Sieben frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs) (1905-8, revised 1928)

Nacht

Schilflied

Die Nachtigall

Traumgekrönt

Im Zimmer

Liebesode

Sommertage

Berg’s Seven Early Songs we owe, in a sense, to the composer’s wife Helene. It was his love for her that inspired him to write some of them in the early days of their relationship before their marriage in 1911 and it was she who, seventeen years later, persuaded him to extract them from what he had hoped was oblivion and to prepare them for publication. He had plenty to choose from. Before he started his studies with Schoenberg in 1904 he had been unable to write anything but songs and even then he produced little else until he completed his Piano Sonata Op.1 in 1908.

Berg’s extraordinary promise was clear to Schoenberg from the start: “When I saw the compositions he showed me I recognised at once that he was a real talent.” By 1908 when he wrote Nacht, much of the melodic and harmonic beauty of which derives from the whole-tone phrase to which he sets the first line, he had developed well beyond that. Schilflied, which was written at much the same time, is a rather more conventional song, as is Die Nachtigall which was written a year earlier and shows something of the Brahms influence Schoenberg detected in his pupil. If Die Nachtigall is the most immediately attractive of the collection, the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt, which was written for Helene not long after their first meeting in 1907, is probably the most inspired. Like Nacht, it spontaneously shapes its own construction. The earliest of the seven songs by a year or more, Im Zimmer is so short that it needs little motivic organisation to hold it together.

Liebesode - written, apparently, before Berg met Helene - is a particularly sensual inspiration, closely worked thematically but it erotically evocative at the same time. The last and latest of the songs, Sommertage, is also the most prophetic of the mature Berg. For all its passion, it is also rigorously unified by means of variants of the rising phrase that first appears in the left hand of the piano and runs through every section of the song.Berg’s extraordinary, though obviously untutored promise was clear to Schoenberg from the start: “When I saw the compositions he showed me - - I recognised at once that he was a real talent.” By 1908 when he wrote Nacht, which is not only the longest of the Seven Early Songs but also the one he chose to open the collection, he had developed well beyond that. The whole-tone progression heard low on the piano in the opening bars and at many points thereafter seem to suggest that he was well aware of the music of Debussy - whom not even Schoenberg, according to his own confession, knew at the time - and the motivic organisation is both thoroughly worked out and apparently spontaneous at the same time. The unity of the song, like much of its melodic and harmonic beauty, derives from the whole-tone phrase to which Berg sets the first line and which recurs in a variety of shapes throughout.

Schilflied, which was written at much the same time as Nacht, is a rather more conventional song constructed on more or less straightforward ternary lines. The opening section features in the piano part an unobtrusively syncopated ostinato which, after a slow middle section animated by piano arpeggios suggestive of the rustling reeds, returns in a more insistent form in the third stanza. Die Nachtigall was written a year earlier and shows something of the Brahms influence Schoenberg detected in his pupil. It is no less welcome for that. A purely lyrical conception, with no nightingale imitations in the comparatively plain-textured piano part, it is another ternary construction offering a slightly anxious middle section between particularly melodious outer sections.

If Die Nachtigall is the most immediately attractive of the Seven Early Songs, the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt - which was written for Helene not long after their first meeting in 1907 - is probably the most inspired. Like Nacht, it spontaneously shapes its own construction, following the lead of the words rather than conforming to a preconceived pattern. At the same time it coheres quite firmly round two motifs, the four notes with which the piano opens the song and the rising phrase that goes with the first line in the vocal part. Im Zimmer, the earliest of the seven songs by a year or more, also creates its own form but is so short that, apart from a few echoes of the little phrase with which voice and piano open the song in unison, it needs no motivic organisation to hold it together. The orchestral version of the Seven Early Songs, which Berg wrote at the same time as he revised the piano version for publication in 1928, features a succession of high chimes on the celesta illustrating the passing of the minutes at the end. It is the only touch of orchestral colour one misses in these so beautifully written piano parts.

Liebesode - which was written in 1906, apparently before Berg met Helene - is a particularly sensual inspiration. It is closely worked thematically, the structure being based on the three-note descending motif in the piano part in the opening bars. But it is also erotically evocative as that motif mingles with the musical imagery associated with the summer wind and the scent of the roses, symbolising the lovers’ oneness with nature around them. The last and latest of the songs, Sommertage, is also the most prophetic of the mature Berg. It vaguely adheres to a ternary form but, for all its passion, it is also rigorously worked as the rising phrase that first appears in the left hand of the piano, anticipating the first entry of the voice, runs through every section of the song. With its inversions, retrogrades and retrograde inversions it is treatment is not very different from that which Schoenberg and his pupils were to apply to their serial material several years later.

