Kammerkonzert (Chamber Concerto) for Piano, Violin and 13 Winds

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Musical Terms (2)

• Kammerkonzert German
  Chamber Concerto — Berg's title for his concerto for piano, violin, and 13 wind instruments (1923–25). The work is dedicated to Schoenberg on his 50th birthday and is saturated with biographical symbolism: the opening pages spell out the musical letters in the names Schoenberg (Arnold), Webern, and Berg (A-D-S-C-H and B-E-G for Berg) as a tribute to the Viennese school. Three movements: a theme with variations for piano solo, an adagio for violin solo, and a rondo combining both soloists. The second movement Adagio was arranged in 1926 as a trio for violin, clarinet, and piano.
  The Adagio arrangement for violin, clarinet, and piano is one of the most frequently performed of Berg's chamber works — more approachable than the full concerto and heartbreakingly beautiful. The piano part here is accompanist and equal partner simultaneously; balance is everything. Study the full concerto score even if performing only the trio arrangement.
• Second Viennese School English
  The informal name for the group of composers centred on Arnold Schoenberg in early 20th-century Vienna, including Alban Berg and Anton Webern as his two principal students. The term distinguishes them from the 'First Viennese School' of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The Second Viennese School developed free atonality (c.1908–1921) and then the twelve-tone technique (from 1921), transforming the harmonic language of Western music. Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg each took the techniques in radically different directions: Schoenberg rigorously systematic, Webern compressed and serial, Berg warmly expressive and resistant to rigid doctrine.
  Understanding the Second Viennese School places Berg's piano music in its full context. The Piano Sonata Op.1 sits at the threshold of the new language — deeply Romantic in feeling, atonally adventurous in syntax. Approach it as a late-Romantic work that has gone too far to turn back, not as an academic exercise in new technique.