“Alban Berg’s Homage to the Past in the Violin Concerto”

Daniel Huang

Dr. Jeanne Belfy

Music 202 - Music Communications

November 16th, 2017

 Among the composers of the Second Viennese School, Alban Berg receives a special

spotlight that differs from that of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg and friend Anton Webern. Berg

is hailed for his use of the 12-tone method and atonal writing like Schoenberg and Webern, but

unlike Schoenberg and Webern, Berg could be as tonal-sounding as he could be serial and

atonal. He was both admired and despised by generations after him for his blend of

dodecaphonic writing and traditional mindset. The marriage between the old and the new in

Berg’s music gives way to his last yet powerful magnum opus – the Violin Concerto (1935). In

the Violin Concerto, Alban Berg achieved his greatest triumph through the way he paid his

homage to tradition by using musical and historical references and perhaps by his will to leave

his mark in the Germanic tradition.

The Violin Concerto was born out of dire circumstances. In the last few years of his life,

Berg’s financial situation was precarious at best. Though he enjoyed great successes in the

previous decade with the opera Wozzeck and the Lyric Suite for String Quartet, the rise of Adolf

Hitler and the Nazi Party led to Berg’s work being performed less and less in Germany and

Austria. It was in this struggling time that a commission came to Berg from the American

violinist Louis Krasner for a violin concerto. Krasner came specifically to Berg with the idea that

Berg’s lyrical style could produce a serial work that would be expressive, not cerebral. Berg was

rather reluctant at first about the commission, and he only accepted it out of financial necessity.

However, the death of Manon Gropius, who Berg greatly adored, gave Berg the impetus he

needed to compose the concerto. The Violin Concerto became Berg’s swan song when he passed

away in the 24th of December, 1935, and his concerto was premiered posthumously in the 19th of

March, 1936 in Barcelona, Spain.

 In taking a look at the structure, the concerto is unique from its predecessors in the

concerto literature. The Violin Concerto, according to Berg biographer Mosco Carner, takes on

the form of a symphonic concerto as pioneered by Beethoven and Brahms. Carner mentioned the

large instrumentation Berg used for the orchestra, which has an expanded woodwind, brass, and

percussion sections. Carner also observed how Berg balances the dramatic and the lyrical in this

concerto, and the balance between the solo violin, asserting “itself as a solo instrument with

remarkable ease,” and the orchestra sonorities, showing a “high degree of translucency” and

always let “in enough ‘air’ into the texture.”1 As in the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, the

solo violin in the Berg Concerto is marked by great virtuosity and bravura, which helps in

balancing with the might of the orchestra. Anthony Pople shares this viewpoint, as he explains

that Berg sought to achieve balance between the dichotomy of the orchestra and the soloist, in

contrast of the concerto styles of his contemporaries like Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor

Stravinsky.2

Not only is the Berg Concerto in a manner of a symphonic concerto, but also doubles as a

program concerto. It was Manon Gropius’ passing that really motivated Berg to complete this

concerto, and the inscription “Dem Andenken eines Engels” (In Memory of an Angel) hints at

the programmatic content in the piece. Carner also found parallel between the Berg Violin

Concerto and works like Harold in Italy by Hector Berlioz, which both the solo violin and solo

viola serve as protagonists in the two programmatic pieces.3 In a written programme of the

concerto by Berg biographer Willi Reich and sanctioned by the composer himself, it confirms

the programme about a girl’s (Manon’s) story of life and death.4 Carner described the concerto’s

1
Mosco Carner, Alban Berg: The Man and the Work (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.), 157.
2
Anthony Pople, Berg: Violin Concerto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 8.
3
Carner, Alban Berg, 155.
4
Pople, Berg, 32-33.
overall program as such: the first movement in part one describes Manon’s loveliness and charm,

while the second movement describes Manon’s youthful energy, with its waltz rhythm and feel.

The third movement in part two enters the world of pain and eventual death, and the final

movement marks Manon’s soul finding its peace.5

Berg Scholar Douglas Jarman, on the other hand, wrote that beyond the extramusical

narrative of Manon, Berg implicitly wrote for his other mistresses also and as well as for himself.

