Alban Berg: Violin Concerto; Igor Stravinsky: Violin Concerto

Alban Berg and Igor Stravinsky

Mark Kaplan, Budapest Festival Orchestra (Lawrence Foster, cond.)

album cover

Two Key Works of the Twentieth-Century Violin Repertoire

Alban Berg learned about the capabilities of the violin by listening to Louis Krasner, the musician who commissioned this piece for $1,500, practice. In the summer of 1935, Krasner visited the composer. While working or talking with his wife, Berg would listen as his guest improvised several rooms away. According to a biography, whenever the violinist would begin to work on a passage from the repertoire, Berg would loudly tell him to stop—insisting, "No concertos, just play!"

Berg, the most accessible of the Second Viennese school of composers, was evidently seeking the instrument's tones and colorations, how it "speaks" in different registers and settings. Berg's preparation resulted in one of the towering achievements of concerto form, a burst of inspiration that, unlike most of his compositions, was written quickly. (He died, after complications from a bee sting, before the piece was premiered.)

The two-movement work begins with tones that suggest a violin being casually tuned up, and then travels through a series of "visions" that each lean on different aspects of the violin's character. These include frenetic passages that transpire on rickety haunted-house stairs, lamentations filled with quietly weeping long tones, and odd atonal echoes of a Viennese waltz.

On this recording, violinist Mark Kaplan plays up the swelling emotion of Berg's melodies. At times the violin seems to streak across the sound spectrum, a ribbon of silver dancing over the challenging chords and fractured themes Berg has placed in its path. The piece is knotty, and at times off-putting; Kaplan makes it sing. And wail.

The Stravinsky Violin Concerto is more straightforward, and requires a completely different aesthetic approach from Kaplan. Where Berg changes moods in jarring ways, Stravinsky sets up his soloist (and his listener) for whatever tumult lies ahead. The great ballet composer uses chord clusters and small inventions to steadily increase the tension, and by the time the score arrives at a crashing downbeat or other climactic moment, the violinist has laid the groundwork. Kaplan navigates the piece with little evident effort—managing the contours of what many consider a "lesser" Stravinsky work, and by doing so, making it seem plenty great.

Genre: Classical
Released: 2002, Koch International Classics
Key Tracks: Berg: first movement. Stravinsky: third movement.
Another Interpretation: Berg: Daniel Hope, BBC Symphony Orchestra (Paul Watkins, cond.). Stravinsky: Hilary Hahn, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (Sir Neville Marriner, cond.).
Catalog Choice: Berg: Wozzeck. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
Next Stop: Witold Lutosławski: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Krystian Zimerman, BBC Symphony Orchestra (Lutosławski, cond.)
After That: Einojuhani Rautavaara: On the Last Frontier, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (Leif Segerstam, cond.).
Book Page: 80