Violin Concerto
Alban Berg
Born: February 9, 1885, Vienna, Austria
Died: December 24, 1935, Vienna, Austria
Year Composed: 1935
Length: c. 22 minutes 
World Premiere: April 1936, Barcelona, Spain
Last ISO Performance: March 2022 with conductor Hans Graf and soloist Sarah Chang
Instrumentation: 2 flutes both doubling piccolo, 2 oboes and English horn, 3 clarinets, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings

There are two major catalysts for Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto: much pleading from the commissioning violinist, and the unfortunate death of a beloved family friend. 

Louis Krasner, the violinist, appreciated Berg’s 1910 Piano Sonata for its expressive qualities. Krasner approached Berg about writing a violin concerto, leaving the composer flummoxed. Berg lamented that concerto writing was simply not in his wheelhouse, and he was sure that anything he wrote could not compare to Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski, Romantic composers who had both added significant works to the violin repertory. Ultimately, a reluctant Berg accepted Krasner’s commission and began work on the Violin Concerto in the spring of 1935. 

Just months after beginning work on the Violin Concerto, Alban Berg was devastated by the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, who succumbed to polio. While not blood related, Berg was closely connected to Manon through her family. Her mother, Alma Mahler-Werfel—widow of composer Gustav Mahler—had long been part of Berg’s social and artistic circle. Manon was the daughter of Alma’s second husband, architect Walter Gropius, and by the 1930s, Berg had become a trusted family friend, especially after Alma’s third marriage to writer Franz Werfel. Berg’s private affair with Werfel’s sister, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, further deepened his ties to the family. Only 18 years old at the time of her death, Manon had a shining vocal career ahead of her that would never come to fruition. Dismayed and shaken by her passing, Berg recognized an opportunity to memorialize Manon in the Concerto. The score of the Violin Concerto bears two dedications: “To Louis Krasner,” as well as a line paying homage to work’s true dedicatee: “To the Memory of an Angel.” It would be Berg’s final completed composition; he died later that year, in December 1935, from complications following a wasp sting.

Part of Berg’s initial hesitation to write the work was that he felt his 12-tone compositional style did not lend itself to the concerto form. Krasner convinced Berg that only he could write serialist music that was still lyrical and expressive, relinquishing 12-tone music from the overly academic stereotype of being “all brain, no heart.” Krasner was absolutely correct; the concerto includes moments of beautiful chorales, Bach-inspired counterpoint, and conversation between orchestral sections all while remaining strictly loyal to a set series of 12 pitches: G, B-flat, D, F-sharp, A, C, E, G-sharp, B, C-sharp, E-flat, and F. 

The order of these pitches proves exceedingly important. The open strings of a violin are G D A E, and Berg’s pitch set allows chromaticism to wind its way in and out of the natural resonance of the instrument with breathtaking nuance. The concerto is in two parts and requires masterful playing by the soloist and orchestral musicians alike. Clarinet and harp are prominent in the ghostly introduction of open fifths, which create a sense of harmonic vacancy. Later, the orchestra grows to spiral around the violin solo, creating an atmosphere of calculated confusion.  The not-always-tonal, not-always-dissonant soundscape is distinctive of Berg, and ultimately the Violin Concerto ends as it began: open fifths (now in the low strings), a final whisper of how the concerto began.