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Critical Analysis - Berg Violin Concerto
Critical Analysis - Berg Violin Concerto
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 use of the 12-tone method and atonal writing like Schoenberg and Webern, but
unlike Schoenberg and Webern, Berg could be as tonal-sounding as he could be serial and
atonal. He was both admired and despised by generations after him for his blend of
dodecaphonic writing and traditional mindset. The marriage between the old and the new in
Berg’s music gives way to his last yet powerful magnum opus – the Violin Concerto (1935). In
the Violin Concerto, Alban Berg achieved his greatest triumph through the way he paid his
homage to tradition by using musical and historical references and perhaps by his will to leave
The Violin Concerto was born out of dire circumstances. In the last few years of his life,
Berg’s financial situation was precarious at best. Though he enjoyed great successes in the
previous decade with the opera Wozzeck and the 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 and
Austria. It was in this struggling time that a commission came to Berg from the American
violinist Louis Krasner for a violin concerto. Krasner came specifically to Berg with the idea that
Berg’s lyrical style could produce a serial work that would be expressive, not cerebral. Berg was
rather reluctant at first about the commission, and he only accepted it out of financial necessity.
However, the death of Manon Gropius, who Berg greatly adored, gave Berg the impetus he
needed to compose the concerto. The Violin Concerto became Berg’s swan song when he passed
away in the 24th of December, 1935, and his concerto was premiered posthumously in the 19th of
concerto literature. The Violin Concerto, according to Berg biographer Mosco Carner, takes on
the form of a symphonic concerto as pioneered by Beethoven and Brahms. Carner mentioned the
large instrumentation Berg used for the orchestra, which has an expanded woodwind, brass, and
percussion sections. Carner also observed how Berg balances the dramatic and the lyrical in this
concerto, and the balance between the solo violin, asserting “itself as a solo instrument with
remarkable ease,” and the orchestra sonorities, showing a “high degree of translucency” and
always let “in enough ‘air’ into the texture.”1 As in the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, the
solo violin in the Berg Concerto is marked by great virtuosity and bravura, which helps in
balancing with the might of the orchestra. Anthony Pople shares this viewpoint, as he explains
that Berg sought to achieve balance between the dichotomy of the orchestra and the soloist, in
contrast of the concerto styles of his contemporaries like Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor
Stravinsky.2
Not only is the Berg Concerto in a manner of a symphonic concerto, but also doubles as a
program concerto. It was Manon Gropius’ passing that really motivated 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. Carner also found parallel between the Berg Violin
Concerto and works like Harold in Italy by Hector Berlioz, which both the solo violin and solo
viola serve as protagonists in the two programmatic pieces.3 In a written programme of the
concerto by Berg biographer Willi Reich and sanctioned by the composer himself, it confirms
the programme about a girl’s (Manon’s) story of life and death.4 Carner described the concerto’s
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.
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 of pain and eventual death, and the final
Berg Scholar Douglas Jarman, on the other hand, wrote that beyond the extramusical
narrative of Manon, Berg implicitly wrote for his other mistresses also and as well as for himself.
Jarman found references that suggest Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, who is most famously the muse
behind Berg’s Lyric Suite. Berg, as noticed by Jarman, explicitly indicated ten bars in the
introduction of the concerto (“Introduction (10 Takte)”). The number 10 represented Hanna for
Berg, and in the concerto the number 10 and 23 – Berg’s fate number – intertwine with each
other, appearing in its pure form, multiples of themselves and 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
the quoted Carinthian Folk Song, and though in popular belief it represents Manon, Mutzi (or
Mizzi, a nickname of Marie) referred to Berg’s teenage mistress Marie Scheuchl, who had an
Moving beyond the structure of the concerto, there are couple of distinct clues of musical
reminiscences to the past, the first of which is the tone-row which permeates the concerto. Berg
scholar Douglas Jarman observed that the tone row is built on overlapping major and minor
triads, and it finishes on a whole-tone scale.7 The implied tonalities that Berg used, G minor, D
Major, A minor, and E Major, also correspond with the open strings on the violin.8 It is likely
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.
that the tonal implications appeal to the audience.9 Berg took advantage of the tonal implications
to allude to various sources, such as the Carithian Folk Song and the Bach Chorale “Es ist
Genug.”
