contemporaries in contempt

From the album "No. 3" (2012)

BERG-String Quartet, Op. 3
Composed in 1909-1910.

Alban Berg (1885-1935) met Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904, in response to a newspaper want ad. Schoenberg, who had made news in 1902 with the premiere of his first large-scale work, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) had decided to take students to help make ends meet. Within days he signed up the two young men who would help him write one of the central chapters in twentieth-century music. Both Berg and Anton Webern were at their teacher's side as he composed the first music that was called atonal (Schoenberg thought the term nonsensical and preferred the all-inclusive "pantonal").

Berg's first compositions written under Schoenberg show the powerful influence of his teacher, as well as the potent impact of the Romantic era. (Berg's relationship with Schoenberg was complicated; Berg's father had died when he was fifteen, and Schoenberg quickly became a surrogate father as well as a mentor and model.) As early as the Four Songs, begun in 1909 and published the following year as op. 2, Berg also seemed ready to abandon tonality. His very next work, the masterful String Quartet, op. 3, was his valediction; Berg was now a colleague, not a disciple.

This String Quartet stands at the crossroads of past and future. The vocabulary is still recognizably that of Wagner and Mahler, but Berg has stretched it beyond the limits of even those two pioneers. Although the last traces of tonality remain, Berg's music is rarely tied to the triad and he seems to be searching for a new harmonic language. The quartet's opening theme employs all twelve notes of the scale, though not in the systematic way of Schoenberg's serial system, still years in the future. The Quartet is colored throughout by passionate expression and explosive dramatic power. The spirit of the work, characterized by such deep emotional intensity, still belongs to the nineteenth century. This ambiguity and tension—between its romantic roots and its modernist ambitions—give it a complexity and richness rare in music written in a more settled style. The last measure is emblematic: a D minor triad is quick followed by a dissonant chord, so that there is both the suggestion of finality, as well as a sense of an unanswered question.

The Quartet has two movements, comparable to a traditional sonata allegro and rondo. Despite the difference in their moods, the two are so closely related that they function like halves of a single paragraph—the second movement even begins with the last pitches of the first, so that the break between them is, in effect, no more than a pause for breath in Berg's musical argument.

Over the years, Berg and Schoenberg had a difficult and sometimes stormy relationship, but neither man ever lost his respect for the other's accomplishments. Shortly after Berg's untimely death, Schoenberg recalled how his student's String Quartet had surprised him in the most unbelievable way by the fullness and unconstraint of its musical language, the strength and sureness of its presentation, its careful working and significant originality. That was the time when I moved to Berlin (1911) and he was left to his own devices. He has shown that he was equal to the task.

Program Notes by Phillip Huscher
(http://www.encoreccm.org/pieces/425)

Alban Berg: String Quartet op. 3, I. Langsam

Variation based on the tone row from Berg's Violin Concerto

Variation On A Theme By Alban Berg Session

Balanescu Quartet is an avant-garde string quartet founded in 1987 by Alexander Balanescu that achieved fame through the release of several complex re-interpretations of songs by Kraftwerk and collaborations with Michael Nyman, David Byrne and Goldfrapp amongs others. 

A new compilation, “This Is The Balanescu Quartet”, is available on www.mutebank.com and all good physical and digital retailers.

https://www.facebook.com/BalanescuQuartet

Balanescu Quartet - East

The Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream

Descobri Alben Berg e, imediatamente, por ele fiquei fascinada. Trata-se de uma obra bastante exigente para o intérprete, porém, eu tive o privilégio de a trabalhar com Madalena Soveral,professora rigorosa, mas que, simultâneamente, me permitia uma grande liberdade, no que havia de mais intrínseco, na minha personalidade musical.

Alban Berg - Sonata

The Trunk Archives are an ongoing ever growing collection of obscure Beat Antique tracks. These pieces have been collected over the years and never found a spot on our previous releases. The Trunk Achieves is a place for new experimental Beats Antique tracks to find a home. Hope you enjoy... 

The Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream

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