Alban Berg and His World (ebook)

Argumento de Alban Berg and His World (ebook)

Alban Berg and His World is a collection of essays and source material that repositions Berg as the pivotal figure of Viennese musical modernism. His allegiance to the austere rigor of Arnold Schoenberg's musical revolution was balanced by a lifelong devotion to the warm sensuousness of Viennese musical tradition and a love of lyric utterance, the emotional intensity of opera, and the expressive nuance of late-Romantic tonal practice.

The essays in this collection explore the specific qualities of Berg's brand of musical modernism, and present newly translated letters and documents that illuminate his relationship to the politics and culture of his era. Of particular significance are the first translations of Berg's newly discovered stage work Night (Nocturne), Hermann Watznauer's intimate account of Berg's early years, and the famous memorial issue of the music periodical 23. Contributors consider Berg's fascination with palindromes and mirror images and their relationship to notions of time and identity; the Viennese roots of his distinctive orchestral style; his links to such Viennese contemporaries as Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold; and his attempts to maneuver through the perilous shoals of gender, race, and fascist politics.

The contributors are Antony Beaumont, Leon Botstein, Regina Busch, Nicholas Chadwick, Mark DeVoto, Douglas Jarman, Sherry Lee, and Margaret Notley.

Bard Music Festival:

Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
August 13-15, 2010 and August 20-22, 2010

"[This collection] should be welcomed . . . as one of the most important and perceptive books on Berg to appear for many years."--Nicholas Baragwanath, Music and Letters

"These translations alone make this a valuable contribution to our understanding of Berg the man as well as to Berg the composer."--Contemporary Review0Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Permissions and Credits xv
Berg's Worlds 3
CHRISTOPHER HAILEY
Hermann Watznauer's Biography of Alban Berg 33
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY NICK CHADWICK
A Descriptive Overview of Berg's Night/Nocturne 91
INTRODUCTION BY REGINA BUSCH
TRANSLATED, EDITED, AND WITH COMMENTARY BY CHRISTOPHER HAILEY
Berg and the Orchestra 133
ANTONY BEAUMONT
" . . . deinen Wuchs wie Musik": Portraits, Identities, and 163
the Dynamics of Seeing in Berg's Operatic Sphere
SHERRY D. LEE
"Remembrance of things that are to come": Some Reflections 195
on Berg's Palindromes
DOUGLAS JARMAN
1934, Alban Berg, and the Shadow of Politics: Documents 223
of a Troubled Year
INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATIONS, AND COMMENTARY BY MARGARET NOTLEY
Alban Berg zum Gedenken: The Berg Memorial Issue of 269
23: A Viennese Music Journal
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY MARK DEVOTO
Alban Berg and the Memory of Modernism 299
LEON BOTSTEIN
Index 345
Notes on the Contributors 359