Alban Berg, a little review - Lyric Suite - Andante amoroso

The Austrian composer Alban Maria Johannes Berg, together with his colleagues Schoenberg and Webern, make up the famous triumvirate of the Second Vienna School, one of the most important movements in the evolution of Western music in the 20th century. Their contributions constituted a renovating impact on the art of combining sounds, with the abandonment of tonality, then the adoption of the dodecaphonic technique, and later serialism; the latter, a Webern's contribution, mainly.

The young Berg

Alban Berg joined the future trinity of composers in 1904, at the age of nineteen, when Schoenberg took him on as a pupil after learning a number of songs composed by Alban. Born in Vienna into a well-to-do family of German origin, the young Berg was at that time a civil servant in the administration of the empire, and music was little more than a serious hobby for him. But as fate would have it, Alban's mother inherited no small fortune. The future composer gave up everything and devoted himself entirely to music.

Early works, and marriage

Under Schoenberg's tutelage, Berg composed his first works between 1907 and 1910. The following year he married, although his father-in-law never regarded him as the ideal husband for his daughter. He had his reasons, clearly class-based: the groom's financial insecurity and the low respectability of his family (Berg's sister was a lesbian).

Recognition, and the affair

But after the 1925 premiere of the opera Wossek, his masterpiece, Berg became both a recognized figure and a controversial author. His financial situation also improved and he was then able to focus on composing more comfortably.
That year and the following one, the author experienced one of his most pleasant periods, including a passing extramarital affair that, according to some scholars, is present in the background of one of his most seductive and mysterious works, the Lyric Suite for String Quartet, composed between 1925 and 1926. It was the first time the author made use of the twelve-tone system created by his master.

The good health of romanticism

Apart from an enigmatic cipher using German notation to seal his and the fleeting beloved's initials in the score, it is the naming of the suite's six sections that has brought the idea of the love story that would be hidden behind it. To each tempo indication, Berg added an adjective with "romantic" resonances that, seen as a whole, illustrate the obligatory plot of a typical love enthusiasm from the beginning of the world.

Sections:

Allegretto gioviale - Andante amoroso - Allegro misterioso - Adagio appasionato - Presto delirando-tenebroso - Largo desolato.

Andante amoroso
The most sensual and intimate movement, albeit with a somewhat whimsical atmosphere, is the Andante amoroso. It is presented here in a performance (audio only) by the famed Alban Berg Quartet, an ensemble born in Vienna in 1970, and dissolved in 2008 after the death of one of its most prominent members in 2005.

Schumann, Cello Concerto in A minor

During his relatively short existence, even for his time, Robert Schumann could only write seven works for soloist and orchestra. Of these, the Piano Concerto (1854) and the one written for cello in 1850 have today a regular presence on the world's stages. The former is in excellent health. Although less popular, the Cello Concerto can be pointed out as one of the favorites of the virtuosi of the instrument, given the reduced presence of great cello concertos of the Romantic period.

Düsseldorf
Happily married for ten years to Clara, the couple and their five children had just escaped the Dresden uprisings of May 1849 (in which Wagner participated enthusiastically, even on the barricades). In December of that year, he was offered the post of music director in Düsseldorf. As soon as he arrived, he composed the Cello Concerto, according to legend, in just two weeks. But he did not stay long in the city, as the maestro, it seems, was not cut out for conducting orchestras. After a year, his contract was rescinded. Robert and Clara will go on tour.

Robert Schumann in 1850
(1810 - 1856)

Concerto for cello and orchestra in A minor, opus 129
Schumann died six years later, and never saw the premiere of the concerto. The work will be performed for the first time in Leipzig in 1860 in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the composer's birth.
The work, deeply romantic although largely devoid of dazzling virtuoso moments, includes three movements that follow one another, without pause, their tempi named in German.

Movements:
00:00   Nicht du znell (not too fast)
11:25   Langsam (slow)
15:19   Sehr lebhaft (very lively)

The rendition is by the young Austrian-Iranian cellist Kian Soltani, accompanied by the SWR Symphonieorchester, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. 

Johann Stamitz, Clarinet Concerto

On one of his many trips through Central Europe to secure a position in a renowned orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart landed in Mannheim on October 30, 1777. The city enjoyed an intense musical life under the patronage of Elector Carl Theodor, and its orchestra was one of the best in Germany, so the 21-year-old Mozart's aspirations could not have been better directed. Unfortunately, despite befriending several musicians in the orchestra, including the Konzertmeister, the answer was the usual: "there was no place for him at the moment".

Mannheim School

A pity. Because if there had been "room", the famous orchestral ensemble that became a school under the title of Mannheim School could have increased its glory even more, when looking back and being able to say that among its members there was the most brilliant composer in history. 
Not so, but the German composers and musicians who wrote music for Carl Theodor's court from the middle of the 18th century until the end of the classical era, did blaze a trail. Among them, the Czech violinist and composer Johann Stamitz stands out.

Johann Stamitz, an innovator

Little is known about his life, other than he was born in Nemecky Brod (Bohemia) in mid-June 1717 and that he took lessons from his father. Whatever his path may have been, in 1742 we see him become a respected violinist in the Mannheim orchestra.

After a few years, he was appointed its conductor. It was under his leadership that the orchestra became so renowned, for the Czech composer's innovations played an important role in the development of the symphony as a genre.

