A documentary and analytical study of Alban Berg’s Three pieces for orchestra

In textural density and thematic development, it is generally agreed that Alban Berg’s (28852935) Opus 6 orchestral pieces (191+15)-Priiludilrnl, Reigen, and Marsclr-are the most complex music in his output. In order to understand these works better, the thesis examines documents from the composer’s Nacltlass. Berg’s compositional process is discussed, his sketchbooks reconstructed and selectively transcribed, and his textual revisions given critical commentary. Nncltlnss materials clarify the relation between Opus 6 and other i terns from this period (Op.4, Op.5, the Syrrrplro~ric-Frasnre~ttc, and the earliest sketches forWoz=:*ck), document the Berg-Schoenberg relationshp, suggest programmatic contents (Berg’s R w p seems based on Arthur Schnitzler’s play), and account for the early performance and publication histon’. It is maintained that sketch and Particell documents protvide clues to, and corroborating support for, analytical interpretations. me principal analytical took employed in the study are: structural \.oice-leading (Schenkerian) analysis, atonal pitch-class set analysis, and the analysis of formal function. The chapter divisions are: (1) Introduction: a PraIudium on matters of purpose, procedure, and plan; (2) The Composition of Opus 6: “ein Entstehungsreigen”; (3) .4 March through the Documents; (1) Praltidirinr: “composing between the tones”; (5) Reigm: blocks, chains, and cycles; sonority, theme, and form; (6) “Interlude”: performance and publication history of Opus 6; and (7) Marsch eirres A~tkmatik~rs: a documentary and analytical study. Prefatory Acknowledgements In departure from the colwention which re!egates personal thanks to the end of this section, I would like to acknowledge first and foremost my indebtedness to my wife Diane Martello, to my son Dante and daughter Dylann, to my brother Paul, and to my parents Enid and Me1 McLean for their unfailing love and understanding, and for their artful blend of aggravation, consolation, distraction, and great hugs. I have also been blessed with a variety of excellent working environments for the necessarily extended periods of time: first in Toronto, later in Montreal, and most especially, during the summer months. at Canada’s best-kept cottage-country secret-the Beausoleil First Nation Reserve on Christian Island in Georgian Bay. I owe a great debt to the University of Toronto for my formative training. In particular, I have been most fortunate to have had the counsel of Robert Falck as my teacher and thesis supervisor over a period of several years. His breadth of interest, his knowledge of matters German and Nerr Viennese, and his steadfast and patient criticism have rendered the document better at every turn than it might otherwise have been. To another of rn!. original readers, Edward Laufer, I owe profound gratitude for the sharing of his great musical and analytical gifts; though we have had too little time together on traditional Schenkerian matters and almost no time at all on the work under discussion, I have been deeply influenced by Laufer’s musical attitude in all my work. Among the many excellent others at the University of Toronto. 1 would like to single out Harvey Olnick and the late Godfrey Ridout for their early support and encouragement in my musicological studies; John Hawkins, John Beckwith, and John Weinzweig for their compositional focus; and Rika Maniates for so freely sharing her superior intellectual and critical faculties. In the final stages of the project, I also received helpful input from members of the defense committee: David Beach, Mark DeVoto, Modris Eksteins, James Estes, Robert Falck, John Hawkins, and Mary Arm Parker. ;.,in the other side of the lectern, I can now acknowledge the indirect but important contribution made by many of my own students over sixteen years-graduates and undergraduates; performers, composers, and researchers-both at the University of Toronto and at McGill University in Montreal. Though the eagerness of their constant demands has sometimes slowed my progress, their willingness to let me raise so many moments of musical greatness to consciousness has kept me alive to the reasons we all signed up in the first place. Since moving to Montreal in 1989, 1 have enjoyed the patient support of McGill University and its Faculty of Music. The Faculty has been a firstrate artistic and academic environment in which to exchange and develop ideas; in particular, I have been a happy participant in many animating musical-theoretical discussions with my immediate senior colleagues: Bo Alphonce and William Caplin. In addition, over the last three years at ILlcGill, I have enjoyed a