Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Alban Berg - 4 Stücke, Op.5 (1913)
Performer: Sabine Meyer (clarinet), Oleg Maisenberg (piano)
00:00 - I.
01:29 - II.
03:24 - III.
04:25 - IV.
Between 1904 and 1909, Alban Berg (1885–1935) took formal lessons from Arnold Schoenberg, first in music theory, then in composition. He concluded these five years of study with the Piano Sonata op. 1 and produced two further works by the following year, 1910: the Lieder op. 2 on texts by Hebbel and Mombert, and the String Quartet op. 3 in two movements. Then, however, Berg stopped completing further works. This was presumably due to external circumstances as well as psychological reasons: for one, Berg had taken on several pupils of his former teacher after Schoenberg’s relocation from Vienna to Berlin and was commissioned to write some piano-vocal scores (Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Franz Schrecker’s opera Der Ferne Klang). For another, the first performance of the Piano Sonata in April 1911 had not been given the reception he had hoped for. It was not until 1913 that Berg completed two further works: the Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskartentexten von Peter Altenberg op. 4 and the Vier Stücke für Klarinette und Klaver op. 5. The Clarinet Pieces needed several more years, however, until they found their way into the public forum. The reason for this is possibly to be seen in the botched premiere of two of the Altenberg Lieder on 31 March 1913, in a concert that provoked a scandal, ended in a tumult and led to a lawsuit. Schoenberg too, as we know from a letter of Berg to his former teacher, also copiously expressed his criticism of Berg’s latest works.
Alban Berg - 4 Stücke, Op.5 (1913)
Performer: Sabine Meyer (clarinet), Oleg Maisenberg (piano)
00:00 - I.
01:29 - II.
03:24 - III.
04:25 - IV.
Between 1904 and 1909, Alban Berg (1885–1935) took formal lessons from Arnold Schoenberg, first in music theory, then in composition. He concluded these five years of study with the Piano Sonata op. 1 and produced two further works by the following year, 1910: the Lieder op. 2 on texts by Hebbel and Mombert, and the String Quartet op. 3 in two movements. Then, however, Berg stopped completing further works. This was presumably due to external circumstances as well as psychological reasons: for one, Berg had taken on several pupils of his former teacher after Schoenberg’s relocation from Vienna to Berlin and was commissioned to write some piano-vocal scores (Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Franz Schrecker’s opera Der Ferne Klang). For another, the first performance of the Piano Sonata in April 1911 had not been given the reception he had hoped for. It was not until 1913 that Berg completed two further works: the Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskartentexten von Peter Altenberg op. 4 and the Vier Stücke für Klarinette und Klaver op. 5. The Clarinet Pieces needed several more years, however, until they found their way into the public forum. The reason for this is possibly to be seen in the botched premiere of two of the Altenberg Lieder on 31 March 1913, in a concert that provoked a scandal, ended in a tumult and led to a lawsuit. Schoenberg too, as we know from a letter of Berg to his former teacher, also copiously expressed his criticism of Berg’s latest works.
