Beschreibung
For Alban Berg, personal experience was the indispensable condition of the creative process. His instrumental works are thus lived music, and most of his vocal compositions, too, are in a larger sense autobiographic: the Four Songs op. 2, the Altenberg Songs op. 4,
and the concert aria
(Wine).
Autorenportrait
Constantin Floros is professor emeritus of musicology at the University of Hamburg. Among his monographs are volumes on the origin of Gregorian neumes, about Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven and György Ligeti.
Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch is professor emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Indiana University. He has translated several books by Constantin Floros.
Rezension
«Arguably the best, most significant book about Alban Berg, because it both provides new insights to musicological research about the impact of the Schoenberg Circle and familiarizes interested music lovers with one of the most important composers of the 20th century.» (Professor Dr. Rainer Bischof, Vice President of the Alban Berg Foundation, Vienna)
«Floros uses studies of the surviving sketches to illuminate his musical discussions in a way that goes further than any previous full-length study of this composer.» (Anthony Pople)
Inhalt
Contents: Creativity – Asthma – The «Godforsaken» City – The Insidiousness of Success – From Goethe to Wedekind – Berg and Program Music – Fate and Superstition – Numerology – Tone Ciphers – Magic Music – Helene and Alban – The String Quartet for Helene – March of an Asthmatic –
as a Message for Humanity – Berg, Schönberg and Webern: Profiles of a Friendship – The Chamber Concerto – From Helene to Hanna – String Quartet for Hanna: the
– Aspects of
– The Violin Concerto – Berg: a Janus Face.