Jarman found references that suggest Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, who is most famously the muse

behind Berg’s Lyric Suite. Berg, as noticed by Jarman, explicitly indicated ten bars in the

introduction of the concerto (“Introduction (10 Takte)”). The number 10 represented Hanna for

Berg, and in the concerto the number 10 and 23 – Berg’s fate number – intertwine with each

other, appearing in its pure form, multiples of themselves and each other (Part II of the concerto

has 230 bars in total. 230=23*10). Jarman points out that the name Mutzi appears in the text of

the quoted Carinthian Folk Song, and though in popular belief it represents Manon, Mutzi (or

Mizzi, a nickname of Marie) referred to Berg’s teenage mistress Marie Scheuchl, who had an

illegitimate daughter with Berg.6

Moving beyond the structure of the concerto, there are couple of distinct clues of musical

reminiscences to the past, the first of which is the tone-row which permeates the concerto. Berg

scholar Douglas Jarman observed that the tone row is built on overlapping major and minor

triads, and it finishes on a whole-tone scale.7 The implied tonalities that Berg used, G minor, D

Major, A minor, and E Major, also correspond with the open strings on the violin.8 It is likely

5
Carner, Alban Berg, 160-162.
6
Douglas Jarman, “Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess and the Secret Programme of the Violin Concerto,” The Musical Times
124/1682 (April 1983), 220-222.
7
Douglas Jarman, “Alban Berg”, Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed October 11, 2017,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/02767.
8
Carner, Alban Berg, 156.
that the tonal implications appeal to the audience.9 Berg took advantage of the tonal implications

to allude to various sources, such as the Carithian Folk Song and the Bach Chorale “Es ist

Genug.”

Chris Walton also found musical links in the Berg concerto that tie to Brahms. In

Symphony No. 4 by Brahms, a work Walton mentioned that Schoenberg discussed in his 1933

lecture dubbed by many as Brahms the Progressive, Schoenberg discussed the chain of

interlocking thirds in the opening theme, which is similar to Berg’s use of thirds in the tone row

of his Violin Concerto. Berg may have been inspired by his former teacher’s lecture to submit

the tone-row of his Violin Concerto to Schoenberg in a letter dated 28 August 1935. The letter

also read: “For the whole thing, I've chosen a very fortunate row (since D major and other

similar 'violin concerto' keys are out of the question), namely: [presents tone-row]”10 Walton

does acknowledge the differences between the intervallic qualities of the thirds used by Brahms

and Berg, but he believes that it won’t work in the rules of serialism for Berg if he were to copy

Brahms by the same exact interval. Berg may have, as noted by Walton, taken the lead from

Schoenberg’s lecture, as he had asked his former teacher for a copy and Berg may have heard the

lecture in 1933.11 The way Brahms presented his series of thirds in the opening of his Fourth

Symphony may have presented Berg a model for his tone-row. Through the perspective of his

revered teacher, Berg found a potential link to the German tradition through Brahms’ thirds in

addition to the reference to traditional tonality. Together with tonality and Brahms, Berg

incorporated them with serial techniques to create something unique.

9
Ibid., 156.
10
Chris Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg's Violin Concerto,” The Musical Times 149/1903
(Summer 2008), 82.
11
Ibid., 83.
 The whole-tone scale in the last few notes of the tone-row also foreshadows the whole-

tone passages that are throughout the concerto. Whole-tones were not common to Austro-

German music even in the 1930s as compared to the Russian and French music in Berg’s

lifetime. Schoenberg, however, had adopted it in his early works, such as the tone poem Pelleas

und Melisande, Op. 5.12 Andrew Thomson found that in a section of Pelleas und Melisande,

Schoenberg used two downward whole-tone scales in describing Melisande dying of a broken

heart after Pelleas was killed. The downward whole-tone scales played on top of a theme in E-

flat minor are similar to Berg’s writing in the second movement of the Violin Concerto, where

the solo violin plays a downward whole-tone scale on top of the clarinets playing the Waltz

theme.13

The connection between Melisande and Manon is striking in a poetic context.

