BERG VIOLIN CONCERTO

This piece is a work of art of the Viennese School. It is dramatic, deeply emotional, genius writing of unbelievable music at the most profound level, and it uses the 12-tone-row serialist technique so masterfully. Please have a full orchestral score on hand as you read this article, so that we can go through it together. Pay close attention to the opening legend, because it forms one of the backbones of 12-tone writing:

The Viennese sound

I first studied the concerto with Felix Galimir at the Curtis Institute of Music when I was 16 years old and he was about 80. That was one of the great experiences of my teens, and from him I got a very clear idea of how I wanted Berg to sound. Galimir came to America to escape the Nazis during the Second World War, but he was from Vienna and he understood the musical inflections of the time. If the waltz at the end of the first movement sounded too refined, for example, he would shout, ‘No, no, no!’ and dance around the room, singing. It wasn’t a buttoned-up, overly elegant waltz; it was rustic, with a growl and a fierceness to it. He would emphasise the bowings and dots to give an Austrian ‘lift’ and authority, without it being too nice or well behaved. He taught me these sounds and showed me that just because something is softer in dynamic, it doesn’t mean it has to be prettier or any less bold.

Often people get so caught up in the technicalities of violin playing — the notes, the intonation and the cleanliness of everything — that the character is swallowed up and lost. And 1935, when this concerto was written, was not a clean or pretty period of time in the world: there were a lot of thunderclouds, with the Second World War approaching. The music does not reflect anything to the contrary.

From Berg Violin Concerto. Urtext edition for violin and piano, paperbound with marked and unmarked string parts. Editor Michael Kube; pf reduction Jan Philip Schulze; vn fingering Frank Peter Zimmermann. Order on. HN821, ISMN 979-0-20180821-5, €29. Printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, Munich © 2009. Orchestral material available from Breitkopf & Hael

THE SOLOIS

CHRIS LEE

•NAME

LEILA JOSEFOWICZ

•NATIONALITY

CANADIAN-AMERICAN

•STUDIED WITH

JASCHA BRODSKY, FELIX GALIMIR, JOSEF GINGOLD, JAIME LAREDO, ROBERT LIPSETT

•RECORDED FOR

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON, HYPERION, NONESUCH, ONDINE, PHILIPS, WARNER CLASSICS

’Berg’s instructions are so clear and intentional that there is no excuse not to give the audience what he wanted them to hear’

For details of Leila Josefowicz’s upcoming concerts, see her concert schedule atbit.ly/33hWmXx

A foreboding of death

The beginning of this movement is rude and dramatic. It should sound as if someone is on the edge of death, in a very physical way: the violin screams in bars 4-5, then falls down, unmeasured, into the heaving, retching, struggling Nebenstimme (N”) from bar 8.

It sounds as though someone is being sick, although it is written in such a way that the Hauptstimme (H”) is still very present, first in the cellos and bass, and then, from bar 13, in the horns. In bar 18 the violin makes a huge leap up to a very high note that should again sound like a scream.

After this introduction, we enter the molto ritmico from bar 23, where the violin becomes free, like a bird or spirit in a sort of Sprechstimme, partway between song and speech. This reminds me of Schubert’s Erlko. ‘My father, I feel so ill! Oh father!’ The violin narrates a story of fever and death, and it is important that this be very clear and well articulated, or the music will not speak to the audience.

Underneath the solo line the orchestral rhythm builds like an approaching army.

It is a powerful rhythm that shifts into many different moods throughout the movement. From bar 35 it falls to the violin, as the woodwinds reflect back on Trio 2 (bar 155) of the first movement. Here the violin rhythm becomes softer and more sentimental, as the air turns nostalgic and improvisational. It needs to be obvious that the mood is new and shifting.

Often the technical difficulties of this movement mean that the soloist starts to drag, and it’s important to avoid this: in bar 49 Berg actually writes ‘tranquillo, ma non strascinare (ruhig, aber nicht schleppen)’ - calm, but not dragging. Let’s listen to what he wants!

