Berg: String Quartet; Lyric Suite; Wolf: Italian Serenade (2007)

The New Zealand String Quartet Plays Berg And Wolf

Alban Berg(1865 -- 1935)combined the disciplined, atonal style of composition of his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, with the passion and romanticism of Gustav Mahler. Berg's output was small and his works are intense. His works are masterpieces of 20th Century music and may be appreciated even by listeners who feel uncomfortable with serial composition.

This CD includes Berg's two string quartets together with the short "Italian Serenade" by Hugo Wolf, (1860 -- 1903), one of Wolf's rare compositions outside the field of the art song. The Italian Serenade is a work of about 7 minutes with a liltingly varied theme over a pizzicato figure. It is romantic and somewhat astringent and a fitting short companion to the Berg Quartets.

The works by Berg and Wolf are performed by the New Zealand Quartet which has been Quartet-in- Residence at Victoria University in Wellington since 1991. The recording dates from 2004. The quartet's performance on this CD is all that could be wished: emotional, dynamic, tense, with clear voice lines among the four instruments. The CD has given the highest rating of 10/10 by Classics Today in a review by David Vernier.

Berg's two-movement string quartet opus 3 was written in 1910 as a graduation exercise and was the composer's first extended effort in atonal composition. As with all of Berg, the romantic elements of the work are predominant. The two movements of this work are closely related and consist of variations and expansions of the same musical material. The opening movement consists of two contrasting themes which are varied and ultimately worked to a climax. The second movement takes the opening materials further, with a large climactic section followed by a lengthy fade-away section at the end of the work followed by a surprisingly brusque close. This quartet is a highly integrated, emotional work.

Berg's Lyric Suite is one of the Twentieth Century's great works for string quartet. The Lyric Suite, composed in 1925 --- 1926, consists of six short movements with the odd-numbered movements in increasingly fast tempos and the even-numbered movements progressively slow and intense. As with other of Berg's works, such as the violin concerto, the Lyric Suite is hermenutic in character --replete with meanings and symbolism highly personal to the composer. The emotional force and passion of the work, however, is clear and immediate, even with its twelve-tone language. Berg wrote the work to celebrate his love for a woman named Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a friend. He gave a copy of the score to Hanna which included a poem by Baudelaire to be sung by a soprano. In the Lyric Suite, the movements are interrelated through the twelve-tone technique, as the work moves towards high intensity as it proceeds. Light optimistic scherzo-like movements are juxtaposed with movements of loss, erotic longing, and passion, especially in the final three movements. The work uses a figure from the "Lyric Symphony" of Berg's friend, Anton Zemlinsky, that Zemlinsky set to the words "you are my own". There are allusions to Berg's initials and to those of Hanna in the tone-pattern of the work. The Lyric Suite is a visceral and passionate work of music that should put to rest the notion that serial music was somehow written to be overly-intellectualized and sterile.

Lovers of the string quartet and listeners wanting to get to know Berg's seminal Lyric Suite will enjoy this excellent recording.

Robin Friedman