Schoenberg’s downward whole-tone scale embodies the broken Melisande as she is dying in her

room, and Berg’s serves as premonitions to Manon’s tragic downfall in the concerto as well as in

real life. Moreover, the second whole-tone scale in Pelleas consisted of the notes B-A-G-F,

which gave Berg the “prototype of … falling whole-tone idea of Being towards Death — a

premonition of Manon's tragic fate.”14 The striking similarity between Pelleas und Melisande and

the Violin Concerto could hardly be a coincidence, as Berg himself wrote a thematic guide to

Schoenberg’s tone poem in 1920.15 Whole-tone writing is not new to Berg, as Carner pointed out

that the composer used it in the first song of his Sieben Frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs), Nacht

(Night).16 Although it may note be a reference to older tradition, Berg may have found an

12
Andrew Thomson, “Mélisande's sickroom and Baudelaire's angels: secret programmes in Berg's Violin Concerto,”
The Musical Times 155/1927 (Summer 2014), 56.
13
Ibid., 56.
14
Ibid., 57.
15
Carner, Alban Berg, 300.
16
Ibid., 96.
inspiration in the way his teacher Schoenberg used the whole tone. Especially via Pelleas,

Schoenberg’s evocation of mortality using whole-tones may have given Berg the model to evoke

Manon’s encounter with death. Berg’s whole-tones – echoing those of his teacher – provided a

more poetic resonance to his tragic narrative for Manon the way that Schoenberg had done for

Melisande.

Another of Berg’s allusions to tradition is his quotation of the chorale “Es ist Genug”

from the Cantata No. 60 “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” (O Eternity, You Word of Thunder) by J.

S. Bach. The opening notes of the chorale also happen to correspond with the last notes of Berg’s

tone-row, which Carner notes was coincidental, according to Berg’s letter to Schoenberg in 28

August 1935, and the Bach quotation came later. Achim Fiedler, however, disagreed with Carner

about Berg’s quotation of Bach being a coincidence, as he discovered something in Berg’s letter

to Schoenberg in 10 April 1914. Berg told Schoenberg in the 10 April 1914 letter about a concert

of Bach Cantatas he attended, which included “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort”.17 The title of this

cantata, Fiedler noted, even appeared in a footnote in the score of the Violin Concerto where the

chorale melody first appeared in its full quotation, thus proving his argument that Berg already

had “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort” in mind at the time of composition.18 Fiedler argued that even

though 20 years passed since that Bach concert and when Berg composed the concerto, the same

context applies to Wozzeck and Lulu – the gap between the dates Berg saw the plays by Büchner

and Wedekind respectively, and when Berg began setting those plays to operas.19

Walton noticed the similar treatments of Bach quotations taken by both Brahms and Berg

in the final movements of Symphony No. 4 and the Violin Concerto respectively. Fifty years
17
Arthur Fiedler, “Is This Enough?: Achim Fiedler Introduces Another Twist in the Berg Violin Concerto Story”, The
Musical Times 134/1806 (Aug 1993), 444.
18
Ibid., 445.
19
Ibid., 444-445.
before the Berg concerto, Brahms also referred to a Bach Cantata in his final symphony. Walton

observed that both Brahms and Berg’s Bach quotations shares a similar rising contour. Both

composers incorporated their Bach quotations in a set of variations; Brahms composed a

Passacaglia on his Bach theme, while Berg wrote two “Chorale Variations” on his. The

similarity, Walton asserts, are striking. The Passacaglia by Brahms begins on an E, and so does

the chorale melody in the first Chorale Variation by Berg. Both composers used their themes as

cantus firmi “that is sounded in different registers — at times in the bass, at others in the

treble.”20

Berg was probably acquainted with the Passacaglia of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony since

his student years, as the Passacaglia would “have featured in Schoenberg's composition classes

for even longer.” Walton pointed out that the model of the Passacaglia, Op. 1 by Webern is

likely drawn on the model of the aforementioned Brahms Symphony.21 Berg even incorporated

the Passacaglia in his opera Wozzeck, in the scene with Wozzeck and the Doctor (Act 1, Scene

4).22 Brahms may indeed be close on Berg’s mind, as Carner noted that the Bergs bought a house

they would call the Waldhaus (Wooden House in German) near Velden on the Wőrthersee in

August 1932.23The Waldhaus was close to the house where Brahms composed his Violin

