↴Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 - December 24, 1935) was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School along with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, producing works that combined Mahlerian romanticism with a highly personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.
Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg. His family lived comfortably until the death of his father in 1900.
He was more interested in literature than music as a child and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music. In late February or early March 1902 he fathered a child with Marie Scheuchl, a servant girl in the Berg family household. His daughter, Albine, was born on December 4, 1902.[1]
Berg had little formal music education before he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904. With Schoenberg he studied counterpoint, music theory, and harmony. By 1906, he was studying music full-time; by 1907, he began composition lessons. His student compositions included five drafts for piano sonatas. He also wrote songs, including his Seven Early Songs (Sieben frühe Lieder), three of which were Berg's first publicly performed work in a concert that featured the music of Schoenberg's pupils in Vienna that year. The early sonata sketches eventually culminated in Berg's Piano Sonata (Op. 1) (1907–1908); it is one of the most formidable "first" works ever written (Lauder, 1986).
Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Berg admired him as a composer and mentor, and they remained close lifelong friends. Berg may have seen the older composer as a father figure, as Berg's father had died when he was only 15.
Among Schoenberg's teaching was the idea that the unity of a musical composition depends upon all its aspects being derived from a single basic idea; this idea was later known as developing variation. Berg passed this on to his students, one of whom, Theodor Adorno, stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different".[citation needed] The Piano Sonata is an example—the whole composition is derived from the work's opening quartal gesture and its opening phrase.
Berg was a part of Vienna's cultural elite during the heady fin de siècle period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met the singer Helene Nahowski, daughter of a wealthy family (said by some to be in fact the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria from his liaison with Anna Nahowski)[2]; despite the outward hostility of her family, the two were married on May 3, 1911.
In 1913, two of Berg's Five Songs on Picture Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg (1912) were premièred in Vienna, conducted by Schoenberg. Settings of aphoristic utterances, the songs are accompanied by a very large orchestra. The performance caused a riot, and had to be halted; the work was not performed in full until 1952 (and its full score remained unpublished until 1966).
From 1915 to 1918, Berg served in the Austrian Army and during a period of leave in 1917 he began work on his first opera, Wozzeck. After the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run his Society for Private Musical Performances, which sought to create the ideal environment for the exploration and appreciation of unfamiliar new music by means of open rehearsals, repeat performances, and the exclusion of professional critics.
Three excerpts from Wozzeck were performed in 1924, and this brought Berg his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was not performed in its entirety until December 14, 1925, when Erich Kleiber directed a performance in Berlin. Today Wozzeck is seen as one of Berg's most important works. Berg completed only the first two acts of his later opera, the critically acclaimed Lulu, before he died.
Berg's best-known piece is his elegiac Violin Concerto. Like much of his mature work, it employs a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve tone technique that enables the composer to combine frank atonality with passages that use more traditional tonal harmonies; additionally, Berg incorporates quotations from historical tonal music, including a Bach chorale and a Carinthian folk song. The Violin Concerto was dedicated to Manon, the deceased daughter of architect Walter Gropius and Alma Schindler.
Other well known Berg compositions include the Lyric Suite (seemingly a significant influence on the String Quartet No. 3 of Béla Bartók[citation needed]), Three Pieces for Orchestra and the Chamber Concerto for violin, piano and 13 wind instruments.
Berg died in Vienna, on Christmas Eve 1935, apparently from blood poisoning caused by an insect bite. He was 50 years old.
Douglas Jarman writes in the New Grove: "As the 20th century closed, the 'backward-looking' Berg suddenly came as Perle remarked, to look like its most forward-looking composer."[3]
Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg. His family lived comfortably until the death of his father in 1900.
He was more interested in literature than music as a child and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music. In late February or early March 1902 he fathered a child with Marie Scheuchl, a servant girl in the Berg family household. His daughter, Albine, was born on December 4, 1902.[1]
Berg had little formal music education before he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904. With Schoenberg he studied counterpoint, music theory, and harmony. By 1906, he was studying music full-time; by 1907, he began composition lessons. His student compositions included five drafts for piano sonatas. He also wrote songs, including his Seven Early Songs (Sieben frühe Lieder), three of which were Berg's first publicly performed work in a concert that featured the music of Schoenberg's pupils in Vienna that year. The early sonata sketches eventually culminated in Berg's Piano Sonata (Op. 1) (1907–1908); it is one of the most formidable "first" works ever written (Lauder, 1986).
Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Berg admired him as a composer and mentor, and they remained close lifelong friends. Berg may have seen the older composer as a father figure, as Berg's father had died when he was only 15.
