Word: wozzeck
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...great ensembles, he had a more progressive view of contemporary music than either of his two main rivals-Arturo Toscanini in New York and Serge Koussevitsky of the Boston Symphony. He gave the American premieres of both Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Berg's Wozzeck. He was constantly concerned with helping young musicians. That was why, at age 80, he helped to found the American Symphony Orchestra in New York in 1962. He had demanded and received huge salaries in Philadelphia ($110,000 a year at his peak), plus the income from radio and recordings...
Died. Helene Berg, 92, widow of the Austrian composer Alban Berg (Wozzeck); in Vienna. Reputedly the natural daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph, Helene was devoted to her husband until his death in 1935 and then became a fierce guardian of his works. She felt she was in communion with his spirit and refused to release the nearly finished third act of his last opera, Lulu, which is usually pieced together from dialogue and Berg's music for performances. It will be presented by the Metropolitan Opera for the first time this winter...
...Caldwell, and ever since she has been patiently trying to get the money together to stage the opera in Boston. Montezuma is indisputably twelve-tone music's finest hour on the operatic stage. Whether it finds its way into the standard repertory or, like Berg's Wozzeck (which it rivals), stays on the fringes, is something only the years can determine. For now it is enough that Montezuma is a work that imbues the mind with searing resonances...
...Alban Berg could not find an opera house willing to produce Wozzeck. On Hermann Scherchen's suggestion, Berg produced a three-movement suite about Wozzeck's mistress, Marie. From 1924 (the first performance date) to the present, the opera has remained Berg's most popular work all because of the initial spark provided by the suite. The public must have acted on faith to hail Wozzeck on the strength of the suite excerpts: they contain only a fraction of the tragedy and sarcasm that pervades the opera. The last suite movement in particular loses nearly all its power...
...Everyman's stereotype of a 'modern' work; and the audience response was stereotypically reserved. But all of this is contrary not only to the spirit of the score, but also to Berg's expressed attitude toward the performance of his works. Consider his enthusiastic praise of one production of Wozzeck (Leningrad, 1927): "Wozzeck was sung with belcanto. Yes, a modern opera needs just as nice singing as Troubadour! And the phrasing must be just as flexible." Such remarks must also have some significance for the performance of Berg's chamber works...