High fever

Where at first we have an insistent rhythmic motif, now the music begins to dissolve almost into an improvisation, as though the body and soul are starting to hallucinate. In bars 54-55 Berg writes what I see as a direct quote from Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, now in 7ths instead of octaves, and in waltz form, distorting the original; and from bar 60 the music is less tangible and more surrealistic, filled with hidden fragments of different motifs from the Hauptstimmes that have come before.

These are not always clear to the ear in performance, so try to bring them out - for example, in the cadenza section at bar 68, where the arco melody is marked IT and articulated via left-hand pizzicato. Here Berg introduces the first four notes of Bach’s chorale ‘Es ist genug’, which he later uses in the Adagio of bar 136.

This part of the movement is very difficult: the pizzicato cannot be allowed to interfere with your delivery of the main melody or the ethereal, surrealistic mood, and you are playing alone. Practise without pizzicato to begin with, to understand the enigmatic sound of the melody as the music moves away from the physical and towards an out-of-body experience of the spirit and mind. In bar 73 the violin cries out in a feverish outburst, and the violas respond. This is a physical and spiritual representation of a dying person caught in the waves of a high-fever influenza, with all its hallucinogenic ups and downs.

In bar 80, again be careful not to sound as though the music is so difficult that it’s making you play slower. It is another spiritual moment, with a three-note chromatic motif that quotes the first movement’s Trio 2 once more, this time echoed in a sort of chorale. Voice this clearly, paying particular attention to the notes I have marked.

It should sound seamless and enigmatic, almost inhuman, like a group of mystics speaking clearly but shrouded by mist.

Death and transcendence

From bar 90 there is a glimmer of sunlight. Berg quotes the end of the first movement as a hovering waltz until the terrible awakening of death in bar 96, where the orchestra recaps the opening of the second movement, bringing the loss of physical being to the forefront of our minds. It should sound apocalyptic.

The rhythmic motif returns in bar 100, in the timpani, cellos and basses; and from bar 104 the violin Hauptstimme of left- and right-hand pizzicato has to be percussive and strong. Be careful not to play some notes louder just because of the different hands being used for the pizzicato. The rhythm needs to be strong, in character, with an obvious crescendo leading to the last quaver (e) of each bar.

In bars 115-125 we again hear the sounds of a person who is seriously ill.

In bar 125 it feels as though the sky should fall. To me, this is the moment of physical death, with the rhythm played by the entire orchestra, jff, in unison. It is a huge, guttural, emotional climax, and a turning point in the entire piece. The delirious, improvisatory violin leads us, then, into the Bach chorale of the Adagio, as the soul is lifted to the heavens.

Knowing the score

It takes time to get to know a work like this, by performing it with different orchestras and conductors; and it takes a knowledgeable conductor to bring the right material to the fore. I performed it many times with Oliver Knussen conducting, and he taught me so much about the voicings and technicalities of the writing.

Berg took great care to mark IT and N” to show how the voices interweave, respond to each other or echo from each other. The Hauptstimmes need to be heard, and that also means that everybody else has to stay out of the way. The concerto is structured, deliberate and meticulously written, and so if these different voicings aren’t truly taken care of, with respect and diligence, then the piece won’t speak as it needs to.

It is the role of the conductor to make every Hauptstimme line audible and clear even to the ears of a less educated musical person. This was something that Knussen and Galimir understood very well, and if it is done right, it can be an incredibly powerful experience even for someone who doesn’t know a lot about music.

Of course, the violin soloist can help, by studying the full score and working from it not just sometimes but all the time. Check the musical terms in a dictionary and use a highlighter to mark all the ITs throughout the concerto, so that you can see how they relate and interweave. It comes down to a simple ranking of priority of the line, and to always hearing the Hauptstimme.

If you have the overall instrumentation in mind, you will be able to hear what is supposed to be at the forefront.

Berg’s instructions are so clear and intentional that there is no excuse not to give the audience what he wanted them to hear. It’s not only about interpretation: it’s about following the directions of the master composers of the Viennese School, with heart and intention.

INTERVIEW BY PAULINE HARDING