For Berg fans

[Rach3]

The Violin Concerto, Janine Jansen,Daniel Harding,Swedish Radio Symphony, live at Concertgebouw Nov.14,2018 :

https://www.nporadio4.nl/concerten/8413 ... -beethoven


Then decided to re- hear his Piano Sonata , found Maria Yudina (?!) , a 1964 recording, Harmonia Mundi cd ( mine Zimerman ) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqE5By_69OY

[Belle]

I heard within the last days Berg's "Seven Early Songs" with the Berliner Philharmoniker. I didn't recognize the name of the soprano (the same one who sang Ravel's "Sheherazade" on the same program) and thought these were wonderful songs. I have a fondness for the work of Alban Berg. His Piano Sonata is a particular favourite.

[maestrob]

I heard within the last days Berg's "Seven Early Songs" with the Berliner Philharmoniker. I didn't recognize the name of the soprano (the same one who sang Ravel's "Sheherazade" on the same program) and thought these were wonderful songs. I have a fondness for the work of Alban Berg. His Piano Sonata is a particular favourite.

I'll have to explore the Piano Sonata. The only piece by Berg that moves me is his Violin COncerto, which is fiendishly difficult to bring off properly, although today's younger generation seem to have the technical chops. Heifetz, TMK, never attempted it, and it wasn't until I heard Itzakh Perlman w. Ozawa that thee piece made sense to me. I once heard Harnoncourt conduct Vienna in Carnegie Hall with a famous violinist who simply did not have the chops to play it: the orchestra was exquisite, but the solo was not.

[jbuck919]

I heard within the last days Berg's "Seven Early Songs" with the Berliner Philharmoniker. I didn't recognize the name of the soprano (the same one who sang Ravel's "Sheherazade" on the same program) and thought these were wonderful songs. I have a fondness for the work of Alban Berg. His Piano Sonata is a particular favourite.

I'll have to explore the Piano Sonata. The only piece by Berg that moves me is his Violin COncerto, which is fiendishly difficult to bring off properly, although today's younger generation seem to have the technical chops. Heifetz, TMK, never attempted it, and it wasn't until I heard Itzakh Perlman w. Ozawa that thee piece made sense to me. I once heard Harnoncourt conduct Vienna in Carnegie Hall with a famous violinist who simply did not have the chops to play it: the orchestra was exquisite, but the solo was not.

The only piece that moves me by many composers is their violin concerto, but that is a bit beside the point. Only the Lord God knows why this particular kind of composition brought out almost uniquely the excellence in composers like Sibelius. Surely, as a vocal person, b., you appreciate Wozzeck, and as the artistic director of the Paris opera said some years ago, Lulu is the last opera in the standard repertory, and that won't change this year either.

Like you, I have to listen to the sonata, which I had never heard before, to make an evaluation. Schoenberg once said of his two famous pupils that it was everything he could do to get them to compose something besides Lieder. Berg himself said something like, "When I am composing I feel as great as Beethoven, but afterward I realize that I am only about as good as Bizet."

[Belle]

For some inexplicable reason these 'second Viennese school' works always sound better for me in live performances! In my case, I first heard Berg's Piano Sonata in the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2011 with Helene Grimaud (sight-reading!!). And I have an excellent performance on CD with Pollini. The live experience of the Sibelius Violin Concerto brought that work to life for me, with Leonidas Kavakos (twice in 2015, but with different conductors).

Here's the Berg Sonata with Grimaud (the same year I saw her):

This is a lushly romantic work, if ever there was one!! A short work, and a look back over the composer's shoulders to Scarlatti's great one-movement keyboard sonatas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3InKmrbXm_Y

And here's a much earlier recording of the work from Maria Yudina, complete with score if anybody wants to read it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqE5By_69OY

[Rach3]

The only piece that moves me by many composers is their violin concerto, but that is a bit beside the point. Only the Lord God knows why this particular kind of composition brought out almost uniquely the excellence in composers like Sibelius.

The Sibelius VC is my fav VC. John Adams' VC my fav work of his. The Janine Jansen live performance linked here demonstrates she has the chops necessary for the Berg VC. Berg's Piano Sonata is approx. 10 minutes long.

[John F]

The most beautiful and moving performance I've heard of the Berg concerto was by Midori with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff. That was 20 years ago and while she still plays it now and then, she has never recorded it - a great pity.

[maestrob]

The most beautiful and moving performance I've heard of the Berg concerto was by Midori with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff. That was 20 years ago and while she still plays it now and then, she has never recorded it - a great pity.

Yes, Midori would do the Berg very well, I agree. The only recording of hers I dislike is with Zubin Mehta in the Dvorak, made when she was still a wunderkind, and that's due to Mehta's harsh & dry orchestra and unfeeling conducting.

Hugh Wolff is/was a vastly underrated conductor, IMHO, and the New Jersey Symphony under his direction could produce some lovely sounds.

[John F]

Like Alan Gilbert (and John Harbison, John Adams, and others), Hugh Wolff was conductor of Harvard's Bach Society Orchestra, a chamber ensemble whose repertoire wasn't limited to Bach. Considering that Harvard then had no courses or teachers in musical performance, and the BSO's conductors were undergraduates and self-starters, selected by the players, that's a remarkable record. Yo-Yo Ma played in the orchestra while an undergraduate.