Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra

Presentación del Álbum

For the thirty-year-old Alban Berg, the Three Pieces for Orchestra mark the definite end – as definite as it ever got, anyway – of his apprenticeship to Arnold Schoenberg and his full emergence as an artistic personality in his own right. Though this work does owe a kind of debt to Schönberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, it does not sound at all like Schoenberg. One voice whose presence can be sensed is Mahler’s, who had died in May 1911, barely four years after completion of these Three Pieces. The prevalence of waltz and march gestures contributes to this, but there are also more specific homages such as a passage in the Praeludium that is very close to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. No question, Berg is Mahler’s most direct heir, and the Three Pieces are Mahler’s Eleventh much more than Brahms’ First is Beethoven’s Tenth, whatever commentators may have said. Berg had first gone to Schoenberg in late 1904 and until 1910 he studied with him in a nourishing, trying, often exceedingly dependent relationship. In June 1913, Berg visited Schönberg in Berlin, and his stay there was troubled. From the beginning, Schönberg had been concerned about a shortwindedness in his obviously brilliant pupil’s work and had been anxious to get him started on something that involved symphonic development on a large scale. Within a couple of weeks of his argument with Schönberg, Berg began something big – the dramatic, fantastical Three Pieces for Orchestra, which he dedicated to Schönberg despite – or because of? – their differing views. Michael Tilson Thomas, aka. MTT, first conducted the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and has been Music Director since 1995. His wide-ranging recording policy has put the SFS onto the world scene of the most admired orchestras. © SM/Qobuz