Johann Stamitz (1717 - 1757)

To Johann Stamitz, for example, we owe the modern structure of the symphonic genre structured in four movements. Add to this the construction of the first movement with the structure of what later became known as "sonata form", with the first theme, second, development, and recapitulation.

Stamitz died in Mannheim very young, at the age of 39. His musician sons, Carl and Anton, will continue the task.

The oeuvre

During his short life, in addition to the obligatory sacred music, Stamitz produced about 72 symphonies, ten orchestral trios, and numerous concertos for solo instrument.
Among the latter, the Clarinet Concerto in B-flat major stands out. A large part of the original manuscripts have been lost, so it is impossible to date its composition, let alone venture a "premiere" date, other than the unknown date when Carl Theodor, the Elector, heard it for the first time.

Movements: 

(tempi are in brackets because the composer did not indicate them)

00        [Allegro] 

07:54   [Andante sostenuto]

12:04   [Rondo (Poco allegro)]

The performance is by the Chinese artist Jaehee Choi, accompanied by the New Fine Arts Project Orchestra.

Chopin, Ballade No 2 in F major

Most likely, Chopin finished the Ballade No. 2 in Majorca, while staying there in the company of George Sand and her children, in the winter of 1838-39. Or perhaps he only took care of its revision. In a letter to his friend Fontana, dated January 1839, Chopin tells him that he is sending the Ballade to Camille Pleyel, his publisher in Paris, along with a good batch of other pieces, the complete Preludes among them.

A hesitant dedication
It is well known that the work is dedicated to Robert Schumann, in retribution for the German composer's dedication to Chopin of his Kreisleriana, completed a few months earlier. Less known is that Chopin never played the work of his colleague, whose output he was reticent about, even though the generous Schumann spared no praise for almost all of Chopin's oeuvre for many years.

And truth be told, the purpose of dedicating the ballade to Schumann does not appear at all categorical or unrenounceable, as we read later in the letter to Fontana, already mentioned:

R. Schumann (1810 - 1856)

"[...] I would like my Preludes to be dedicated to Pleyel, and my Second Ballade to Schumann. Now, if Pleyel does not want to give up the dedication of the Ballade, then dedicate the preludes to Schumann..."

And the trade-off may have been for the better, for while Schumann greeted the Ballade No. 1 with fervent enthusiasm, he was somewhat less enthusiastic about the Second, which he found a bit "less artistic".

All in all, what has been pointed out should not be understood as Chopin's dislike of Schumann (which would be, on Chopin's part, at least an extravagance). It is simply that, as creators, the two artists were at antipodes, even if they were strictly contemporaries.

Chopin, young.
A painting by Ary Scheffer

Ballade No 2 in F major, opus 32
And they truly were at the antipodes, if we recall that for Chopin music was only music, unlike Schumann, who could find inspiration for musical creation in poetry. However (the perennial contradiction of a creative soul) Chopin confessed to his friend and ardent commentator that in composing the four Ballades he had taken inspiration from the reading of poems by his compatriot Adam Mickiewicz.

The "source"
For Ballade No. 2, the source poem is "Switez," which tells the story of Polish maidens from a besieged city who, to avoid falling prey to their captors, sink into the earth surrounding a lake. Turned into mysterious flowers, they adorn its shores ever since.

The piece is built on the alternation of two themes, one idyllic and the other a tempestuous burst of rapid arpeggios. The final bars evoke young girls turned into flowers.

The rendition is by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yundi Li, the youngest winner of the International Chopin Competition, in 2000, at the age of 18.

Von Weber, Overture to "Der Freischütz"

Carl Maria von Weber, cousin of Constance, Mozart's wife, was only 27 years old when he became director of the Prague Opera in 1813. He stayed there until 1817 when he went to Dresden to organize and conduct the German Opera. This task would force him to engage in a hard fight with the Italian lyric theater that in those days was monopolizing the audiences. By the way, they considered the idea of a German opera almost a contradiction in terms, despite the existing brilliant tradition of the singspiel, exemplified by Mozart's unparalleled Magic Flute.

Der Freischütz - A landmark opera
However, it was precisely under these circumstances that Weber was to compose a pivotal opera in the evolution of German dramatic music, thus paving the way for the emergence of Richard Wagner's proposal embodied in his "musical dramas" – so called by its author – thirty years later.

The opera in three acts Der Freischütz was begun on July 2, 1817, and finished on May 13, 1820. Regarded as the first German romantic opera, it premiered in Berlin in 1821 under the direction of its author, with immediate success. Shortly afterward it premiered with similar results in Vienna and Dresden.

Carl Maria von Weber

(1786 - 1826)

The Plot

True to his spirit of reading popular legends, Weber took inspiration from a very old Central European story centered on the figure of the "Freischütz", a hunter who makes a pact with the devil to obtain arrows that never miss the target, even if it is the devil himself. To the popular story, Weber added some romantic ingredients: the hunter is in love, and in his struggle to win the love of his beloved he turns to the Devil so that the girl sees him as the most skilled hunter in the whole region.

Today, the work is still performed quite regularly. And its beautiful Overture, as a concert piece, is a must for orchestral ensembles all over the world.

The Orquesta Joven (a very young one), a fraction of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, conducted by Rubén Gimeno.