The Legendary Live Berg Concerto, 1936

Alban Berg and Anton Webern

Not long ago I wrote about the first commercial recording of the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, written shortly before his death in 1935. The soloist was Louis Krasner, who had commissioned the work. Artur Rodziński conducted the Cleveland Orchestra.

The concerto's premiere had taken place in April 1936 in Barcelona, with Krasner and the Pau Casals Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen conducting. Berg's colleague Anton Webern, the other member of the Second Viennese School along with Arnold Schönberg, had been scheduled to lead the orchestra, but he withdrew. Some sources say he was sick, others that he was overcome with emotion at the loss of Berg. But Anthony Pople, author of a book on the concerto, says that the truth was more nuanced:

Webern’s emotional involvement with Berg's last score undermined the rehearsals from the start ... he found it impossible to communicate his precise wishes to the musicians, and became nervous and angry. After the third and final rehearsal he locked himself in his hotel room, saying that the performance could not take place.

Finally he did relinquish the score, and Scherchen took over the premiere, successfully.

Louis Krasner

The concerto's second performance, in London on May 1, 1936 with the BBC Symphony before an invited audience with Webern conducting, was smoother. Pople wrote, "Webern redeemed himself by his musicianship: according to Krasner, 'Webern was the inspirational Master on the conductor’s podium, the orchestra was at one with him and the performance became a Devotion for all.'"

Fortunately, this performance was recorded on acetate discs for Krasner. Those discs are the source of a transfer that was issued many years ago . Unfortunately, that recording is ill-balanced, off pitch and very noisy. My friend David Federman asked if I could ameliorate these problems, which I have tried to do, with some success. Some background noise remains, but the balance is much better and I believe the pitch is correct.

As I wrote in my previous post: "Berg had some difficulty writing [the work], but soon, grieving over the loss of a family friend, young Manon Gropius, the daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler, he wrote his famous concerto, which he dedicated to 'Dem Andenken eines Engels' ('The Memory of an Angel')." It was to become one of the defining works of the 20th century.

Manon Gropius

Addendum: here is David's eloquent response to this post:

You've extracted the best sonics from this extraordinary performance that I will ever hear. I had just listened to a live performance of the concerto with Klaus Tennstedt conducting the New York Philharmonic with Shlomo Mintz, which is the most analytic and clearly detailed performance I have ever heard. Indeed, he treats it as a tone poem rather than concerto. But Krasner is a far, far superior soloist and makes this the best playing of the work from a soloist standpoint I have ever heard. However, Tennstedt's interpretation is revelatory, especially in the last part where he makes it clear that the work is a collaboration between Bach and Berg. Every note refers to that chorale. But there is far greater drama to Webern's performance. Indeed, the emotional intensity is gripping, even overwhelming at times. To Webern, this is, in essence, a tragic work. Soloist, conductor and orchestra are in total synch. The transition into the chorale is exquisite. Those woodwinds sound like an organ. And Webern never lets us forget Bach's presence, even when Berg has his great outburst of grief. But the darkness of that moment never lifts under Webern's baton. I don't hear Krasner reach for the high notes Berg wrote at the end. I wonder if he just couldn't play them or he and Webern decided to let the orchestra say the Amen. In any case, this performance reminds me I am listening to a work by the writer of "Lulu." Thanks again for supplying it. It needs to be heard and cherished.

First Recordings: the Berg and Schönberg Violin Concertos, and More

Two of the most notable 20th century violin concertos were commissioned by the same instrumentalist, Louis Krasner, within a year or two of one another, during his relatively brief period as a soloist before he went into orchestra work and then teaching.

The composers were two of the three leading lights of the Second Viennese School. One, Alban Berg, produced a work that is noted for its intense beauty and emotion. Arnold Schönberg's concerto is mainly famed for its difficulty - although it too is intensely emotional.

Louis Krasner

Krasner (1903-95) was born in Russia but moved to the US as a child. A New England Conservatory graduate and veteran of engagements in Europe, he commissioned Berg's concerto when he was just 32. Berg had some difficulty writing it, but soon, grieving over the loss of a family friend, young Manon Gropius, the daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler, he wrote his famous concerto, which he dedicated to "Dem Andenken eines Engels" ("The Memory of an Angel"). It was to be the last work Berg completed before his own death.

Manon Gropius

Krasner premiered the work in Barcelona in 1936, following Berg's death. The concert was to have been conducted by the third member of the Schonberg circle, Anton Webern, but in the event Hermann Scherchen led the orchestra. Krasner then took the work to London for a private concert with the BBC Symphony and Webern. That performance was recorded for the violinist and has appeared on record, albeit in fairly poor sound. In fact, I had refurbished a dub of that version, and old friend David Federman asked me if I would present it here. I'm waiting for a better copy of the release to arrive and then should be able to do so.

