Schoenberg’s Students: Alban Berg & Anton Webern

1. Schoenberg’s Students: Alban Berg & Anton Webern

2. Alban Berg 1885-1935 • Born in Vienna • No formal training before he began writing music • When he was 19, he was working as a government clerk. He saw Schoenberg’s newspaper advertisement for students and signed up for private lessons. • Studied with Schoenberg for six years; they became close friends • Early compositions are in a late Romantic style • 1st atonal piece was his String Quartet, Op. 3, written in 1910

3. WWI • Served three years in the army and worked in the Ministry of War • He began composing first of his two great operas during this time. Wozzeck was completed in 1922 and is the 1st atonal Expressionist opera. • In 1928, he began work on his 2nd Expressionist opera, Lulu. • The entire opera was complete, except for the orchestration of the third act. Berg suddenly died in 1935 before he could complete the orchestration. He died of an infected insect bite. • Berg’s widow refused to release his draft of the third act and the opera was not performed in its entirety until 1979, after she died.

4. Berg’s Music • Out of Webern and Schoenberg, Berg retained the strongest links with the past. • He adopted the twelve-tone technique and atonality, but with more flexibility. • One can fine tonal passages in many of his compositions and he never abandoned the Romantic idea of lyricism; his music is more passionate and emotionally intense.

5. Wozzeck • His experience of war is reflected in Wozzeck • Plot = A working class soldier is bullied by his superiors, betrayed by the woman he loves (Marie) and beaten by his rival • He is driven to madness, Wozzeck murders Marie and commits suicide. • Music is atonal but uses structures borrowed from the past: sonata form, rondo form, fugue, theme & variations. • He loves symmetry – uses same music for the end of Act I and the end of the entire opera.

6. Wozzeck: Music • Music is continuous within each of the three acts. Each act is divided into five sections. The scenes are connected by orchestral interludes. • He uses an enormous orchestra. Music is jagged, distorted, and jumps between extremes: very loud and very soft, very high and very low, singing and talking • Singers make a variety of sounds: Sprechstimme, spoken words, flowing melody, screams, whispers and folk tunes.

7. LISTEN • Wozzeck, Act III, Scenes 4 & 5 • Composed in 1924 for Piccolo, 4 flutes, 4 oboes, English horn, 2 Eb clarinets, 4 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, 2 timpani, bass drum, side drum, tam-tams, 2 cymbols, triangle, xylophone, celesta, harp, strings • The final two scenes are separated by an orchestral interlude.

8. Plot of Act III, Scenes 4 & 5 • In Act III, Scene 4, Wozzeck return to the pond to hide the knife. He tries to wash the blood off his hands, but it seems to him that the whole pond is turning to blood. He drowns • The orchestral interlude that follows is a lament for Wozzeck • In the last scene, we see Wozzeck and Marie’s little son playing in front of their house with other children. The other children run off only to find Marie’s body. Their little son follows, not knowing that his mother has been murdered. • The scene does not end; it simply stops, leaving the audience with no feeling of conclusion.

9. Anton Webern 1883-1945 • Born in Vienna. He came from a middle-class family • As a teenager, he was immersed in music; he played the piano and the cello. He also studied music theory and composed many pieces. • At the University, he studied musicology and wrote a doctoral dissertation on the music of Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac. (A close study of Isaac’s counterpoint had a strong influence on his own music. • At the time of Webern’s death, American soldiers were occupying Austria after WWII. Tragically, Webern was outside smoking a cigarette when a jittery American soldier shot and killed him.

10. Webern’s Music • Extraordinarily concentrated; there is never an extra note. • He wrote detailed instructions in his scores, indicating exactly how he wanted each tiny phrase to sound. • Most of his compositions are quite short; many movements last less than a minute. The biggest words are only ten minutes. • He used a great deal of imitative counterpoint. • Counterpoint is atonal early in career, from 1920’s, he uses 12-tone • He uses sevenths, ninths, and many dissonances. Dissonances sound colorful rather than harsh because of the light texture.

11. LISTEN • Third Movement from Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5 • Composed in 1909 for 2 violins, viola and cello • He uses a wide range of articulation and special string sounds: • 1. am steg, “at the bridge” This produces a very scratchy, high-pitched sound • 2. pizzicato, “plucked” • 3. arco, “bowed” • 4. staccato, “detached notes” • 5. collegno “with the wood” The strings are struck with the wood of the bow • Follow along on pg. 352