Among Schoenberg's teaching was the idea that the unity of a musical composition depends upon all its aspects being derived from a single basic idea; this idea was later known as developing variation. Berg passed this on to his students, one of whom, Theodor Adorno, stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different".[citation needed] The Piano Sonata is an example—the whole composition is derived from the work's opening quartal gesture and its opening phrase.
Berg was a part of Vienna's cultural elite during the heady fin de siècle period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met the singer Helene Nahowski, daughter of a wealthy family (said by some to be in fact the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria from his liaison with Anna Nahowski)[2]; despite the outward hostility of her family, the two were married on May 3, 1911.
In 1913, two of Berg's Five Songs on Picture Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg (1912) were premièred in Vienna, conducted by Schoenberg. Settings of aphoristic utterances, the songs are accompanied by a very large orchestra. The performance caused a riot, and had to be halted; the work was not performed in full until 1952 (and its full score remained unpublished until 1966).
From 1915 to 1918, Berg served in the Austrian Army and during a period of leave in 1917 he began work on his first opera, Wozzeck. After the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run his Society for Private Musical Performances, which sought to create the ideal environment for the exploration and appreciation of unfamiliar new music by means of open rehearsals, repeat performances, and the exclusion of professional critics.
Three excerpts from Wozzeck were performed in 1924, and this brought Berg his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was not performed in its entirety until December 14, 1925, when Erich Kleiber directed a performance in Berlin. Today Wozzeck is seen as one of Berg's most important works. Berg completed only the first two acts of his later opera, the critically acclaimed Lulu, before he died.
Berg's best-known piece is his elegiac Violin Concerto. Like much of his mature work, it employs a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve tone technique that enables the composer to combine frank atonality with passages that use more traditional tonal harmonies; additionally, Berg incorporates quotations from historical tonal music, including a Bach chorale and a Carinthian folk song. The Violin Concerto was dedicated to Manon, the deceased daughter of architect Walter Gropius and Alma Schindler.
Other well known Berg compositions include the Lyric Suite (seemingly a significant influence on the String Quartet No. 3 of Béla Bartók[citation needed]), Three Pieces for Orchestra and the Chamber Concerto for violin, piano and 13 wind instruments.
Berg died in Vienna, on Christmas Eve 1935, apparently from blood poisoning caused by an insect bite. He was 50 years old.
Douglas Jarman writes in the New Grove: "As the 20th century closed, the 'backward-looking' Berg suddenly came as Perle remarked, to look like its most forward-looking composer."[3]
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String Quartet Op. 3
Alban Berg Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
허민
20c 초반 음악
베르크 - [현악 4중주] op.3
★제 2기 [표현주의 = 무조음악]
[표현주의] : 표현주의 회화에서 유래
20세기 초 당시 현대인 들의 [긴장]과 [공포] [불안] [갈등] 등 [내면세계]를 표출하는 흐름
표현주의는 일반적으로 [쇤베르크]와 [베르크]의 [= 초기 무조성 음악]을 가르킨다.
= [조성 체계의 붕괴] 표현주의 예술은 [인간 내면의 본질적 실체를 추구] 하면서 [기능화성에서 벗어난] 초기 무조성 음악을 뜻한다.
muslit
Although the expert working out of motives is derived from Schoenberg/Beethoven, the Berg quartet is a perfect fusion of romanticism and expressionism.
Sing Tat SUCGC
Surprisingly the sonority sounds in certain places like some of Bartok’s quartets, even though the technical foundations of their compositional methods were very different.
jrk3150
One of my all time favorites, and written when he was at start of his career. Astonishing!
Robert Fertitta
You sound like you actually BELIEVE that. What a joke. This 'music' goes on interminably and always sounds the same. This man did not hold a candle to Bartok.
YanikFM
@Robert Fertitta salty much
klop422
It's very good, but imo doesn't hold a candle to his later Lyric Suite.
DeptIndAccts
It's always interesting to me how much personality the 'big three' of the second Viennese school possessed. As much as later directions in atonal composition are interesting, it is my opinion the Berg, Webern and Schoenberg were possessed of very musical intentions.
BirdArvid
Berg always veered towards the hyper-romantic, not the obviously, blatantly atonal. And I agree about your description of all three of them. There's a fascinating BBC documentary about Schoenberg and Wittgenstein here on YouTube which puts much of Schoenberg's, and in the extension thereof; those of his two most famous pupils, in context. The Wittgenstein-connection, even if only in theory and time, is a wonderful angle on their work. Boulez said there is not really any equivalent to Berg's complexity in music; his analogy is literature, where he finds three names: Musil, Joyce and Proust.
DeptIndAccts
@BirdArvid thanks for the info! I will have to look for that. I remember reading the Tractatus in college for the heck of it. Left me in a state of deep thought for a while, though I did not come to any definite conclusions.
Also sprach Zarathustra
Good avatar! It brings to me good memories.