Kammerkonzert (Berg)
Movements
i Thema scherzoso con variazioni ii Adagio iii Rondo ritmico con introduzione
Notes
Alban Berg composed Kammerkonzert between 1923 and 1925 and dedicated it to his former teacher Arnold Schoenberg. The influence of Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School is evident throughout the concerto’s structure. It is based, in part, on the earlier Schoenberg Chamber Symphony. It is pervaded, structurally, by a dependence on the number three. It uses as motto themes, the musical spelling of Schoenberg’s, Berg’s, and their associate Anton Webern’s names. The Adagio itself, reduced by the composer in 1935 from the original thirteen winds, violin and piano, is what might be termed a “ternary palindrome.” In other words, the music is cast in two mirror-image sections of three parts each. The second section, joining the first through the intercession of twelve low C-sharp “chimes” on the piano, is a reversal of the first, a formal device used often by the Viennese and particularly by Webern.