rewarding professional partnership r\?ith Brian Alegant (now at Oberlin Conservatory) in a program of research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, entitled Mofivc and Hierarchy in Torzal, Post-tor~al, and Twelve-tone Mtrsic. For a long time (at least since my Canada Council Special M.A. in 1978) it had been my goal to set sail on a doctoral topic that would prepare the way for something like the Motive and Hierarchy Project; however, as the rocky shoals of circumstance and obligation intervened, the winds of influence reversed and some of my ideas for the Project blew back onto the dissertation. So I would like to extend special thanks to SSHRC for funding this dissertation project at both ends, albeit inadvertently. It has been my privilege in this project to have received the recognition and support of a number of agencies which I here most gratefully acknowledge: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for a Special M.A. award many years back when several of the ideas in this study had their first tentative formulation, and for a Doctoral Fellowship Award in the early stages of this project; the University of Toronto and the Connaught Foundation for a Connaught Fellowship at the beginning of my doctoral program; the American Musicological Society (cosupported by the National Endowment for the Humanities), for an AMS 50 Doctoral Fellowship Dissertation Award in what we all hoped would be the final stages of the project; and to the Board of Governors, the Graduate Faculty, and the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Learning a t McGill University for occasional travel assistance to conferences, for computing facilities, and for a deeply appreciated sabbatic leave over the 1995-96 academic year. Documentary work on this dissertation was facilitated by the staff of se\.eral institutions in Vienna: Ernst Hilmar, Wiener Stadtund Landesbibliothek; Gunther Brosche, Nationalbibliothek Musiksammlung, particularly Rosemary Hilmar Moravec who kept watch over the Berg documents during my research sojourns there; Regina Busch, Alban Berg Stiftung; Marion von Hartlieb and Gucki Hanisch, Universal Edition; and Gerhard Rill, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, for information concerning the Wiener Staatsoper. Additional information and permission to use materials was gratefully received from: Amim Eisenach, Staatsbibliothek, Berlin; Rigbie Turner, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Wayne Shirley, Library of Congress, Washington; Lawrence Schoenberg; Maria Halbich-Webern; Perspectizyes of New Music; and Universal Edition and their agents European American Music Distributors. For kindly sharing various pre-publication materials I am also grateful to Mark DeVoto, Tufts University; Robert Falck, University of Toronto; Edward Laufer, University of Toronto; Walter Salmen, Universitat Innsbruck; and David Schroeder, Dalhousie Universitj-. On a more personal level, it was my great good fortune one summer to be looking at Berg documents in Vienna across the table from Mark DeVoto, who was working on Berg’s notebooks and the Altenberglieder sketches. Besides being great fun, Mark was most generous with his Bergiana expertise-though he would probably not have agreed so readily to become the external reader on this project if he had had any inkling how long it would take to come to fruition! On the last day of my trip that same summer I formed an instantly profound and far too brief friendship with Erich Alban Berg, the composer’s nephew. Invited for Inuse (afternoon tea), I experienced the genuine Wiener Gemiitlicltkeit that bears no resemblance to today’s touristic veneer. We danced round the parlour with his grandchildren and talked deeply about his memories of Berg and of the time of the Anschiuss. I was too moved and uplifted to sense the full portent of the moment a s I waved from the streetcar, but Erich knew it would be the last time we met. The final portion of the Mnrsclz chapter is dedicated to his memory. Finally, I have the highly unusual task of repudiating certain anonymous parties in a parting rave. To the persons unknown whodoubtless in a blind grab for material goods later to be exchanged for drug money-stole many irreplaceable research documents and analytical notes relating to this and other projects as I packed them into our car to leave New York City on Easter Sunday 1989: damn you. Though it is my sincere hope that the interim has seen an improvement in your social situation and material well-being, the loss of so many important items and the attendant delays in finishing this work have caused untold grief and have occasioned more debilitating stress than I or my family shall ever care to relive.