Conductor
Violin, Viola
Piano
Flute
Flute
Oboe
Oboe
Clarinet
Clarinet
Basset Horn
Bassoon
Bassoon
French Horn
French Horn
Trumpet
Trombone
Violin
Alban Berg wrote his Chamber Concerto in 1924 for the 50th birthday of his mentor Arnold Schoenberg. Unlike the ascetic minimalist Anton Webern, Berg overwhelms his listeners with a rich web of musical ideas, voices, and motives. Leading the Boulez Ensemble, Thomas Guggeis pairs the music of both Schoenberg students and their teacher with works for wind ensemble by Beethoven and Ligeti.
You’ve performed quite a bit of music from the Second Viennese School. What draws you to this repertoire and how do you approach it?
Over the last few years I’ve recorded the complete atonal and twelve-tone solo piano works of the Second Viennese School—my upcoming release in May will conclude this project. Although all of these pieces would easily fit on a single CD, I decided to group them according to a specific theme for each album. On the first, I looked at the early works of Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg within the context of the collapsing Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years leading up to the First World War and paired them with Janáček, Bartók, and Enescu. The differences in style between these two groups of composers who emerged from close geographical proximity to each other I think is worth highlighting. On the second album I’m drawing a link between Schoenberg and William Byrd, as two figures who had a cult-like community of students around them, with Brahms forming a link as one of the first composers to look back at what we now call Early Music. And of course he was also one of Schoenberg’s main influences as a composer. My new album will combine Schoenberg’s Piano Pieces Opp. 19, 23, and 33 and the Webern Variations with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations and Mozart’s F-major Sonata K. 332—the link here obviously being Vienna.
I think music from the Second Viennese School should always be placed within a context or theme. These works lend themselves to be performed alongside a wide range of composers and music.
You’ve performed quite a bit of music from the Second Viennese School. What draws you to this repertoire and how do you approach it?
Over the last few years I’ve recorded the complete atonal and twelve-tone solo piano works of the Second Viennese School—my upcoming release in May will conclude this project. Although all of these pieces would easily fit on a single CD, I decided to group them according to a specific theme for each album. On the first, I looked at the early works of Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg within the context of the collapsing Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years leading up to the First World War and paired them with Janáček, Bartók, and Enescu. The differences in style between these two groups of composers who emerged from close geographical proximity to each other I think is worth highlighting. On the second album I’m drawing a link between Schoenberg and William Byrd, as two figures who had a cult-like community of students around them, with Brahms forming a link as one of the first composers to look back at what we now call Early Music. And of course he was also one of Schoenberg’s main influences as a composer. My new album will combine Schoenberg’s Piano Pieces Opp. 19, 23, and 33 and the Webern Variations with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations and Mozart’s F-major Sonata K. 332—the link here obviously being Vienna.
I think music from the Second Viennese School should always be placed within a context or theme. These works lend themselves to be performed alongside a wide range of composers and music.
Schoenberg’s Sechs kleine Klavierstücke embody the period between his late-Romantic works and the development of the twelve-tone technique. How would you describe these pieces and what is their position within Schoenberg’s oeuvre?
I love Alex Ross’s description of the second of these pieces, which is built on a “hypnotic iteration” of the dyad G and B. He paints a picture of “two eyes, staring ahead, never blinking”—which I find very powerful. Schoenberg composed these pieces as Mahler lay dying. The last one, which is generally accepted to be a dedication to Mahler’s memory, was written after Schoenberg attended his funeral. It consists mainly of very soft, barely audible chords that sound like chimes to end an era, through Mahler’s death. The Op. 19 Pieces are an example of expressionism in music—a style, championed by Schoenberg, that expresses what composers instinctively felt without inhibition. They perceived this as a liberation from the “constraints’ of the traditional forms of classicism and romanticism. Unlike the Three Pieces Op. 11, which are larger-scale compositions, Op. 19 is a perfect example of what Schoenberg meant when he wrote in a letter to Ferruccio Busoni, “My music must be short. Concise! In two notes, not built, but ‘expressed.’’ This style of composing had a huge effect on his students, especially Webern, without doubt. The twelve-tone technique, by contrast, is extremely restrictive in its construction and seeks order from the “chaos” of expressionism.
What are the specific pianistic challenges of these six short pieces?
The main challenge is the control of tone and dynamics. Schoenberg writes very specific dynamic instructions in the score that play an integral part in the work’s composition.
Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto was written as a tribute to Schoenberg on the occasion of his 50th birthday. When we speak of the Second Viennese School, we usually mean Schoenberg and his two most famous students, Berg and Anton Webern. What was their relationship and what connects—or separates—their works?
Schoenberg had a group of ambitious students of the younger generation who formed a small community around him. They saw themselves as an island of modernity and progressivity that was surrounded by a sea of hostile mediocrity. With religious zeal, they developed a new musical language out of “necessity” through the “emancipation of dissonance”—a phrase coined by Schoenberg. Within this circle, Schoenberg was closest to Berg and Webern, who often helped him with daily tasks such as organizing his schedule so that he could free himself up for the composition of music that would “change the course of history”—like the true disciples that they were.
Berg had a complicated relationship with his teacher. He gained independence as a student with the composition of his Opus 1, the Piano Sonata, which was effectively a graduation piece to mark the end of his formal studies with Schoenberg over a period of seven years. Schoenberg was very critical of Berg, right from the start of their relationship, and the inherent tension between them remained until Berg’s death in 1935.
The Chamber Concerto, along with the Lyrische Suite for string quartet, marks a transition towards twelve-tone composition, which Berg never adopted as strictly as Webern (neither did Schoenberg, who is himself credited with its invention). The love that Berg had for Schoenberg, despite their differences, is clear in his dedicatory open letter to his teacher, in which he reveals that the piece is based on a tone row that contains letter-notes found in all three names of the so-called Second Viennese School: Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg.
Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments is the latest of the three pieces on this program and for some audience members may seem the most complex and least accessible. What would you tell a listener unfamiliar with this music to pay specific attention to?
I think it’s very important to constantly listen actively, with one’s full attention, to the music of the Second Viennese School—ideally to all music by the way! You shouldn’t necessarily expect to be “moved to tears,” as you might be by an operatic aria or a second movement of a Mozart concerto, but to be challenged to use your imagination for the whole duration of the work. For any listener who might find this music difficult to digest, it’s good to be aware of any images or emotions that come to mind while you’re listening and, especially in the Webern Concerto, to be aware of the brevity of the experience. Savor every note and relate it to the next one! There’s a moment when, if feelings of discomfort are aroused, your mind as a listener might drift. My advice at that point would be to “stay there.” It’s worth it. Let your imagination run wild, on purpose!
Audiences will get to hear you in three different settings: as a soloist, as part of an ensemble, and as one of two soloists playing with an ensemble. On top of that, you’re also a conductor yourself. How does your perspective on the music change depending on your different duties, and how do playing and conducting inform each other?
I try not to think in boxes. Although the nature of my involvement changes in each of these categories, the service of music and the composer remains at the core of all my performances. Having said that, studying orchestral scores regularly and directing orchestras does help me view solo piano music more holistically—as it does inform my playing when it is within an ensemble.
