Alban Berg’s Homage to the Past in the Violin Concerto

Daniel Huang

Boise State University

Dr. Jeanne Belfy

MUS 202 - Music Communications

November 16th, 2017

 Among the composers of the Second Viennese School, Alban Berg receives a special

spotlight that differs from that of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg and friend Anton Webern. Berg

is hailed for his combination of 12-tone, atonal writing in the vain of Schoenberg and Webern as

well as reference to tonality. This would earn Berg admiration and condemnation, but the

marriage between the old and the new gives way to the composer’s last yet powerful magnum

opus – the Violin Concerto (1935), which bears the subtitle Dem Andenken eines Engels, or In

Memory of an Angel. In this Violin Concerto, Alban Berg achieved triumph through paying

homage to tradition using musical and historical references, and perhaps determined by the will

to leave his mark in the Germanic tradition.

The Violin Concerto was born out of dire circumstances in his last few years. Though he

enjoyed great successes in the previous decade through his opera Wozzeck and Lyric Suite for

String Quartet, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party led to Berg’s work being performed

less and less in Germany as well as in his native Austria. Berg’s financial situation was

precarious at best, but it this desperate time, a commission from the American violinist Louis

Krasner came to Berg for a violin concerto. Krasner had in mind that Berg’s lyrical style could

produce a serial work that would not be cerebral, but rather be expressive. The composer was

initially reluctant about accepting the commission, as he was also working on his opera Lulu.

Berg eventually accepted it out of financial necessity, but the untimely death of Manon Gropius,

who Berg greatly adored, gave the composer further impetus he needed to compose the concerto.

The Violin Concerto would unintentionally become Berg’s swan song, when he unexpectedly

passed away in the 24th of December, 1935. The concerto was premiered posthumously in the

19th of March, 1936 in Barcelona, Spain, with Krasner as soloist.

 In looking at the structure, the concerto is unique from its predecessors in the literature.

The Violin Concerto, according to Berg biographer Mosco Carner, takes on the form of a

symphonic concerto, as pioneered by Beethoven and Brahms. Berg used a large orchestra, which

includes an expanded woodwind, brass, and percussion sections. Carner also observed how Berg

balances the dramatic and the lyrical elements in this concerto as well as balances the solo violin,

asserting “itself as a solo instrument with remarkable ease,” and the orchestra sonorities, to

show a “high degree of translucency” and always let “in enough ‘air’ into the texture.”1 Similar

to the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, the solo violin is marked by great virtuosity and

bravura, balancing with the might of the orchestra. Anthony Pople explained that Berg sought to

achieve balance between the dichotomy of the orchestra and the soloist, in contrast of the

concerto styles of his contemporaries, namely Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky.2

Berg’s Concerto would not only be in the style of a symphonic concerto, but also as a

programmatic concerto. As previously mentioned, Manon Gropius’ passing prompt Berg to

complete this concerto, and the inscription Dem Andenken eines Engels (In Memory of an

Angel) hints at the programmatic content in the piece. This work parallels with Harold in Italy

by Hector Berlioz, in that both the solo violin and solo viola serve as protagonists in their

respective piece.3 The written programme of the concerto by Berg biographer Willi Reich, which

was sanctioned by the composer himself, confirms the musical narrative about a girl’s (Manon’s)

story of life and death.4 Carner described the overall program as such: the first movement in part

one describes Manon’s loveliness and charm, while the second movement describes Manon’s

youthful energy, with its waltz rhythm and feel. The third movement in part two enters the world

1
Mosco Carner, Alban Berg: The Man and the Work (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.), 157.
2
Anthony Pople, Berg: Violin Concerto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 8.
3
Carner, Alban Berg, 155.
4
Pople, Berg, 32-33.
of pain and eventual death, and the fourth and final movement marks Manon’s soul finding its

peace.5

Berg Scholar Douglas Jarman, on the other hand, wrote that beyond the extramusical

narrative of Manon, Berg implicitly wrote the concerto for his other mistresses as well as

himself. Jarman found references suggesting Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, who was the muse behind

