Alban Berg's concerto for violin and orchestra "Dem Andenken eines Engels" performed by violin soloist Frank-Peter Zimmermann and the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Marek Janowski on Dec. 18, 2021 at the Kölner Philharmonie.
Alban Berg - Violin Concerto "To the Memory of an Angel".
00:00:00 I. Andante - Allegro
00:11:00 II. Allegro - Adagio
Marek Janowski, conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin
WDR Symphony Orchestra
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○ Introduction to the work
As so often, the truth lies in the middle - also with regard to the supposedly strict innovations of the circle around Arnold Schönberg. The master of twelve-tone music himself confessed, "I do not attach so much importance to being a musical peasant as to being a natural continuator of properly understood, good, old tradition!" By this, Schönberg meant above all the structure of the music he created. His master student Alban Berg also saw himself in the line of tradition from Viennese Classicism to Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. He wrote to a friend: "We remain incorrigible romantics! My new violin concerto confirms it again".
And this violin concerto is not simply one among many. It stands out as a solitaire: compositionally, structurally, in terms of content and biographically. The reason for Berg to write it was at first almost prosaic, the frequently recurring old story: financier:commissioned - a masterpiece is created. Berg's financial situation in 1935 was precarious. After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, his music was banned there and no royalties were paid. In February of that year, in the middle of working on his opera "Lulu," he received an inquiry from Louis Krasner, a self-confident American violinist in his early thirties. First-class trained in the USA and in Europe, Krasner was particularly committed to the avant-garde.
A deal was quickly reached. Berg was to deliver a violin concerto by the deadline of October 31; contractually agreed playing time: 20 minutes, fee: 1,500 U.S. dollars. A tightly scheduled undertaking. To concentrate on his work, Alban Berg first retreated into nature, also in agreement with tradition, as he wrote to Krasner - to Lake Wörthersee, "diagonally opposite Pörtschach, where Brahms' Violin Concerto was written.
The thoughts and ideas quickly sprouted. And soon it is clear: the work will have not three, but two movements, each subdivided into two parts with, according to Berg, the basic characters "Frei, Fröhlich, Fromm, Frisch". Alban Berg, then - not only a romantic, but also a filou with a sense of humor. In this animated phase of disposition, fate strikes: on April 22, 1935, the 18-year-old Manon Gropius, a daughter of Alma Mahler-Werfel, dies of the consequences of polio. Berg was particularly fond of this young woman and decided to dedicate his violin concerto to her as a requiem. He wrote to his grieving mother: "I will not try to find words in letters where language fails. One day, from a score that will be dedicated to the memory of an angel, you may hear what I feel and for which I cannot find an expression today.
(Text: Otto Hagedorn)