Nacht

Schilflied

Die Nachtigall

Traumgekrönt

Im Zimmer

Liebesode

Sommertage

Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder we owe, in a sense, to the composer’s wife Helene. It was his love for her that inspired him to write some of them in the early days of their relationship before their marriage in 1911 and it was she who, seventeen years later, persuaded him to extract them from what he had hoped was oblivion and to prepare them for publication. He had plenty to choose from. Before he started his studies with Schoenberg in 1904 he had been unable to write anything else.

Berg’s extraordinary, though obviously untutored promise was clear to Schoenberg from the start: “When I saw the compositions he showed me I recognised at once that he was a real talent.” By 1908 when he wrote Nacht, which is not only the longest of the Seven Early Songs but also the one he chose to open the collection, he had developed well beyond that. Its harmonic idiom clearly suggests that he was well aware of the music of Debussy: the unity of the song, like much of its melodic and harmonic beauty, derives from the whole-tone phrase to which Berg sets the first line and which recurs in a variety of shapes throughout. Schilflied, which was written at much the same time as Nacht, is a rather more conventional song constructed on more or less straightforward ternary lines. From a year earlier, Die Nachtigall shows something of the Brahms influence Schoenberg detected in his pupil. It is another ternary construction offering a slightly anxious middle section between particularly melodious outer sections.

If Die Nachtigall is the most immediately attractive of the Seven Early Songs, the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt, is probably the most inspired. Like Nacht, it spontaneously shapes its own construction, following the lead of the words rather than conforming to a preconceived pattern. Im Zimmer, the earliest of the seven songs by a year or more, also creates its own form but is so short that it needs no motivic organisation to hold it together. Liebesode – written in 1906, apparently before Berg met Helene – is a particularly sensual inspiration. While it is closely worked thematically, it is also erotically evocative as the three-note motif from the opening bars mingles with the musical imagery associated with the summer wind and the scent of the roses. The last and latest of the songs, Sommertage, is also the most prophetic of the mature Berg. It vaguely adheres to a ternary form but, for all its passion, it is so rigorously worked that its thematic organistion is not very different from that which Schoenberg and his pupils were to apply to their serial material several years later.

Nacht

Schilflied

Die Nachtigall

Traumgekrönt

Im Zimmer

Liebesode

Sommertage

Berg’s Seven Early Songs we owe, in more than one sense, to the composer’s wife Helene. It was his love for her that inspired him to write some of them in the early days of their relationship, before their marriage in 1911, and it was she who, seventeen years later, persuaded him to extract them from what he had hoped was oblivion and to prepare them, in both piano and orchestral versions, for publication. He had plenty to choose from. Before he started his studies with Schoenberg in 1904 he had been unable to write anything but songs and even then he produced little else until he completed his Piano Sonata Op.1 in 1908. His guiding principle in selecting these seven songs from the ninety or more gathering dust in manuscript was the interest of the vocal line – or so it seems if they are compared with the forty-six others that Universal Edition chose to publish in 1985.

Berg’s extraordinary, though obviously untutored promise was clear to Schoenberg from the start: “When I saw the compositions he showed me I recognised at once that he was a real talent.” By 1908 when he wrote Nacht, which is not only the longest of the Seven Early Songs but also the one he chose to open the collection, he had developed well beyond that. The whole-tone progression heard low on woodwind and pizzicato strings in the opening bars and at many points thereafter seem to suggest that he was well aware of the music of Debussy – whom not even Schoenberg, according to his own confession, knew at the time – and the motivic organisation is both thoroughly worked out and apparently spontaneous at the same time. The unity of the song, like much of its melodic and harmonic beauty, derives from the whole-tone phrase to which Berg sets the first line and which recurs in a variety of shapes throughout.

Schilflied, which was written at much the same time as Nacht, is a rather more conventional song constructed on more or less straightforward ternary lines. The opening section features on a solo horn and harp an unobtrusively syncopated ostinato which, after a slow middle section animated by whispered woodwind arpeggios and tremolando strings suggestive of the rustling reeds, returns in a more insistent form in the third stanza. Die Nachtigall was written a year earlier and shows something of the Brahms influence Schoenberg detected in his pupil. It is no less welcome for that. A purely lyrical conception, with no nightingale imitations in the restrained half-muted string accompaniment, it is another ternary construction offering a slightly anxious middle section between particularly melodious outer sections.

If Die Nachtigall is the most immediately attractive of the Seven Early Songs, the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt – which was written for Helene not long after their first meeting in 1907    – is probably the most inspired. Like Nacht, it spontaneously shapes its own construction, following the lead of the words rather than conforming to a preconceived pattern. At the same time it coheres quite firmly round two motifs, the four notes with which second violins open the song and the rising phrase that goes with the first line in the vocal part. Im Zimmer, the earliest of the seven songs by a year or more, also creates its own form but is so short that, apart from a few echoes of the little phrase with which voice and clarinet open the song in unison, it needs no motivic organisation to hold it together. It ends with a succession of high chimes on the celesta illustrating the passing of the minutes in the last line.