Concerto and Symphony No. 2, and Berg even enunciated this fact and mentioned Brahms by

name in his letter to Krasner in April 1935, in which Berg wrote that he will “compose ‘our’

violin concerto by the banks of the Wörthersee (diagonally across from Pörtschach where the

violin concerto of Brahms was written).”24 Brahms’ Fourth Symphony seemed to have provided

more ideas for Berg, in addition to the aforementioned interlocking thirds. When setting the Bach
20
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 83.
21
Ibid., 81-82.
22
Carner, Alban Berg, 190.
23
Ibid., 77.
24
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg,” 84.
theme. Berg may have looked to Brahms for ideas. I believe, on the other hand, that Berg

borrowed from Brahms as homage to the German Romantic master.

The form Berg used in the final movement of the Violin Concerto also recalls an earlier

work by a contemporary of Berg: the Second Violin Sonata in E minor by Ferruccio Busoni. As

if predicting Berg’s concerto 30 years before, Busoni used a very similar structure and idea in the

third movement of his sonata. Thomson noticed that the opening of the chorale melody “Wie

wohl ist mir” (How Good I Feel) by Bach is hinted at in the beginning of the third movement,

and the full chorale melody appears in the piano. After the chorale melody is presented in the

piano and then the violin, Busoni proceeds with seven variations of the chorale, which are made

of an “Alia Marcia, a brilliant perpetual mobile for the violin; an Andante…and a final fugue

which begins serenely and achieves a monumental build-up.”25

The Busoni Sonata and the Berg Concerto almost mirror each other; the final movements

of both works follow a movement of drama and power, the quotation of Bach chorales and how

the chorale melody is hinted at before the full quotation, variations set on the quoted melody, and

a climax reached towards the end. Thomson also notices a certain “fortuitous correspondence

between the two works” on a personal level. Both works serve as in Memoriam to friends of the

composers – Busoni dedicated the Second Sonata to the late violinist Ottokar Nováček, and Berg

paid tributes to Manon in the Violin Concerto.26 Though it is still speculative as to whether Berg

looked for inspiration in the Busoni Second Sonata, both movements by the two composers are

strikingly similar, which further suggest that Berg has the Busoni Sonata in mind as he wrote his

concerto. Busoni’s form and intent must have inspired Berg to adopt the former’s model to

further express his sorrows for Manon.

25
Thomson, “Melisande’s Sickroom”, 62.
26
Ibid., 61.
 The concerto finishes, rather surprisingly, on a tonal chord. Instead of an ordinary triadic

chord, however, Berg added a sixth to the triad. This final chord is agreed by many scholars as a

reference to a composer Berg greatly revered – Mahler, specifically the ending of Das Lied von

der Erde.27 The poetic context in this Mahler reference must have resonated in Berg’s mind, as

the chord appears with the final word “ewig” (German: forever).28 This point of reference to

Mahler is agreed by many Berg scholars, but Robert P. Morgan extended this reference to

another source that is quite personal for Berg – Friedrich Nietzsche. Berg greatly admired the

work of Nietzsche, and the Berg Violin Concerto, according to Morgan, embodies the

Nietzschean belief of an “eternal return.” The quotation of Bach’s Es ist genug is a quotation that

also embodies the Nietzschean return of tradition, specifically tonality. The “dissolution of

traditional tonality” in the concerto reaches a “partial reaffirmation” when the Bach chorale

appears in full quotation with harmonizations by both Bach and Berg.29 Using the quotation of

Mahler, in addition to Bach, Berg created new links to the past not only musically but also

philosophically. The poetic resonance in the references to Mahler and Nietzsche made the

concerto even more profound.

