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Thursday 4 February
That shortcoming had been rectified by the time Berg
composed his Three Orchestral Pieces in 1913–15, a work
that demonstrates his fluency in manipulating a huge
orchestra toward an expressive end. The direct inspiration
seems to have come from the premiere of Mahler’s Ninth
Symphony in June 1912, at which Berg was present. One
might fairly say that he picked up where Mahler left off;
Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces takes Mahlerian
transformation and exaggeration to an extreme, all overlaid
on a structure of traditional dance-types, such as ländler,
waltz and march.
Everything is meticulously organised in these complex
movements, which are unified by the careful interweaving of
thematic material. The combined duration of the first two
pieces perfectly balances that of the third. In fact, the first two
movements were premiered as a pair, with the March only
joining them in performance seven years later; even the
printed score allows that the first two movements may be
presented without the third.
Berg had hoped to present the set on Schoenberg’s 40th
birthday, which fell on 13 September, 1914. But the work
progressed slowly. ‘I keep asking myself, again and again’,
he wrote to his mentor, ‘whether what I express [in this
piece], often brooding over certain bars for days on end,
is any better than my last things.’ At least the first and
third pieces were ready in time, and Berg offered them to
his teacher along with a letter that speaks volumes about
their relationship:
‘My hope to write something … I could dedicate to you
without incurring your displeasure has been repeatedly
disappointed for several years … I cannot tell today whether I
have succeeded or failed. Should the latter be the case, then
in your fatherly benevolence, Mr Schoenberg, you must take
the goodwill for the deed.’
Programme note © James M. Keller, New York Philharmonic
Program Annotator
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