Liebesode – which was written in 1906, apparently before Berg met Helene –is a particularly sensual inspiration. It is closely worked thematically, the structure being based on the three-note descending motif on clarinet in the opening bars. But it is also erotically evocative as that motif mingles with the harp and woodwind imagery associated with the summer wind and the scent of the roses, symbolising the lovers’ oneness with nature around them. The last and latest of the songs, Sommertage, is also the most prophetic of the mature Berg. It vaguely adheres to a ternary form but, for all its passion, it is also rigorously worked as the rising phrase that first appears on low strings, anticipating the first entry of the voice, runs through every section of the song. With its inversions, retrogrades and retrograde inversions the treatment is not very different from that which Schoenberg and his pupils were to apply to their serial material several years later.

Gerald Larner © 20010

Nacht

Schilflied

Die Nachtigall

Traumgekrönt

Im Zimmer

Liebesode

Sommertage

Berg’s Seven Early Songs we owe, in more than one sense, to the composer’s wife Helene. It was his love for her that inspired him to write some of them in the early days of their relationship, before their marriage in 1911, and it was she who, seventeen years later, persuaded him to extract them from what he had hoped was oblivion and to prepare them for publication. He had plenty to choose from. Before he started his studies with Schoenberg in 1904 he had been unable to write anything but songs and even then he produced little else until he completed his Piano Sonata Op.1 in 1908. His guiding principle in selecting these seven songs from the ninety or more gathering dust in manuscript was the interest of the vocal line – or so it seems if they are compared with the forty-six others that Universal Edition chose to publish in 1985.

Berg’s extraordinary, though obviously untutored promise was clear to Schoenberg from the start: “When I saw the compositions he showed me… I recognised at once that he was a real talent.” By 1908 when he wrote Nacht, which is not only the longest of the Seven Early Songs but also the one he chose to open the collection, he had developed well beyond that. The whole-tone progression heard low on the piano in the opening bars and at many points thereafter seem to suggest that he was well aware of the music of Debussy –whom not even Schoenberg, according to his own confession, knew at the time – and the motivic organisation is both thoroughly worked out and apparently spontaneous at the same time. The unity of the song, like much of its melodic and harmonic beauty, derives from the whole-tone phrase to which Berg sets the first line and which recurs in a variety of shapes throughout.

Schilflied, which was written at much the same time as Nacht, is a rather more conventional song constructed on more or less straightforward ternary lines. The opening section features in the piano part an unobtrusively syncopated ostinato which, after a slow middle section animated by piano arpeggios suggestive of the rustling reeds, returns in a more insistent form in the third stanza. Die Nachtigall was written a year earlier and shows something of the Brahms influence Schoenberg detected in his pupil. It is no less welcome for that. A purely lyrical conception, with no nightingale imitations in the comparatively plain-textured piano part, it is another ternary construction offering a slightly anxious middle section between particularly melodious outer sections.

If Die Nachtigall is the most immediately attractive of the Seven Early Songs, the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt – which was written for Helene not long after their first meeting in 1907– is probably the most inspired. Like Nacht, it spontaneously shapes its own construction, following the lead of the words rather than conforming to a preconceived pattern. At the same time it coheres quite firmly round two motifs, the four notes with which the piano opens the song and the rising phrase that goes with the first line in the vocal part. Im Zimmer, the earliest of the seven songs by a year or more, also creates its own form but is so short that, apart from a few echoes of the little phrase with which voice and piano open the song in unison, it needs no motivic organisation to hold it together. The orchestral version of the Seven Early Songs, which Berg wrote at the same time as he revised the piano version for publication in 1928, features a succession of high chimes on the celesta illustrating the passing of the minutes at the end. It is the only touch of orchestral colour one misses in these so beautifully written piano parts.

Liebesode - which was written in 1906, apparently before Berg met Helene - is a particularly sensual inspiration. It is closely worked thematically, the structure being based on the three-note descending motif in the piano part in the opening bars. But it is also erotically evocative as that motif mingles with the musical imagery associated with the summer wind and the scent of the roses, symbolising the lovers’ oneness with nature around them. The last and latest of the songs, Sommertage, is also the most prophetic of the mature Berg. It vaguely adheres to a ternary form but, for all its passion, it is also rigorously worked as the rising phrase that first appears in the left hand of the piano, anticipating the first entry of the voice, runs through every section of the song. With its inversions, retrogrades and retrograde inversions the treatment is not very different from that which Schoenberg and his pupils were to apply to their serial material several years later.