Berg’s Lyric Suite. Jarman noticed that Berg explicitly indicated ten bars in the introduction of

the concerto (“Introduction (10 Takte)”, as printed in the score). The number 10 was Hanna’s

number assigned by Berg, and the numbers 10 and 23 – Berg’s fate number – intertwine with

each other throughout the concerto, appearing in its pure form, multiples of themselves, and of

each other (Part II of the concerto has 230 bars in total. 230=23*10). Jarman points out that the

name Mutzi appears in the text of a Carinthian Folk Song quoted in the concerto in Part I,

Movement II. It may suggest Manon, but also Mutzi (or Mizzi, a nickname of Marie). The latter

name is Berg’s teenage mistress Marie Scheuchl, who bore the composer illegitimate daughter.6

The distinct clues of musical reminiscences to the past emerge from the Concerto. Jarman

observed that the tone row of the piece is built on overlapping major and minor triads, with a

whole-tone scale at the end.7 The implied tonalities that Berg used – G minor, D Major, A minor,

and E Major –correspond to the open strings on the violin. It is likely that this kind of tonal

implications appeal to audiences at the time of its premiere.8 Berg would take advantage of the

tonal implications in his tone-row to quote various sources, such as the Carithian Folk Song and

the Bach Chorale “Es ist Genug.”

5
Carner, Alban Berg, 160-162.
6
Douglas Jarman, “Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess and the Secret Programme of the Violin Concerto,” The Musical Times
124/1682 (April 1983), 220-222.
7
Douglas Jarman, “Alban Berg”, Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed October 11, 2017,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/02767.
8
Carner, Alban Berg, 156.
 Chris Walton also found some musical links that tie the concerto to Johannes Brahms,

specifically Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, a work Schoenberg discussed in his 1933 lecture later

dubbed Brahms the Progressive. Schoenberg, in his lecture, discussed the chain of interlocking

thirds in the opening theme of Symphony No. 4, which is similar to the use of thirds in the tone

row of Berg’s Violin Concerto. Berg may have been inspired by his former teacher’s lecture to

submit his tone-row to Schoenberg in a letter dated 28 August 1935. The letter read: “For the

whole thing, I've chosen a very fortunate row (since D major and other similar 'violin concerto'

keys are out of the question), namely: [presents tone-row]”9 Walton does acknowledge the

differences between Brahms and Berg in their use of the thirds and their intervallic qualities, but

Walton believes that it won’t work with serialism if Berg were to copy Brahms verbatim. Berg

may have taken a lead from Schoenberg’s lecture, as he had asked his former teacher for a copy

of it. Berg also would have been able to hear the lecture in 1933 through radio.10 Through his

revered teacher’s perspective and inspiration from history, Berg found a potential link to the

German tradition through Brahms’ thirds in addition to traditional tonality. With tonality and

Brahms, Berg incorporated them with serial techniques to create something unique.

The whole-tone scale that concludes the tone-row would be heard throughout the

concerto. Whole-tone writing was not common to Austro-German music in Berg’s lifetime,

compared to its usage in contemporary Russian and French music. Schoenberg, however, had

used that technique in his early works, most poignantly in Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5.11

Andrew Thomson described a section of Pelleas und Melisande, in which Schoenberg used two

downward whole-tone scales to symbolize Melisande dying of a broken heart following the
9
Chris Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg's Violin Concerto,” The Musical Times 149/1903
(Summer 2008), 82.
10
Ibid., 83.
11
Andrew Thomson, “Mélisande's sickroom and Baudelaire's angels: secret programmes in Berg's Violin Concerto,”
The Musical Times 155/1927 (Summer 2014), 56.
death of Pelleas. The downward whole-tone scales played on top of a theme in E-flat minor in

