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Berg, Webern: Chamber Music
Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Stefan Litwin
Berg, Webern: Chamber Music
Genre: Classical
 
In 1904, Anton Webern enrolled as a pupil in the classes given by Schoenberg at the Schwarzwald private School. He was soon joined by Alban Berg. Both young composers had already produced a number of essays in a style as y...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Stefan Litwin
Title: Berg, Webern: Chamber Music
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Disques Montaigne
Release Date: 11/18/2003
Genre: Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Instruments, Strings
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 822186820698

Synopsis

Album Description
In 1904, Anton Webern enrolled as a pupil in the classes given by Schoenberg at the Schwarzwald private School. He was soon joined by Alban Berg. Both young composers had already produced a number of essays in a style as yet unsure, but which was gradually to assert itself under the august supervision of Schoenberg. It is this period of apprenticeship and maturation which we are here given a chance to discover in the company of the Arditti Quartet, the pianist Stefan Litwin, and Thomas Kakuska, violist of the Alban Berg Quartet. In the case of Webern, the most remarkable feature is the speed with which he assimilated and transcended his master?s teaching, as is demonstrated by the works from around 1910 recorded here: from the Piano Quintet of 1907, notable for the high quality of its development, to the Three Pieces for cello and piano op.11 (1914) which, in their extraordinary concision and their virtual exploration of sound from the inside, already show the fingerprints of the fully mature composer. Berg?s development was to be a longer process, even though Schoenberg very early identified his ?extraordinary talent as a composer?. All written before the Piano Sonata op.1, the nine short pieces of 1905-08 gathered here represent the ?workshop? of the prentice composer. In their revealing demonstration of a perceptible evolution in his language, they shed precious new light on one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.
 

CD Reviews

An Enticing Taste of Early Berg and Webern
J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 12/28/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Arditti Quartet and friends performed this group of early Webern and Berg pieces for Sender Freies Berlin in 1994 and the enterprising French label, Naïve, has now issued it in their 8th CD of music from the Second Viennese School. It is a fascinating document largely because it contains very early works by those two composers written while (and shortly after) they spent several years under the tutelage of their fabled teacher, Arnold Schönberg, who insisted they master the processes of composition already formulated by predecessors like Brahms, Schumann and Wagner. The first piece here, Webern's 'Quintet for Strings and Piano, M. 118' (1907)--here the M. stands for the chronological listing catalog by American Webern scholar Hans Moldenhauer--is a one-movement work lasting fourteen minutes. Strangely (but understandably, considering how Webern's compositional style evolved) this is Webern's LONGEST piece. It is written in the convoluted hyperchromatic style, not yet atonal, reminiscent of his teacher's 'Verklärte Nacht,' and is a lush and lovely work with three discernible sections. There are some proto-Webernian touches including extremely specific and frequent dynamic markings, muted ponticello effects marked ppp and so on. But no one unfamilar with it would immediately connect it to Webern. Schönberg, Zemlinsky, Schreker yes, but not Webern. It's too prolix, too Romantic. But it is entirely entrancing. And it is, of course, played beautifully by the Arditti Quartet and pianist Stefan Litwin.Next comes 'Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7,' written in 1910. By this point Webern's style had evolved and the three pieces (played by Irvine Arditti and pianist Litwin) are characteristically gnomic and extremely terse. It is interesting to note that Schönberg's pupils did not assign an opus number to anything they wrote until he gave his approval; obviously, by the time of these three miniatures, Schönberg had long-since given the nod. TWebern's 'Cello Sonata, M. 202' (1914) and the 'Three Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 11' (also 1914) were composed simultaneously and share thematic and procedural material. However, Op. 11 (the piece given an opus number by Webern) is much more clearly in his mature style and one has the sense that the Sonata was perhaps a study for the Three Pieces. The Three Pieces, very elliptical, very enigmatic, are also very refined and somehow more atmospheric. The hair-trigger performances are by Arditti cellist Rohan de Saram and pianist Litwin. Finally we have nine short pieces (1907-1908) by Berg for various chamber combinations. They are all student pieces and would not be amiss in an all-Brahms or all-Schumann concert. They are 'String Quartet Fugue,' 'String Quartet Variations on an Original Theme,' 'Sarabande,' 'Minuet in d minor,' 'Minuet in c minor,' 'Three String Quartet Variations on a Theme by Schumann,' 'Theme and Five Variations for Violin and Piano,' 'Fugue with Two Themes for String Quintet with Piano in Continuo Style,' and 'Adagio,' the latter for string quartet. They are all highly contrapuntal; indeed they were assigned for the purpose of giving Berg practice with contrapuntal techniques and even the two minuets implement canonic and fugal procedures. They are all played lovingly, even Romantically by the Arditti Quartet and Litwin. They are joined in the next to last piece, the String Quintet with Continuo Piano, by the Alban Berg Quartet's violist, Thomas Kakuska. The total timing for this disc is rather short--40'21"--but it will be invaluable for lovers of the music of Berg and Webern and for those who are interested in investigating the influence of Schönberg as teacher. Scott Morrison"