The subject of Manon loomed large over Berg as he was composing the concerto, but the

force of circumstances at that time may also have influenced him. The rise of Hitler in the 1930s

brought on severe burden for Berg financially and musically. The Nazi party declared on the

onset that Germany was to be free of “cultural bolshevism,” which Berg was unfairly conflated

with, and the premiere of his latest opera, Lulu, would not take place in Nazi Germany.30 In May

1933 (the 100th birthday of Brahms), he complained to his wife Helene that the conductor
27
Carner, Alban Berg, 162.
28
David Gable and Robert P. Morgan, ed, Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives (New York, Oxford
University Press New York, 1991), 148.
29
Ibid.
30
Carner, Alban Berg, 78.
Wilhelm Furtwangler declared in a speech that Brahms was the last composer of the German

music tradition, thus ignoring the Second Viennese School.31 Carner noted that in 1935, the

Austrian Education Minister dealt Berg a severe blow when he announced a list of composers

deemed truly native to be performed in the Vienna Festwochen, and Berg was not included. The

composer subsequently wrote this to his friends: “…after fifty years which I spent in my native

city without interruption, [I] am not a native composer.”32 For Berg, his income started to dry up.

His music was deemed not worthy by his own country, and he was made a persona non grata by

the political forces.

As much as he was bitter, Berg was far from capitulating to the force of politics. Jarman

states that at this time of personal and political strife, the references of the Austro-German

tradition in his Violin Concerto is Berg’s artistic and personal statement against the “narrow

nationalism which denied him and other composers a place in their tradition” as well as a quasi-

tone poem about Manon.33 Walton believes that Berg’s concerto is not only a rebuttal, but a

personal “act of affirmation that the Schoenberg circle was not only situated in the German

tradition, but was flourishing proof of its continuance” in the time when Berg was bullied by

Nazism.34 Berg wrote a letter to the conductor Erich Kleiber in 29 May 1934 on his opera Lulu.

The composer firmly states in the letter that he himself is a “German composer and an Aryan.”35

I believe that Berg did intend these references in the Violin Concerto as links to the German

music tradition. These references, whether musical like classical tonality or historical as in the

Bach Chorale, serve as his personal and musical argument that the Second Viennese School has a

place in the continuum of German music.

31
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg”, 84.
32
Carner, Alban Berg, 83.
33
Jarman, “Alban Berg”.
34
Walton, “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg”, 85.
35
Carner, Alban Berg, 78.
 Alban Berg never saw his Violin Concerto publically performed or even heard a single

note played. He never experienced the triumph his concerto enjoyed. Despite it all, Berg’s Violin

Concerto became a milestone of the Second Viennese repertoire, and helped affirm the Second

Viennese School a place in the musical tradition. Berg successfully set about reaching to the past

with his references from previously used form and ideas and moreover combining them with

elements of the new. Forms like the symphonic concerto and “chorale variations,” ideas like

traditional tonality, and the quotations of composers like Bach and Mahler all culminate together

as Berg’s personal and cultural statement against the hate-baiting politics of his time. They also

serve as his in memoriam to what he cherished the most, including Manon, his mistresses, and

tradition of music. I agree with Louis Krasner, who believed Berg’s lyrical and expressive style

can defy the expectations of critics to the Second Viennese School. Beyond Krasner, however, I

really believe that Berg’s references to the past in the Violin Concerto make it clear that tradition

has a place in the Second Viennese School, and the Second Viennese School’s music has a place

in our musical tradition.

 Bibliography

Berg, Alban. Violinkonzert. Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag W. Ph. V. 537. Vienna-London:

Universal Edition, 1996.

Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. 2nd ed. New York, New York: Holmes &
Meier, 1983.

Fiedler, Achim. "Is This Enough?: Achim Fiedler Introduces Another Twist in the Berg Violin
Concerto Story." The Musical Times 134, no. 1806 (1993): 444-45.

Gable, David, and Robert P. Morgan, eds. Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives.
New York: Oxford University, 1991.

Jarman, Douglas. "Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess and the Secret Programme of the Violin
Concerto." The Musical Times 124, no. 1682 (1983): 218-23.

Jarman, Douglas. "Berg, Alban." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press, accessed October 11, 2017.

Pople, Anthony. Berg: Violin Concerto. Cambridge Music Handbooks. New York, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Thomson, Andrew. "Mélisande's Sickroom and Baudelaire's Angels: Secret Programmes in

Berg's Violin Concerto." Musical Times 155, no. 1927 (Summer 2014): 55-69.

Walton, Chris. “Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg: Marginalia on Berg’s Violin Concerto.” Musical
Times 149, No. 1903 (Summer 2008): 81-86.