Schoenberg’s tone poem, which corresponded to Berg’s writing in the Violin Concerto, in which

the solo violin plays a downward whole-tone scale on top of the clarinets playing the Waltz

theme in the second movement.12 The connection between Melisande and Manon is strikingly

poetic. Schoenberg’s downward whole-tone scale embodies the broken Melisande as she is dying

in her room, just as Berg’s are premonitions to Manon’s tragic downfall, both in the concerto as

well as in real life. Moreover, the second whole-tone scale in Pelleas consisted of the notes B-A-

G-F, the exact notes Berg used. That whole-tone series provided a “prototype of … falling

whole-tone idea of Being towards Death — a premonition of Manon's tragic fate.”13

Berg would have been familiar with Pelleas through a thematic guide he wrote for the

tone poem in 1920.14 Previous to the Violin Concerto, Carner pointed out that Berg used it in the

first song of his Sieben Frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs), Nacht (Night).15 Although Berg may

not have intended to refer to older tradition with his whole-tone passage, Berg may have found

an inspiration in the way his former teacher used the whole tone. Schoenberg’s evocation of

mortality in Pelleas using whole-tones may have given Berg the model to evoke Manon’s

encounter and submission with death. Berg’s whole-tones – echoing those of his teacher –

provided a more poetic resonance to his tragic narrative for Manon.

Another of Berg’s historical allusions is his quotation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale

“Es ist Genug” from his Cantata No. 60 “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” (O Eternity, You Word of

Thunder), the opening notes of which corresponded to the last notes of Berg’s tone-row. Carner

noted the correspondence between the two was coincidental, according to Berg’s letter to
12
Ibid., 56.
13
Ibid., 57.
14
Carner, Alban Berg, 300.
15
Ibid., 96.
Schoenberg in 28 August 1935, and the Bach quotation came after. Achim Fiedler, however,

found a letter from Berg to Schoenberg dated 10 April 1914, in which Berg described about a

concert of Bach cantatas he attended. The program of that concert included “O Ewigkeit du

Donnerwort”.16 The title of this cantata, Fiedler noted, even appeared as a footnote in the score of

the Violin Concerto, where the chorale melody first appeared in its full quotation in the second

movement. Fiedler’s evidences proved that Berg had “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” in his mind at

the time of composition.17 Fiedler further argued that though 20 years passed since that Bach

concert and the concerto, the same context applies to Wozzeck and Lulu – the gap between the

dates Berg saw the plays by Büchner and Wedekind respectively, and when Berg began setting

those plays to operas.18

Walton noticed the similar treatments of Bach quotations taken in both Symphony No. 4

by Brahms and the Violin Concerto by Berg. Fifty years prior to the Berg concerto, Brahms also

referred to a Bach Cantata in his final movement of his Fourth Symphony. Walton observed that

both Brahms and Berg’s quotations share a similar rising contour, and they incorporated them

into a set of variations; Brahms composed a Passacaglia on his Bach theme, while Berg wrote

two “Chorale Variations” on his. The similarities are striking – The Passacaglia by Brahms

begins on an E, and so does the chorale melody in the first Chorale Variation by Berg. Both

composers used their themes as cantus firmi that “is sounded in different registers — at times in

the bass, at others in the treble.”19

16
Arthur Fiedler, “Is This Enough?: Achim Fiedler Introduces Another Twist in the Berg Violin Concerto Story”, The
Musical Times 134/1806 (Aug 1993), 444.
17
Ibid., 445.
18
Ibid., 444-445.
19
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 83.
 Berg would have known the Passacaglia of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony through his

composition lessons with Schoenberg, as the Brahms would “have featured in Schoenberg's

composition classes for even longer.” The model for Passacaglia, Op. 1 by Webern is likely

drawn on the model of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.20 Berg even incorporated the Passacaglia in

his opera Wozzeck, in the scene with Wozzeck and the Doctor (Act 1, Scene 4).21 Brahms’

kindred spirit may indeed be close to Berg’s mind, as Carner noted that the Bergs bought a house

which they would call the Waldhaus (Wooden House in German) near Velden on the Wőrthersee

in August 1932.22The Waldhaus was close to the house where Brahms composed his Violin

Concerto and Symphony No. 2, and Berg enunciated this fact, even mentioning Brahms by

name, in his letter to Krasner in April 1935. Berg wrote that he will “compose ‘our’ violin

concerto by the banks of the Wörthersee (diagonally across from Pörtschach where the violin

concerto of Brahms was written).”23 Brahms’ Fourth Symphony seemed to have provided a

spring of compositional ideas for Berg, in addition to the aforementioned interlocking thirds.

