Alban Berg

The Austrian Alban Berg (1885-1935) is one of few composers of predominantly “atonal” music (i.e., music that deliberately avoids musical scales and harmonies centering around a specific keynote) who has sustained a following among the concert-going populace, particularly with his ground-breaking operas, Wozzeck (1922, the first full-length atonal opera) and Lulu (1935, the first 12-tone opera), and his moving Violin Concerto (1935).

Vier Stücke, Op. 5, for Clarinet and Piano

According to social philosopher Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) who studied music composition with Berg in the 1920s, Berg’s atmospheric and freely-atonal Vier Stücke, Op. 5 (“Four Pieces,” 1913), might be regarded as a condensed version of the four-movement sonata archetype as brought to fruition by Beethoven, with Berg’s 7½-minute version appearing “in rudimentary, shriveled form,” and “everywhere and immediately creating, shattering, abandoning, reintroducing, and rounding off remnants” of its musical motifs. It is perhaps easy to suppose that Beethoven (had he been around and not deaf) might have slapped the budding composer for such a conceit, but it is surprising that Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Berg’s teacher and adopted father-figure, apparently gave his pupil a brow-beating for not producing more extended compositions, especially since Schoenberg’s own brief piano works served as a model for Berg’s Pieces. Berg took the criticism to heart and abandoned miniature forms in favor of large-scale works, ultimately demonstrating a communicative power his mentor’s own atonal oeuvre has proven unable to match.

CLICK HERE for a performance on YouTube.