Chris Walton also found musical links in the Berg concerto that tie to Brahms. In
Symphony No. 4 by Brahms, a work Walton mentioned that Schoenberg discussed in his 1933
lecture dubbed by many as Brahms the Progressive, Schoenberg discussed the chain of
interlocking thirds in the opening theme, which is similar to Berg’s use of thirds in the tone row
of his Violin Concerto. Berg may have been inspired by his former teacher’s lecture to submit
the tone-row of his Violin Concerto to Schoenberg in a letter dated 28 August 1935. The letter
also 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]”10 Walton
does acknowledge the differences between the intervallic qualities of the thirds used by Brahms
and Berg, but he believes that it won’t work in the rules of serialism for Berg if he were to copy
Brahms by the same exact interval. Berg may have, as noted by Walton, taken the lead from
Schoenberg’s lecture, as he had asked his former teacher for a copy and Berg may have heard the
lecture in 1933.11 The way Brahms presented his series of thirds in the opening of his Fourth
Symphony may have presented Berg a model for his tone-row. Through the perspective of his
revered teacher, Berg found a potential link to the German tradition through Brahms’ thirds in
addition to the reference to traditional tonality. Together with tonality and Brahms, Berg
9
Ibid., 156.
10
Chris Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg's Violin Concerto,” The Musical Times 149/1903
(Summer 2008), 82.
11
Ibid., 83.
The whole-tone scale in the last few notes of the tone-row also foreshadows the whole-
tone passages that are throughout the concerto. Whole-tones were not common to Austro-
German music even in the 1930s as compared to the Russian and French music in Berg’s
lifetime. Schoenberg, however, had adopted it in his early works, such as the tone poem Pelleas
und Melisande, Op. 5.12 Andrew Thomson found that in a section of Pelleas und Melisande,
Schoenberg used two downward whole-tone scales in describing Melisande dying of a broken
heart after Pelleas was killed. The downward whole-tone scales played on top of a theme in E-
flat minor are similar to Berg’s writing in the second movement of the Violin Concerto, where
the solo violin plays a downward whole-tone scale on top of the clarinets playing the Waltz
theme.13
Schoenberg’s downward whole-tone scale embodies the broken Melisande as she is dying in her
room, and Berg’s serves as premonitions to Manon’s tragic downfall 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,
which gave Berg the “prototype of … falling whole-tone idea of Being towards Death — a
premonition of Manon's tragic fate.”14 The striking similarity between Pelleas und Melisande and
the Violin Concerto could hardly be a coincidence, as Berg himself wrote a thematic guide to
Schoenberg’s tone poem in 1920.15 Whole-tone writing is not new to Berg, as Carner pointed out
that the composer used it in the first song of his Sieben Frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs), Nacht
(Night).16 Although it may note be a reference to older tradition, Berg may have found an
12
Andrew Thomson, “Mélisande's sickroom and Baudelaire's angels: secret programmes in Berg's Violin Concerto,”
The Musical Times 155/1927 (Summer 2014), 56.
13
Ibid., 56.
14
Ibid., 57.
15
Carner, Alban Berg, 300.
16
Ibid., 96.
inspiration in the way his teacher Schoenberg used the whole tone. Especially via Pelleas,
Schoenberg’s evocation of mortality using whole-tones may have given Berg the model to evoke
Manon’s encounter with death. Berg’s whole-tones – echoing those of his teacher – provided a
more poetic resonance to his tragic narrative for Manon the way that Schoenberg had done for
Melisande.
Another of Berg’s allusions to tradition is his quotation of the chorale “Es ist Genug”
from the Cantata No. 60 “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” (O Eternity, You Word of Thunder) by J.