Berg may have looked to Brahms for inspiration when setting the Bach quotation. I believe, on

the other hand, that Berg paid homage to the German masters, J. S. Bach and Brahms, through

quoting and borrowing from their music and compositional technique.

The form Berg used in the final movement of the Violin Concerto also recalls another

work by his contemporary: the Second Violin Sonata in E minor by Ferruccio Busoni. As if

foreshadowing Berg’s concerto 30 years before, Busoni used an uncannily similar structure and

technique in the third movement of his sonata. The opening of the chorale melody “Wie wohl ist

mir” (How Good I Feel) by Bach is hinted at in the opening of the sonata’s third movement, and

20
Ibid., 81-82.
21
Carner, Alban Berg, 190.
22
Ibid., 77.
23
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 84.
the full chorale melody appears in the piano. After the chorale melody is presented, first in the

piano and then the violin, Busoni follows it with seven variations of the chorale melody, which

includes an “Alia Marcia, a brilliant perpetual mobile for the violin; an Andante…and a final

fugue which begins serenely and achieves a monumental build-up.”24

The Busoni sonata and the Berg concerto almost mirror each other; the final movements

of both works follow a movement of drama and conflict, hints of the Bach chorale before the full

quotation, variations set on the quoted melody, and reaching a climax towards the end. Thomson

notices a certain “fortuitous correspondence between the two works” on a personal level, as both

works were intended as in Memoriam to friends of the composers – Busoni dedicated the Second

Sonata to the late violinist Ottokar Nováček, and Berg eulogized Manon in the Violin Concerto.25

It is still speculative as to whether Berg was influenced by the Busoni Second Sonata, but

regardless both movements are strikingly similar. Busoni’s form and intent must have inspired

Berg to adopt the former’s model in order to further express his sorrows for Manon more

effectively.

In the last moment of the concerto, the whole ensemble concludes unexpectedly tonal on

a triadic chord. Berg, however, added a chordal sixth to the final chord. Many scholars agreed

that it was a reference to Gustav Mahler, specifically the ending of Das Lied von der Erde.26

Mahler was a favorite composer of Berg. The poetic context in this Mahler reference would

definitely have resonated in Berg’s mind, as the chord appears with the final word “ewig”

(German: forever).27 Robert P. Morgan, however, extended this reference to another source

24
Thomson, “Melisande’s Sickroom”, 62.
25
Ibid., 61.
26
Carner, Alban Berg, 162.
27
David Gable and Robert P. Morgan, ed, Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives (New York, Oxford
University Press New York, 1991), 148.
personal for Berg – Friedrich Nietzsche. Berg greatly admired the works of Nietzsche, and the

Violin Concerto embodies the Nietzschean belief of an “eternal return.” The quotation of Bach’s

Es ist genug embodies the Nietzschean return of tradition, namely tonality. The “dissolution of

traditional tonality” in the concerto reaches a “partial reaffirmation” when the Bach chorale

appears in full quotation with harmonizations by both Bach and Berg.28 The poetic resonance in

the references to Mahler and Nietzsche made the concerto even more profound at multiple levels,

and the ending’s reference creates both musical and philosophical links to the past.

Manon loomed large over Berg’s mind as he was composing the concerto, but the force

of circumstances at that time would have influenced him as well. The rise of Hitler in the 1930s

brought severe burdens onto Berg financially and musically. The Nazi party declared that it

intended to liberate Germany of “cultural bolshevism,” which Berg was unfairly conflated with.

