| Piano Sonata, Op. 1 |
| The Piano Sonata, composed in 1908, was Berg's apprentice piece under the tutelage of Arnold Schoenberg. It was written in the midst of a troubling time for the composer: Helene Nahowski's parents opposed the intention of Berg to marry her, on grounds of his unstable health. Theodor Adorno was a student of Berg's who went on to be a philosopher and musical theorist. In his book about Berg, Master of the Smallest Link, he wrote that the Piano Sonata is an excellent introduction to Berg's music. This is due to its shortness - about 11 minutes - and its accessibility. Additionally, it is the unpolished "raw data" of Berg's musical imagination, and thus gives the listener insight into its creator's mind. The single movement is in simple sonata form: Exposition, Development, and Recapitulation. The piece is, however, greatly indebted to more recent developments in music. Berg used Schoenberg's idea of deriving all themes in the piece from one theme. In the Sonata all themes are intended to logically follow from the first melody heard in the piece. Schoenberg's first Chamber Symphony is the source for several of Berg's ideas in his Op. 1. There is a similarity between some of the themes of the two works. As well, Berg borrows the use of whole-tone and quartal formations, and these are harmonically determinant in his piece. The Piano Sonata is, however, thoroughly "Bergian." In Schoenberg's music a musical event, such as the 5-note quartal chord in bar 28 of the Sonata, would appear abruptly, almost causing the listener a discomfort. In Berg's work, however, every musical event flows from the previous one(s), not only logically but sonically. The above-mentioned chord is gradually unveiled before bar 28 and then, after being heard, is dissolved back into the "tonal flow." This is a characteristic procedure in Berg's music. Berg has often been accused of being a backward-looking composer, due to his use of elements of tonality and traditional forms. In the Piano Sonata, as we have seen, Berg showed that he was fully committed to modern ideas in music. The appearance of traditional elements in this work reveals not a tempered modern but a composer preoccupied with his own place in the history of music. Berg employs both traditional and modern devices within the movement, and does so in such a way so as to show how the latter are derived from the former. In Adorno's words, Berg was thus "reconstructing historical continuity." Home next......... Four Songs, Op. 2 |