Varsóvia, 1913-1994.
Prelúdios de Dança, para Clarinete e Piano
Grave: Metamorfoses, para Violoncelo e Piano
Sabine Meyer, Heinrich Schiff, Leif Ove Andsnes
Sintra, 20 de Julho de 2005
MusicLutosławski described musical composition as a search for listeners who think and feel the same way he did — he once called it "fishing for souls".
Folk influenceWorks up to Dance Preludes exhibit a marked folk influence, both harmonically and melodically. For instance, the Concerto for Orchestra contains Polish folk melodies more or less distorted, some unrecognisable except after careful analysis.
When Lutosławski discovered the techniques of his mature compositions, he simply stopped using folk material. As he said himself, "[in those days] I could not compose as I wished, so I composed as I was able", and about this change of direction he said, "I was simply not so interested in it [using folk music]".
Pitch organisationIn Muzyka żałobna, 1958 Lutosławski introduced his own brand of twelve-tone music, and this work marks his leaving behind folk influence. Lutosławski's twelve-tone technique allowed him to build harmony and melody from specific intervals (augmented fourths and semitones in Muzyka żałobna). This system also gave him the means to write the dense chords he wanted without resorting to tone clusters, and enabled him to build towards these dense chords (which often include all 12 notes of the chromatic scale) at climactic moments. Lutosławski's 12-note techniques were thus completely different in conception from Arnold Schoenberg's tone-row system, although Muzyka żałobna does happen to be based on a tone row.
His twelve-note intervallic technique was not a complete break from Lutosławski's previous music, as the use of intervals to build chords can be heard in works such as Concerto for Orchestra.
Aleatory techniqueAlthough Muzyka żałobna was internationally acclaimed, his new harmonic techniques led to something of a crisis for Lutosławski, during which he still could not see how to express his musical ideas. Then he happened to hear some music by John Cage. Although he was not influenced by the sound or the philosophy of Cage's music, Cage's explorations of aleatory music set off a train of thought, which resulted in Lutosławski finding a way to retain the harmonic structures he wanted while introducing the freedom he was searching for. His 3 Postludes were hastily rounded off (he originally intended to write four) and he moved on to compose works in which he explored these new ideas.
In works from Jeux vénitiens, the parts of the ensemble are not to be synchronised exactly. At cues from the conductor. instrumentalists may be instructed to move straight on to the next section, to finish their current section before moving on, or to stop. In this way the random element implied by the term aleatory is carefully directed by the composer, who controls the architecture and harmonic progression of the piece precisely. Lutosławski notates the music exactly, there is no improvisation, no choice of parts is given to any instrumentalist, and there is thus no doubt about how the musical performance is to be realised. The combination of Lutosławski's aleatory techniques and his harmonic discoveries allowed him to build up complex musical textures.
In many works of this period, aleatory style is contrasted with sections where the orchestra is asked to synchronise their parts conventionally, in passages notated with a common time signature. Good examples are the climax of Livre pour orchestre and passages leading to the climax of Symphony No. 2.
Late styleIn his later works Lutosławski evolved a more harmonically mobile, less monumental style, in which less of the music is played with an ad libitum coordination. This development resulted from the demands of his late chamber works, such as Epitaph, Grave and Partita for just two instrumentalists, however it may also be seen in orchestral works such as Piano Concerto, Chantefleurs et Chantefables, and Fourth Symphony, which require mostly conventional coordination.
Lutosławski's formidable technical developments grew out of his creative imperative; that he left a lasting body of major compositions is a testament to his resolution of purpose in the face of the anti-formalist authorities under which he formulated his methods.
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Viena, 1885-1935
Quatro Peças para Clarinete e Piano, op. 5
Sabine Meyer, Heinrich Schiff, Leif Ove Andsnes
Sintra, 20 de Julho de 2005
Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg. His family lived quite comfortably until the death of his father in 1900.
He was more interested in literature than music as a child, and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music. He had very little formal music eduction until he began a six-year period of study with
Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904 to 1911, studying counterpoint, music theory, and harmony; by 1906 he concentrated on his music studies full-time, and by 1907 he began composition lessons. Among his compositions under Schoenberg were five piano sonata drafts and various songs, including his Seven Early Songs (Sieben frühe Lieder), three of which were Berg's first publicly performed work in a concert featuring the music of Schoenberg's pupils in Vienna that same year.
These early compositions would reveal Berg's progress as a composer under Schoenberg's tutelage. The early sonata sketches eventually culminated in Berg's Piano Sonata Op.1 (1907–8); while considered to be his "graduating composition", is one of the most formidable Op. 1 ever written by any composer. (See Lauder.) Schoenberg was a major influence on him throughout his lifetime; Berg not only greatly admired him as a composer and mentor, but they remained close friends for the remainder of his life. Many people believe that Berg also saw him as a surrogate father, considering Berg's young age during his father's death.
An important idea of Schoenberg is his teaching was what would later be known as developing variation, which stated that the unity of a piece is dependent on all aspects of the composition being derived from a single basic idea. Berg would then pass this idea down to one of his students, Theodor Adorno, who stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different." The Sonata is a striking example of the execution of this idea — the whole composition can be derived from the opening quartal gesture and from the opening phrase.
Berg was a part of
Vienna's cultural elite during the heady period of fin de siècle. Among his circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, painter Gustav Klimt, writer and satirist Karl Kraus, architect Adolf Loos, and poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met Helene Nahowski, singer and daughter of a wealthy family, and despite the outward hostility of her family, married on May 3, 1911.
In 1913, Berg's Five songs on picture postcard texts by Peter Altenberg were premiered in Vienna. The piece caused a riot, and the performance had to be halted: a complete performance of the work was not given until 1952.
From 1915 to 1918, he served in the Austrian Army and it was during a period of leave in 1917 that he began work on his first opera, Wozzeck. Following World War I, he settled again in Vienna where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run the
Society for Private Musical Performances, which sought to create an ideal environment for the exploration of unappreciated and unfamiliar new music by means of open rehearsals, repeated performances, and the exclusion of all newspaper critics.
The performance in 1924 of three excerpts from
Wozzeck brought him his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was not performed in its entireity until December 14, 1925, when Erich Kleiber directed a performance in Berlin. The opera is today seen as one of his most important works; a later opera, also critically acclaimed, Lulu, was left incomplete at his death.
Berg's best-known piece is probably his elegiac
Violin Concerto. Like so much of his mature work, it employs a highly personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve tone technique that enables it to combine frank atonality with more traditionally tonal passages and harmonies; additionally, it uses actual quotations of pre-existing tonal music, including a Bach chorale and a Carinthian folk song. Other well known Berg compositions include the Lyric Suite (seemingly a big influence on the String Quartet No. 3 of Béla Bartók) and the Chamber Concerto for violin, piano and 13 wind instruments.
Berg died on Christmas Eve, 1935, in Vienna, apparently from blood poisoning caused by an insect bite. He was 50 years old.
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