Alban Berg

In the meantime, this post contains the first recording of the work, also performed by Krasner, with the Cleveland Orchestra and its then music director, Artur Rodziński, in 1940. It's quite a good performance, acclaimed upon its initial release on 78s and then on LP in 1954, when it was coupled with the Schönberg concerto, which Krasner had premiered in 1940 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski. The Schönberg recording was in 1952 with the New York Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos.

C.J. Luten wrote in the American Record Guide: "The Berg concerto is a master's masterpiece: Krasner (for whom the work was written) and Rodziński give a devoted performance... It is intensely serious, deeply felt, and beautiful of sound. It also has an expressive coherence uncommon among the works of the Viennese dodecaphonists. 

Artur Rodziński

"How different is the force of Berg's concerto compared with Schönberg’s (written in 1935 a year before the former). The Schönberg concerto (superbly performed and recorded) is deadly serious, darkly emotional, intensely intricate, and fiendish to play. Its expression is, however, ever so ambiguous; and its tortured invention ever so difficult to follow."

Not every critic was as baffled by the Schönberg. Arthur Berger, himself a leading composer, took to the Saturday Review and blithely opined: "I wonder if the unwarranted intellectual processes so often attributed now to the contemporary composer are not really, in many cases, in the mind of the listener - the calculated effort, namely, that we must exert in any new and challenging situation, whether it is the apartment we have just rented, the new route we take to drive to the country, or the strange language in which we order dinner abroad." Oh, OK.

Arnold Schönberg

Berger goes on to dismiss the Berg concerto as an comfortable piece: "[I]f its emotional appeal now seems thoroughly patent it is because, to start with, its moods were not particularly elusive - pervasive languor and desolateness gently fluctuating - and it is also because we no longer need exert ourselves much to grasp the idiom in which they are embodied."

Meanwhile, he faults the Schönberg because he "failed to use reason as a check upon feelings so abundant and intense that they overflowed the bounds of judicious form. Thus, instead of the impact of a well-unified structure, we carry away the memory of some lucid and imaginative scoring and of the tenuous quality of such passages as the approach to the first cadenza and the Mahleresque opening of the andante. Few details of the Berg are of such rarefied beauty."

The last words go to Alfred Frankenstein of High Fidelity: "[The Schönberg concerto] is colossally difficult for the soloist and almost equally difficult for the supporting ensemble and for the hearer, but what comes out of this collaboration is one of the most devastatingly dramatic symphonic compositions of the twentieth century. The Berg concerto, on the other hand, is a lyric work. As everyone knows, it was composed as a requiem for a young girl, and its mood is one of exaltation and ethereal expressiveness. No better contrast between Schönberg and Berg could be provided, especially since the performances are uniquely authoritative and masterly. Fine recording, too."

Dimitri Mitropoulos and Louis Krasner following a 1954 performance of the Schönberg concerto in Munich, courtesy of Alexandros Rigas

Louis Krasner was to go on to become the concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony from 1944 to 1949, during Mitropoulos' tenure there, and then a teacher at Syracuse University and the New England Conservatory. His lasting legacy is commissioning these two masterworks and several other notable compositions, including concertos by Alfredo Casella and Roger Sessions, and shorter works by Henry Cowell and Roy Harris.

A word about the LP cover: The 1930 drawing by Paul Klee is titled, "Ausgang der Narren," that is, procession of fools or jesters. It is may be an ironic depiction of carnival time, or it may be an oblique commentary on politics, but it is not related to the music. It is, however, preferable to the cover below.

Schönberg's Erwartung

In 2014 I posted another Schönberg work, his 1909 Expressionist monodrama Erwartung (Expectation), with soprano Dorothy Dow and again the New York Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos. I've now reworked the sound on that recording, which is backed by Ernst Křenek's Symphonic Elegy (In Memory of Anton von Webern), while greatly expanding the commentary.

Dimitri Mitropoulos

There, too, I quote Arthur Berger: "Erwartung stems from an intermediate period separating Schoenberg’s frankly post-Wagnerian stage from his ultimate crystallization of twelve-tone technique. The Tristanesque contours evocative of love-death and frustration had not yet been subjected to the compression and abstraction that makes them, in his later music [e.g., the Violin Concerto], barely recognizable as such."

The work is not easy listening. C.J. Luten: "Erwartung is shocking, violent, and more than a little morbid. It concerns a mature woman, who, upon taking a midnight stroll through the forest, runs into the dead body of her lover. The words of the play are the thoughts which occur to the protagonist throughout the 25-minute course of action."

If this intrigues you, please do visit the original post for more information. The download link is both there and in the comments to this post.