BERG VIOLIN CONCERTO

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 & Härtel

To me this piece is like water: it is one of the essential ingredients needed to survive in life. It is high art at its most profound, and whether you are religious or spiritual, or neither, to play or listen to it is a sacred experience and a prayer. It expresses and ruminates on feelings, thoughts and new ways of existence, and it is all the more poignant and tragic because it serves as a double requiem, for Berg’s friend Alma Manon Gropius, who died aged 18 from polio, and for himself, as the last piece he wrote before his own death. For anyone who has experienced the death of someone very close to them, this music gives a visceral, spiritually powerful picture. At the same time, this music is very technical, and it is impossible to discuss it clearly without following the full orchestral score. As for last month’s article, please have one on hand as you read, and familiarise yourself with Berg’s musical instructions and symbols. ese are essential for understanding how to play music of the 12-tone technique:

Artistic inspiration

e paintings of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, or the ‘New Objectivity’, have really helped me to de.ne my interpretations of this concerto and other pieces from the Viennese School of this time. Works by Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad – even Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, although they came a little earlier – fascinate me because they do not try to beautify. ey show a new way of experiencing, of being and of feeling, that runs in parallel with the development of the 12-tone serialist technique, and they give insight into inThections in the music, which are so powerful you could touch them. Just as these artists play with textures in their paintings, so Berg plays with texture in the score of his Violin Concerto: col legno, .autando and sometimes even gewöhnlich (‘normal’ – for example, in bar 44, December 2019 issue).

THE SOLOIST

‘For anyone who has experienced the death of someone very close to them, this music gives a very visceral, spiritually powerful picture

It is also so important to study other masterworks of the Viennese School when you are discovering and learning to understand this musical language: listen to Berg’s Lyric Suite and Wozzeck, and Schoenberg’s string quartets and Violin Concerto, while following the score. ere is so much to learn from the detail that these masters write, and it is impossible to find that in any way other than to see all the parts and instructions laid out together on the page. Ifihave marked up the solo part of the Berg Concerto here, for you to see the fingerings and bowings Ifimay use, but in reality the full score is my bible.

‘It is enough’

Last month we looked at the Allegro of the second movement, with its feverish, improvisatory passages and apocalyptic moments of death. From the narrative of an illness that takes over the mind and body, now we move on to the Adagio, where from barfi136 the soul is resurrected with a Bach chorale and finally lifted up into the heavens. Here, after an anticipatory quote of the first four notes of the chorale from the violas, the choral Hauptstimme line begins in the solo violin.

Berg includes the words of Bach’s EsThist genug (‘It is enough’) under each line of the score, along with various instructions to play decisively, expressively, sweetly and resolutely. Beneath the violin part from barfi136 he writes, ‘It is enough! Lord, when it is pleasing to you, grant me release’; then, for the woodwinds from barfi142, ‘May my Jesus come now. Good night, O world, Ifiam going to heaven’s house’; and again, for the violin from barfi147, ‘Ifigo confidently from here with joy’, marked risoluto; for the clarinets from barfi150, ‘My dismal sorrow remains down below’; and for the violin, ‘Itfiis enough’, marked amoroso. Ask yourself who is surrendering here: is it the physical body? e soul?

In bars 154–157, the violin’s two-note chordal segments echo the woodwinds, as though the woodwinds are a wise group telling us, with expression and love, that it is enough; and thefiviolin responds with a sweet, ghostlyfireply. is is one of my favourite moments of the piece. Another comes in bars 159–164, where the harp plays the chorale melody, decisively but mysteriously, in an echo of the cello line of barfi158. e second violins and horns have to be quiet so that the ghostly sound of the harp can carry through.

A new direction

From barfi164 the violin begins an expressive, speak–singing melody with long, expressive lines, telling afistoryfiwith a strong narrative. Now the concerto becomes more theatrical, with specific instructions from Berg for the violin to invite other players, both audibly and visually, to join in with the solo part: afisolo violin from barfi170, another from barfi173 and another fromfibarfi175. is has to be made very clear to the audience, or they won’t see what is going on. It is very unusual for violin music of the 20thficentury: Ifidon’t know of another piece quite like it, with clear indications for the soloist to invite, lead andfiinstruct individual players in thefiorchestra.

The violins come together to play the four-note quote of Bach’s chorale in the choral Hauptstimme of barfi176, here marked amoroso, with love, as our deceased being is resurrected up into the next life. You don’t have to be religious to feel this lifting of the spirit. e high point of the Adagio comes in barfi186, where the soloist leads the violas and other violins in a soaring, long line that feels almost celebratory, very far from the visceral, deathly climax of barfi125.

As the music goes on it begins to dissolve into memory, and you have to cryfiin barfi204, when the horn brings back the waltzing lullaby from the end of the first movement. It is the memory of a folk tune played in life, of afiperson, and it is extremely powerful. As the solo violin continues this tune, you should not feel as though you are on your physical feet in the concert hall, but as though you have been lifted and transported somewhere else entirely.

e Bach chorale comes back almost asfia euphoric improvisation in barfi214, before the solo violin plays the last quote of that material in barfi223. Here section soloists pass an ascending sequence up through the double basses, cellos, violas and violins, into the final Nebenstimme of the solo violin. e last four notes of the solo violin part, in bar 227–228, quote the opening four notes of the chorale one last time, finally coming to rest in the stratosphere of the stars.

INTERVIEW BY PAULINE HARDING

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