Fanfare Reviews
from March/April 1979

Reviews: Berg

BERG: Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Wind Instruments; Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5; Sonata for Piano, Op. 1. Daniel Barenboim, piano; Pinchas Zukerman, violin; Antony Pay, clarinet; Ensemble InterContemporain, conducted by Pierre Boulez (in Concerto). DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2531 007, produced by Günther Breest, $8.98.

This superb sampling of chamber works by Alban Berg presents a developmental view of the composer. The Piano Sonata, composed in 1907, was the first publication resulting from Berg's composition studies with Arnold Schoenberg. It is a highly romantic and lush--almost over-ripe--work in one long movement, with its roots clearly in the post-Romantic harmonic tradition. The writing is thick and very rhapsodic, with extremes of dynamic range, a great deal of rubato phrasing, and frenetic climaxes. The Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, composed some six years later, reveal how completely Berg has moved away from those lush textures to a new style, one that is spare, transparent, marked by brevity. Yet Berg's basically romantic approach can be perceived in the lyrical melodies that arch out in the clarinet, and in the tonal-sounding chords of the piano accompaniment.

Finally, there is the Chamber Concerto, completed in 1925, a full-fledged masterpiece following on the heels of Wozzeck. This is a highly complex work, based thematically on a musical motto combining the musical notes from the names of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg; its many extra-musical associations (i.e., a literary motto "Alter guten Dinge" ["All good things"] ) suggest the possibility of a hidden "programme" along the lines of the one recently discovered for the Lyric Suite. Formally the Concerto is in three traditional movements, put together using traditional structural devices such as sonata form, variations, etc. Within this framework Berg employs all sorts of other structural elements characteristically used by the Viennese school of which he was a part: a tone row, inversion, retrograde inversion, canon, and so on. These elements cannot readily be heard; what impresses the listener, however, is that overlaying the complexity of the work is its warmth and beauty, its rhythmic charm, and its use of instrumental color. The first movement features the piano soloistically, the second the violin, and the third-movement Rondo brings together the entire ensemble (which, incidentally, includes two horns, trumpet, and trombone along with a full complement of woodwinds).

The performances are examplary. Daniel Barenboim continues to impress with his musical versatility and intelligence; his expressive, warmly sonorous piano tone is perfectly suited to the Sonata, and in the clarinet pieces he interacts beautifully with Antony Pay, the excellent clarinetist. Under Boulez's admirable conducting, the Chamber Concerto is given a reading marked by absolute precision, rhythmic suppleness, and what appears to be a perfect instrumental balance. DG's engineering must be credited with wonderfully full and bright sound, entirely free of surface noise.

This recording is a must for any library in which 20th-century music is represented.

Susan Kagan

Copyright © 1979 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 2, No. 4 (March/April 1979), pages 36-37. This article reviews the LP version of the Chamber Concerto performance included on Deutsche Grammophon 447 405. 

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