Berg: Altenberg Lieder, Op. 4

Description

(…) Close study of the score has revealed the remarkable sophistication and originality of the architecture of the "Altenberglieder". The careful organization of motives relating Songs I and V is perhaps the most impressive aspect of this architecture; the relationship of the twelve-note passacaglia theme in Song V and the viola melody beginning at m. 12 of Song I is an adumbration of Schoenberg's serial technique of a decade later, while the harmonic relationship of two five-note chords at mm. 14-15 of Song I, which appear in reverse order at mm. 50-55 of Song V, defines an overall arch-form for the entire cycle. It is structural aspects like these that mark Berg's "Altenberglieder" as a work of particular importance in the historic development that culminated in Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique; that discovery, which has had such profound influence on composers ever since, can now be seen as the result of a search for structural coherence and comprehensiveness in which all three of the great Viennese, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, shared. (Mark DeVoto)