Berg: Violin Concerto

I admit to having been dubious about Anne-Sophie Mutter. There have been so many crossover fiddle-babes lately, that I had subconsciously filed her alongside Vanessa Mae and Linda Brava. That was unfair, probably sexist, and ill-considered, as this disc makes clear.

Mutter is the real thing. She displays an extraordinary command of her instrument in what is really an very difficult and technically demanding piece.

The Berg Violin Concerto is magical. At times jagged and strident and at times soaring and lyrical, it demands exceptional range from the soloist. Although it is [mainly] atonal, the concerto is capable of expressing great warmth and melodic invention in the right hands. Mutter's hands are the right hands.

I hesitate to use another sexist term like "a woman's touch," but the truth is that there is something ineffably feminine in Mutter's performance here. Perhaps it's a lyricism that I don't here in Stern's performance of the same piece. Perhaps it's a lightness of touch. In any event, Mutter proves herself by seeming to start from the position that she has nothing to prove.

I had never listened to Wolfgang Rihm's music before, and Gesungene Zeit remains the only composition of his that I have ever heard. I was quite dubious at first, having been disappointed in the past by neo-conservative "modern" composers like Gorecki and Part. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Rihm's composition on this disc.

It may be just that Mutter plays the solo part so well, of course. But Gesungene Zeit has sort of griwn on me. It is minimal [rather than minimalist] in the same way as Ives' Unanswered Question, with some srong tutti chords in the second half. I'm not sure I would class it as one of the GREAT concetante violin pieces, but it does have a charm -- certainly as performed by Mutter -- that seems to improve with each listen.

I've held off on reviewing this Deutsche Grammophon disc for a long time, since I didn't think I could add anything to the praise already lavished on it by the press and my fellow reviewers. Yet, it is the fate of reviewers to ultimately throw in their two cents in spite of all that has come before, so here follow my thoughts on these performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by James Levine, with Anne-Sophie Mutter on solo violin.

Alban Berg's "Violin Concerto" (1935), with the dedication "to the memory of an angel", seems to have finally entered the standard repertoire. Written after the death of the young Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler-Werfel and Walter Gropius, it is a work of constant elegy sometimes tempered with praise of a beautiful young soul, but at other times giving in to the darkest feelings of mourning and catastrophe. Like in all his work, Berg uses the twelve-tone system inherited from his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, but with strong echoes of traditional harmony. Romanticism is abundant in this work too often considered undesirably "modernist"; it opens with the lushest sounds of clarinet and harp, moves towards the softest touches of strings, and ultimately roars thundering crescendos pregnant with meaning. While the violin is sometimes a sort of protagonist, representing the bloom of youth held down by Fate, often the work is intensely directing us to higher themes outside of the ensemble itself.

Since Berg left the door open to traditional harmony, he brings in two objets trouvees that link the work to a long tradition before it. The most readily noticeable is Bach's chorale "Es ist genug", variations on which provide the basis of the second movement. Another is a Carinthian folk song Berg knew in his youth, when he had an illegitimate child with a family maid, giving the concerto a "secret programme". This being 2007, when film music has gone to much greater extremes of "dissonance" than Berg ever approached, the harmonies of the concerto will seem pleasing and elegant to all but the most conservative of classical listeners.

There are, of course, many other performances of Berg's concerto out there. But several things set this apart. For one, the digital sound quality is superb, bringing a clarity to a piece too often heard in primitive recordings. And it was recorded after examination of the original sketches in the 1980s revealed that a key part of the work was muddled in the published score. Finally, there is Mutter's technique itself. While she has now grown rather stale and trite, at this time the violinist was at the height of her powers, and this performance is simple flawless.

The second piece on the disc is Wolfgang Rihm's "Time Chant" (1991-92). Here the violin is meant to exhibit nearly vocal characteristics, and when the small orchestra contributes, it is only in the role of filling out a line that is, as Rihm, claims, "in essence monophonic". The writing for the violin hovers in the heights of its range, playing crystalline sounds in the longest durations. This is actually something unusual for Rihm, as his music is often concerned with movement and energy--see JAGDEN UND FORMEN in DG's "20/21" series for an excellent work in this vein. Here Rihm amost approaches Alexander Knaifel in the light purity of the writing. I enjoy it immensely, especially played on a top-of-the-line stereo where its fragile beauty shines through, but I'd certainly recommend that people look elsewhere for an introduction to Rihm.

This disc is one of the greatest achievements on the CD. It commands so much respect and demand that 15 years after its release, it still has not been lowered to mid-price. It deserves a place in your collection, and the music will undoubtedly find itself a place in your heart as well.

Alban Berg (1885 -- 1935) composed his violin concerto as a requiem for a young woman, Manon Gropius, but the work effectively became Berg's own requiem as well. It is Berg's last completed score, written in 1935. This is passionate, emotive music which staddles the bounds between atonality and musical romanticism. The performance by Anne-Sophie Mutter and James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1992,is justly celebrated. This is an ideal introduction to Berg and to his masterful violin concerto. This is difficult music, make no mistake. The new listerner should stay with it, as the violin concerto will reward many hearings.

I used the discussion of this work in Michael Steinberg's book, "The Concerto," (1998) as a guide to my listening. Steinberg writes with great enthusiasm for Berg's concerto and gives the reader a good, brief introduction to Berg and his work. The violin concerto is a hermetic work. That is, the concerto is filled with allusions to Berg's love life, to affairs both late in his life and to an affair he had as a young man. The work also shows Berg's fascination with secrecy and with numerology. He followed certain pseudo-science of his day in thinking that the number 23 had some mystical significance for the life-rhythm while the number 28 had significance for women. This thinking, and other beliefs in lucky numbers and the like are built into Berg's score.

But of the music were only a code to be deciphered, it would not be of much interest. The emotion and force of the violin concerto drew me in and will make the work live for other listeners as well. The work is in two movements, each of which has two parts. The first movement opens slowly and elegaically with a quiet figure in the harp, followed shortly by an ascending 12-tone figure for the violin. The second part of the music is more rapid in tempo and develops nostagically an old folk-song -- in Berg's case, perhaps, to remind him of a love affair he had when young, the memory of which remained with him through life.

The second movement opens with a violently dissonant passage that speaks of calamity and loss. The second part of the movement, though, is a response and an answer to deep sorrow. It develops a chorale theme from a Bach cantata, "Es ist Genug" through a combination of Bach's harmonies and Berg's own. The chorale goes through a number of variations and moods ranging from a rememberance of love and passion to quiet acceptance and resignation. The work fades away with only the solo violin remaining at the end. The solo and the orchestral writing are deeply intertwined in this concerto.

It may be a shame that Wolfgang Rihm's "Time Chant: Music for Violin and Orchestra" is the companion piece on this CD. It seemed to me a thoughtful work, but it pales in comparison with the Berg. Rihm is a prolific contemporary German composer, and he wrote this work for Anne-Sophie Mutter. This was my first exposure to his music. The "Time Chant" is in two movements, both of which feature the violin playing declamatory passages at the top of its register punctuated on occasion by orchestral outbursts. The work shimmers and has the quality of a chant but functions mostly as a showpiece for Ms. Mutter's formidable technique. There are some striking passages for the violin but they are surrounded by musical moments in which not much happens.

The Mutter-Levine reading of Berg's concerto is more than enough reason to hear this CD with Rihm's work an intriguing addition. This disk offers an outstanding opportunity to get to know one of the great masterpieces of Twentieth Century music.

Robin Friedman