Berg's Violin Concerto (1935) is considered by many the most accessible and emotionally engaging piece of music in the atonal idiom. His last completed work, the concerto was written as a memorial "to an angel" upon the premature death of Alma Mahler's daughter Manon Gropius. But as with all of Berg's oeuvre, an autobiography of the composer's inner life is also thoroughly woven into the score.

Alban Berg Quartet - The Complete Recordings [62CDs Box Set] (2020)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks) | Run Time: 61:07:20 | 15.13 Gb
Genre: Classical | Label: WARNER CLASSICS

Spanning repertoire from the Classical to the contemporary and some 30 years of the Alban Berg Quartett's career, these recordings evince the achievement of an ensemble whose very name honours both the tradition and innovative musical spirit of its home city, Vienna. Founded in 1970, it soon became recognised as one of the defining quartets of the 20th century and went on to make two landmark recordings of the complete Beethoven cycle, the first in the studio, the second live at Vienna's Konzerthaus (presented here in both CD and DVD versions). This 70-disc set, which in addition features DVDs of Schubert and a live performance in St Petersburg, also documents the Alban Berg Quartett's collaborations with such artists as Sabine Meyer, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Buchbinder and Philippe Entremont.

For some listeners, the music of the Second Viennese School is still a stumbling block, due to the complexity of techniques and the intense expressionism found in the innovative works of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. However, this 2015 release by the Belcea Quartet is notable for the relative accessibility of its program, which reflects the profound emotional impulses at the heart of the music, perhaps most apparent in Schoenberg's passionate string sextet, Verklärte Nacht (1899), and Webern's poignant Langsamer Satz for string quartet (1905).

The Schoenberg Quartet displays a great affinity for Alban Berg's chamber music. The larger string quartets are masterpieces of the twentieth century and are here played with a a wonderful understanding of their constant shifts in mood. The shorter pieces are also perfect and give a new way of looking at the larger works that they are normally a part of. The viola and piano sonata is a good transcription from the clarinet sonata and also adds a new dimension to the original version.

There's no question that everybody should have a copy of Berg's Violin Concerto. The most beautiful violin, the most moving, the most profound, and the most transcendent violin concerto of the twentieth century, Berg's violin concerto To the Memory of an Angel belongs in every civilized home. But which recording should be the one?
The argument could be made that this 2003 recording by violinist Daniel Hope with Paul Watkins conducting the BBC Symphony should be the one.

The violin concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven and Alban Berg are, on the surface, more different from one another than two compositions could ever probably be. Yet both stand as titans within the violin repertoire and broke incredibly significant new ground. Beethoven's lone Violin Concerto was different than anything that came before it and set the tone for virtually every concerto written after it for nearly a century.

This is possibly this most beautifull CD ever recorded by the Kronos Quartet. Who said that Berg or Webern were writing obscur or difficult music? Actually i did, but certainly not when listening to this fabulous breathtaking, harmonius and moving interpretation.

Here's a recording that doesn't introduce its star name until it's more than half over, and works quite well on that account. The understanding of the opening work, Alban Berg's six-movement Lyric Suite (1926), has evolved since scholars discovered a secret copy of the work that, despite its use of the abstract 12-tone system, outlines a quite specific program depicting the course of the composer's extramarital affair with Dorothea Robetin the previous year. The finale was even shown to contain an unsung melody, a setting of a very relevant Baudelaire poem, and to be performable with the melody sung.

Mitsuko Uchida has been a committed exponent of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto for over a decade now. It is a work which remains controversial in its adaptation of the serial method to an almost Brahmsian harmonic palette, wedded to a formal approach that takes up the integrated design, and textural richness, of Schoenberg's pre-atonal works. Certainly in terms of the balance between soloist and orchestra, this recording clarifies the often capricious interplay to a degree previously unheard on disc (and most likely in the concert hall too).Interpretatively, it combines Pollini's dynamism, without the hectoring touch that creeps into the Adagio's climactic passages, and Brendel's lucidity, avoiding the deadpan feeling that pervades his final Giocoso.

In the Pierre Boulez Saal Opening Concert, Daniel Barenboim, the Boulez Ensemble and renowned soloists are celebrating the idea of what this new concert hall of the Barenboim Said-Academy in Berlin stands for: to create a space where beloved classics, modern masterworks of the early 20th century, and music of our time can be heard side by side and inspire audiences and performers alike.

Grumiaux' version remains to this day one of the best available. He and Markevitch conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw have a total mastery of the idiom, and the Concerto's sections unfold naturally and organically: it doesn't sound like "modern" music, but as a language entirely congenial to the performers. Tempos are middle-of-the road, close to the metronome marks, and nothing more is required to bring out the composition's searing lyricism. Grumiaux has a luminous tone, the perfect mix of radiant lyricism and despaired vehemence. Markevitch, the Concertgebouw Orchestra (glorious brass!) and the sonic engineers bring out a wealth of orchestral details from Berg's subtle and delicately intertwined textures, maybe not as much as the best modern versions

The surprising thing about these three discs is that the performances get better the further we depart from the shores of Romanticism and tonality. Not what you'd expect from von K and the Berliners. Pelleas benefits from wonderfully lush orchestral playing from the Berlin Philharmonic, but it feels more like very colourful scene painting rather than real drama. To get to the Romantic heart of this piece, try Barbirolli: for its expressionist, forward looking (via Verklarte Nacht to Erwartung) side, go to Boulez.

One might be forgiven for initially thinking that this recital featuring works for cello and piano by Franz Schubert, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg was, well, a stunt. After all, aside from their birth in the city of Vienna, what do the three composers have in common? Schubert was the quintessential master of lyrical Austro-German romanticism, while Webern and Berg were two of the three most reviled masters of atonal Austro-German expressionism – the third, of course, was Arnold Schoenberg – and one might think they'd be an impossible coupling.