Alban Berg Birthday Tribute: January 30, 2012

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!

Glenn Gould performs Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata in B-