S. Bach. The opening notes of the chorale also happen to correspond with the last notes of Berg’s
tone-row, which Carner notes was coincidental, according to Berg’s letter to Schoenberg in 28
August 1935, and the Bach quotation came later. Achim Fiedler, however, disagreed with Carner
about Berg’s quotation of Bach being a coincidence, as he discovered something in Berg’s letter
to Schoenberg in 10 April 1914. Berg told Schoenberg in the 10 April 1914 letter about a concert
of Bach Cantatas he attended, which included “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort”.17 The title of this
cantata, Fiedler noted, even appeared in a footnote in the score of the Violin Concerto where the
chorale melody first appeared in its full quotation, thus proving his argument that Berg already
had “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” in mind at the time of composition.18 Fiedler argued that even
though 20 years passed since that Bach concert and when Berg composed 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.19
Walton noticed the similar treatments of Bach quotations taken by both Brahms and Berg
in the final movements of Symphony No. 4 and the Violin Concerto respectively. Fifty years
17
Arthur Fiedler, “Is This Enough?: Achim Fiedler Introduces Another Twist in the Berg Violin Concerto Story”, The
Musical Times 134/1806 (Aug 1993), 444.
18
Ibid., 445.
19
Ibid., 444-445.
before the Berg concerto, Brahms also referred to a Bach Cantata in his final symphony. Walton
observed that both Brahms and Berg’s Bach quotations shares a similar rising contour. Both
Passacaglia on his Bach theme, while Berg wrote two “Chorale Variations” on his. The
similarity, Walton asserts, 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.”20
Berg was probably acquainted with the Passacaglia of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony since
his student years, as the Passacaglia would “have featured in Schoenberg's composition classes
for even longer.” Walton pointed out that the model of the Passacaglia, Op. 1 by Webern is
likely drawn on the model of the aforementioned Brahms Symphony.21 Berg even incorporated
the Passacaglia in his opera Wozzeck, in the scene with Wozzeck and the Doctor (Act 1, Scene
4).22 Brahms may indeed be close on Berg’s mind, as Carner noted that the Bergs bought a house
they would call the Waldhaus (Wooden House in German) near Velden on the Wőrthersee in
August 1932.23The Waldhaus was close to the house where Brahms composed his Violin
Concerto and Symphony No. 2, and Berg even enunciated this fact and mentioned Brahms by
name in his letter to Krasner in April 1935, in which 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).”24 Brahms’ Fourth Symphony seemed to have provided
more ideas for Berg, in addition to the aforementioned interlocking thirds. When setting the Bach
20
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 83.
21
Ibid., 81-82.
22
Carner, Alban Berg, 190.
23
Ibid., 77.
24
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 84.
theme. Berg may have looked to Brahms for ideas. I believe, on the other hand, that Berg
The form Berg used in the final movement of the Violin Concerto also recalls an earlier
work by a contemporary of Berg: the Second Violin Sonata in E minor by Ferruccio Busoni. As
if predicting Berg’s concerto 30 years before, Busoni used a very similar structure and idea in the
third movement of his sonata. Thomson noticed that the opening of the chorale melody “Wie
wohl ist mir” (How Good I Feel) by Bach is hinted at in the beginning of the third movement,
and the full chorale melody appears in the piano. After the chorale melody is presented in the
piano and then the violin, Busoni proceeds with seven variations of the chorale, which are made
of an “Alia Marcia, a brilliant perpetual mobile for the violin; an Andante…and a final fugue
The Busoni Sonata and the Berg Concerto almost mirror each other; the final movements
of both works follow a movement of drama and power, the quotation of Bach chorales and how
the chorale melody is hinted at before the full quotation, variations set on the quoted melody, and
a climax reached towards the end. Thomson also notices a certain “fortuitous correspondence
between the two works” on a personal level. Both works serve as in Memoriam to friends of the
composers – Busoni dedicated the Second Sonata to the late violinist Ottokar Nováček, and Berg
paid tributes to Manon in the Violin Concerto.26 Though it is still speculative as to whether Berg
looked for inspiration in the Busoni Second Sonata, both movements by the two composers are
strikingly similar, which further suggest that Berg has the Busoni Sonata in mind as he wrote his
concerto. Busoni’s form and intent must have inspired Berg to adopt the former’s model to
