Alban Berg - Nacht

Early Songs (7), for voice & piano (or orchestra) (1905-1908; revised and orchestrated 1928)

- Nacht (Night)
- Schilflied (Song amid the Reeds)
- Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale)
- Traumgekrönt (Crowned in Dreams)
- Im Zimmer (Indoors)
- Liebesode (Ode to Love)
- Sommertage (Summer Days)

Anne Sofie von Otter
Wiener Philarmoniker
Claudio Abbado

Songs for voice and piano constitute the greater part of Alban Berg's earliest efforts at composition. Though completed 1905 - 08, the composer's Seven Early Songs were not published until 1928. (Berg also made orchestrations of the accompaniments at this time.) These songs, the product of the early years of Berg's apprenticeship to his most important mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, present an apparent simplicity. Upon closer examination, though, they reveal a subtlety and imagination beyond what might be expected of a composer of such relative inexperience. Musicologist Mark DeVoto notes that Berg's earliest songs are technically and creatively superior to those of fellow pupil Anton Webern, who became particularly known for his lieder, and who worked in this genre more prolifically than in any other.

The Seven Early Songs have a strong motivic structure; some are built upon a single motivic cell, extensively manipulated and layered. Harmonically, the songs exist in the world of late-Romantic expanded tonality, with a certain ambiguity between major and minor modes, suspension, delayed and sometimes avoided resolutions, and occasionally superfluous key signatures. DeVoto also points out that the Seven Early Songs exemplify a Bergian harmonic tendency, namely "creeping"--that is, harmonic progressions related not by conventional rules but by "stepwise relation and common tones." This means that, for example, successions of chords may simply be related chromatically, descending or ascending by semitone. The Seven Early Songs also display Berg's penchant for symmetrical melodic structures, a characteristic evident in the composer's frequent use of inversion. [Allmusic.com]

Category:

Music

Tags:

• berg
• otter
• abbado
• lied
• nacht

[Varese13]

Sorry folks, Wozzeck is not "tonal', however much certain analysts may strive to make it seem so. The only quasi tonal part of the opera is the "Invention on a tonality ", the d minor section which comes after Wozzeck's death (why would he use this title if the rest of the piece were tonal?) The rest is freely atonal, not tonal and certainly not 12 tone.

[callmeBe]

@threviatghei Outstanding!! I am glad you are studying, and so glad you are interested in Wozzeck. Good for you, and keep up your studies! Sorry, but your going to have to get into a grad class theory class before you fully understand. I think you're looking for triads, and you won't find that virtually anywhere in Wozzeck. But, tonality goes far beyond that! A great book of partial explination is by Paul Hindemith called "The Craft of Music," and it goes through extended tonalities, etc.

[threviatghei]

@callmeBe Today at the conservatory i watched again the wozzeck, and I still can't hear tonality everywhere! Yes anyway, the last interlude (between 5th and 6th invention) is a Dminor. But I don't understand: maybe I am still at the beginning of my harmony studies, but I was pretty sure that in order to have a tonality you had to do things like confirming it to make it clear to the listener and cadenzas and stuff, and I can't hear none of these things in that piece!

[callmeBe]

@threviatghei why the perplexed face? I think it's absolutely awesome that Berg was able to extend his tonality to such an extent--it was certainly part of his maturity as a composer. It definitely binds his work together. Even his 12 tone efforts. Quite a bit has been written about the latter (in music journals) Anyway, Berg was an incredible composer and highly capable orchestrator, and his scores are always a pleasure to look at (though very busy with all the percise markings). :-)) !!

[threviatghei]

@callmeBe Oh :\

[callmeBe]

@threviatghei I understand what you mean, but I don't know any areas like that even in Wozzeck (pantonal/atonal). In fact, the instrumental "Invention on a Theme" section is in a very secure D minor if I remember correctly. However, you won't find V7 chords--the tonality comes from cross-relations in notes, bass movements that cadence (over which the notes above float), stong 4th and 5th intervals that dominate chords, etc. I have done some reductions, so I know. Berg was always tonal.

[threviatghei]

@callmeBe I'm pretty sure his wozzeck contains atonal stuff.

[callmeBe]

I don't have any idea what you are referring here to here. That is, this work is highly tonal!!!! For instance, the very beginning is mostly whole tone work that works off a C flat5/7 which becomes the leading tone (Neapolitan chord which has lost its IV) into a very strong B major--there is simply no doubt otherwise. There are variants of the C also in C minors chords. Later Berg's work became even more chromatic, but his work was virtually ALWAYS tonal!! Not the case for Schoenberg.

[threviatghei]

@zenrarity And did it better :D

[zenrarity]

Correction: Serialism!