Alban Berg Birthday Tribute

On February 9, we celebrate the 127th birthday of another famed Viennese composer (following Schubert’s birthday celebration last week) – Alban Berg (1885-1935), here marked with a Noteworthy video featuring the great Glenn Gould performing Berg’s Piano Sonata in B-. Along with his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg and fellow student Anton Webern, Berg belongs to the so-called Second Viennese School that helped open the door to musical modernism in the early 20th century – expanding notions of harmony, melody, and form. With a style more overtly lyrical than his colleagues, Berg has enjoyed considerable success with audiences and performers alike, in particular with works such as his Violin Concerto, the Lyric Suite for String Quartet, the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and the Piano Sonata. In this video, Gould brings his distinct sound and style to this magnificent single-movement sonata, in an impressive HD movie. Enjoy, and tell us what you think!

Composer: Franz Schubert (1797-1828) 

Franz Schubert, whose 215th birthday we celebrated on January 31, is revered by critics and music lovers alike as among the all-time geniuses of classical music. Though passing away at the tragically young age of 31, Schubert produced a mind-boggling number of works, in every genre available to him – making particularly rich and innovative contributions in the realm of piano, chamber, and orchestra works, as well as over 600 Lieder (songs). Though perhaps not as revolutionary as his older contemporary Beethoven, Schubert’s innovations in harmony, his supreme gifts of melody, and his unique Romantic sensibility left a deep impact on future generations of composers. This concert features a sampling of some of his well-known works.

Period: Modern (1900-) 

The Modern and Contemporary periods have witnessed extraordinary change and diversity in musical style and techniques – with every musical parameter subject to revaluation and experimentation. All this as composers have sought to reflect modern life in sound. This concert features music by many of the giants of the last 100 years.

The voice is the most natural of instruments, the only one capable of conveying both music and text, and thus it has played an essential role in the history of Western art music. This concert features great examples from every era, including by Handel, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Berg, and others.