The premiere of his recent opera, Lulu, would not take place in Germany.29 In May 1933 (the

100th birthday of Brahms), Berg complained to his wife Helene that the conductor Wilhelm

Furtwangler declared in a speech that Brahms was the last composer of the Austro-German

music tradition, thus shunning the Second Viennese School.30 In 1935, the Austrian Education

Minister dealt Berg a severe blow when the former announced a list of composers deemed truly

native enough to be performed in the Vienna Festwochen. Berg was shunned from the festival,

which compelled him to write to his friends: “…after fifty years which I spent in my native city

without interruption, [I] am not a native composer.”31 Berg was essentially made a persona non

grata by the political forces in his homeland.

28
Ibid.
29
Carner, Alban Berg, 78.
30
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg”, 84.
31
Carner, Alban Berg, 83.
 Despite his bitterness, Berg was far from submitting to the force of politics. Jarman states

that in this time of personal and political turmoil, the references of the Austro-German tradition

in Berg’s Violin Concerto is, in twofold, the composer’s artistic and personal statement against

the “narrow nationalism which denied him and other composers a place in their tradition” and a

quasi-tone poem about Manon.32 Walton agrees that Berg’s concerto is an artistic rebuttal against

the Fascist ideals. This music was an “act of affirmation that the Schoenberg circle was not only

situated in the German tradition, but was flourishing proof of its continuance” in the time when

Berg was bullied by Nazism.33 Berg wrote a letter to the conductor Erich Kleiber in 29 May 1934

on his opera Lulu, in which the composer firmly stated that he himself is a “German composer

and an Aryan.”34 I believe that Berg did intend these references in the Violin Concerto as links to

the German music tradition. These are not mere references, but statements proclaiming that the

Second Viennese School deserved a place in the continuum of German music.

Alban Berg never saw his Violin Concerto publically performed or even heard a single

note played, and he never experienced the triumph his concerto enjoyed. Despite it all, Berg’s

Violin Concerto became a milestone of the Second Viennese repertoire, helping to affirm the

Second Viennese School a place in the musical tradition. Berg successfully set about reaching to

the past with his references from previously used forms and ideas, and moreover combining

them with modern techniques. Forms like the symphonic concerto and “chorale variations,” ideas

like traditional tonality and motives, and the quotations and references to composers like Bach,

Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Busoni all culminate together as Berg’s personal and cultural

statement against the repressive politics of his country lead on by Fascism. It is,

programmatically, an in memoriam not only to Manon as well as Berg’s mistresses, but also to
32
Jarman, “Alban Berg”.
33
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg”, 85.
34
Carner, Alban Berg, 78.
tradition. I agree with Louis Krasner that Berg’s lyrical and expressive style can defy the

expectations of critics of the Second Viennese School. However, I really believe that Berg’s

references to the past in the Violin Concerto make themselves loud and clear that tradition has a

place in the Second Viennese School, and the Second Viennese School’s music has a place in

our musical tradition.

 Bibliography

Berg, Alban. Violinkonzert. Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag W. Ph. V. 537. Vienna-London:

Universal Edition, 1996.

Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Holmes &
Meier, 1983.

Fiedler, Achim. "Is This Enough?: Achim Fiedler Introduces Another Twist in the Berg Violin
Concerto Story." The Musical Times 134, no. 1806 (1993): 444-45.

Gable, David, and Robert P. Morgan, eds. Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives.
New York: Oxford University, 1991.

Jarman, Douglas. "Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess and the Secret Programme of the Violin
Concerto." The Musical Times 124, no. 1682 (1983): 218-23.

Jarman, Douglas. "Berg, Alban." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press, accessed October 11, 2017.

Pople, Anthony. Berg: Violin Concerto. Cambridge Music Handbooks. New York, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Thomson, Andrew. "Mélisande's Sickroom and Baudelaire's Angels: Secret Programmes in

Berg's Violin Concerto." Musical Times 155, no. 1927 (Summer 2014): 55-69.

Walton, Chris. “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg’s Violin Concerto.” Musical
Times 149, No. 1903 (Summer 2008): 81-86.