Alban Berg’s Kammerkonzert: between a Game, a Pamphlet and an Offering

Abstract

Alban Berg’s Kammerkonzert, composed in honor of Arnold Schoenberg’s and the New Viennese School’s 50^th and 20^th anniversaries respectively, is viewed in the context of the cultural situation of the 1920s. The latter is determined by both external and internal factors, such as: the new phase of Berg’s relationship with his teacher, the assertion of neoclassicism and anti-Romanticism in the European music, as well as the need to learn Schoenberg’s method of composition with twelve tones. Combining the modes of an offering, a pamphlet and a game, the Concerto fits into the cultural situation topical for the 1920s and, at the same time, argues with it. The most important milestone in Berg’s oeuvre after Wozzeck, the Concerto largely determines the composer’s evolution during subsequent years.

Keywords: Alban Berg, Kammerkonzert, neoclassicism, concert performance, compositional model, secret program