Alban Berg (1885-1935)

Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6 • Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite

Violin Concerto

It is a testament to Schoenberg’s thoroughness as a teacher that when he took on Alban Berg as a pupil, the nineteen-year-old could write little more than songs in strophic form, but that Berg graduated from Schoenberg’s class in 1910 with the complex and innovative String Quartet, Op. 3, behind him. After this there was something of a parting of the ways, Berg pursuing the formally, though not expressively, small-scale forms of the Altenberglieder (1911) and the Four Clarinet Pieces (1912). It took typically hard-hitting criticism from his mentor to refocus his thoughts on larger forms. Initially a vocal symphony, no doubt following the precedent of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, was planned, but what resulted was the Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6. The first two were ready for Schoenberg’s fortieth birthday on 13th September 1914,