A few notes on Berg' s Violin Concerto
There have been some quite unespected enthusiastic responses to posts I have published containing the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg.
This reaction has prompted me to say something about it, in order in part to try and put my love for this work in words, and also to do some expectation management about it. I have made as honest an effort as I could muster to put this in words, but mine is a non-specialist' s opinion so take it for what it's worth (which means: forgive me if what you' ll read is utterly dumb, ignorant, superficial or obvious).
Berg' s concerto is indeed an impervious mountain to climb (here I only talk about the listening experience, but it also has a reputation of being extremely hard to play), at least for people like me who have a more than vague liking for music but no formal education in musical theory, composition etc.
But it' s worth the effort.
From the point of view of your listening experience (the hedonistic one) I can assure you that: 1) maybe you can' t get to its very heart without a formal music background, but you can definitely get beneath its skin 2) once you do, you' ll find moments of drama and poetry which are the equal of any of the great moments in the history of westen music (the 'Erbarme Dich' or the 'Wir Setzen uns', the Andante of Mozart' s Sinfonia Concertante, the fugato in the Eroica' s Marcia Funebre, the last movement of Brahms' s 4th symphony, the Adagio of Mahler' s 10th symphony).
Then there' s the more "serious reason" for getting to know it.
Berg' s concerto is an attempt, in a form which has been a less noble peer than its more theorethical brothers and sisters (the symphony, masses, oratoria and opera) to establish a large scope narrative with the breadth of, say, Bach' s Passions. Something that the concerto hadn' t seen before, at least to my knowledge, being intended as it was as an entertainment form (which often tends towards virtuosistic display and, therefore, to superficial exhibitionism rather than depth of conception). Berg does this while exploring the new territory Schoenberg had opened, but in a very original way.
A way which also tried to provide an answer to what everyone who listened to dodecaphonic music then was asking himself and which, in my opinion, was whether this new language was just a sort of a sterile abstraction, or whether a new language able to express feelings, tell stories etc. could be built with this new grammar. Whether sooner or later music would have had to revert to its old ways or whether life would still be possible (and maybe even more interesting) in a world where dissonance is no longer a scandal. Ultimately: whether breaking the chains of tonalism would end up being a gain or a loss.
Berg proves that the atonal principles can be put to such a use that no way impedes music the expression of feelings, and elevates the concerto (as a form) to an unprecedented level, that of the deepest question mankind faces: the reflection on death, the whence and where to of our existences.
EAC / .ape (img. + .cue)