chord, however, Berg added a sixth to the triad. This final chord is agreed by many scholars as a
reference to a composer Berg greatly revered – Mahler, specifically the ending of Das Lied von
der Erde.27 The poetic context in this Mahler reference must have resonated in Berg’s mind, as
the chord appears with the final word “ewig” (German: forever).28 This point of reference to
Mahler is agreed by many Berg scholars, but Robert P. Morgan extended this reference to
another source that is quite personal for Berg – Friedrich Nietzsche. Berg greatly admired the
work of Nietzsche, and the Berg Violin Concerto, according to Morgan, embodies the
Nietzschean belief of an “eternal return.” The quotation of Bach’s Es ist genug is a quotation that
also embodies the Nietzschean return of tradition, specifically 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.29 Using the quotation of
Mahler, in addition to Bach, Berg created new links to the past not only musically but also
philosophically. The poetic resonance in the references to Mahler and Nietzsche made the
The subject of Manon loomed large over Berg as he was composing the concerto, but the
force of circumstances at that time may also have influenced him. The rise of Hitler in the 1930s
brought on severe burden for Berg financially and musically. The Nazi party declared on the
onset that Germany was to be free of “cultural bolshevism,” which Berg was unfairly conflated
with, and the premiere of his latest opera, Lulu, would not take place in Nazi Germany.30 In May
1933 (the 100th birthday of Brahms), he complained to his wife Helene that the conductor
27
Carner, Alban Berg, 162.
28
David Gable and Robert P. Morgan, ed, Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives (New York, Oxford
University Press New York, 1991), 148.
29
Ibid.
30
Carner, Alban Berg, 78.
Wilhelm Furtwangler declared in a speech that Brahms was the last composer of the German
music tradition, thus ignoring the Second Viennese School.31 Carner noted that in 1935, the
Austrian Education Minister dealt Berg a severe blow when he announced a list of composers
deemed truly native to be performed in the Vienna Festwochen, and Berg was not included. The
composer subsequently wrote this to his friends: “…after fifty years which I spent in my native
city without interruption, [I] am not a native composer.”32 For Berg, his income started to dry up.
His music was deemed not worthy by his own country, and he was made a persona non grata by
As much as he was bitter, Berg was far from capitulating to the force of politics. Jarman
states that at this time of personal and political strife, the references of the Austro-German
tradition in his Violin Concerto is Berg’s artistic and personal statement against the “narrow
nationalism which denied him and other composers a place in their tradition” as well as a quasi-
tone poem about Manon.33 Walton believes that Berg’s concerto is not only a rebuttal, but a
personal “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.34 Berg wrote a letter to the conductor Erich Kleiber in 29 May 1934 on his opera Lulu.
The composer firmly states in the letter that he himself is a “German composer and an Aryan.”35
I believe that Berg did intend these references in the Violin Concerto as links to the German
music tradition. These references, whether musical like classical tonality or historical as in the
Bach Chorale, serve as his personal and musical argument that the Second Viennese School has a
note played. He never experienced the triumph his concerto enjoyed. Despite it all, Berg’s Violin
Concerto became a milestone of the Second Viennese repertoire, and helped 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 form and ideas and moreover combining them with
elements of the new. Forms like the symphonic concerto and “chorale variations,” ideas like
traditional tonality, and the quotations of composers like Bach and Mahler all culminate together
as Berg’s personal and cultural statement against the hate-baiting politics of his time. They also
serve as his in memoriam to what he cherished the most, including Manon, his mistresses, and
tradition of music. I agree with Louis Krasner, who believed Berg’s lyrical and expressive style
can defy the expectations of critics to the Second Viennese School. Beyond Krasner, however, I
really believe that Berg’s references to the past in the Violin Concerto make it clear that tradition
has a place in the Second Viennese School, and the Second Viennese School’s music has a place
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.
Walton, Chris. “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg’s Violin Concerto.” Musical
Times 149, No. 1903 (Summer 2008): 81-86.