Piano Sonata, Op.1 (Berg, Alban)
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Performances
Recordings
Complete Performance
*#78142 - 10.41MB - 11:22 - (6) - - !N/!N/!N - 3962x⇩
Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 [tag/del]
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Sheet Music
Piano Scores
Complete Score
*#234327 - 0.62MB, 11 pp. - (1) - V/V/V - 5190x⇩
PDF scanned by Sibley Library
Massenetique (2012/6/15)
Berlin: Schlesinger, n.d.[1910]. Plate S.9539.
New York: Associated Music Publishers, n.d.
This file is part of the Sibley Mirroring Project.
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Complete score
*#254701 - 2.99MB, 12 pp. - (3) - V/V/V - 1494x⇩
Berlin: Schlesinger, n.d.[1910]. Plate S.9539.
Vienna: Universal Edition, 1926. (with spurious copyright claim)
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Complete Score
*#02556 - 0.55MB, 9 (#20-28) pp. - (12) - V/V/V - 12684x⇩
Moscow: Muzyka, n.d.(ca.1970). Plate 6250
from unidentified collection
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Free Recordings
- Martin Malmgren, piano (Piano Society)
- Ahmed Anzaldúa, piano (Piano Society)
- Erik Wickström, piano (Piano Society)
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General Information
| Work Title | Piano Sonata |
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| Alternative Title |
| Composer | Berg, Alban |
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| Opus/Catalogue Number | Op.1 |
| Key | B minor |
| Movements/Sections | 1 |
| Year/Date of Composition | 1907–1909? |
| First Performance | 1911-04-24 in Vienna. Etta Werndorff, piano |
| First Publication | 1910 |
| Piece Style | Early 20th century |
| Instrumentation | Piano |
| External Links | Wikipedia article |
Misc. Comments
The early sonata sketches of Berg while being a student under Schoenberg eventually culminated in this sonata; while considered to be his "graduating composition", it is one of the most formidable initial works ever written by any composer (Lauder, 1986)
This sonata consists of a single movement centered in the key of B minor, but Berg makes frequent use of chromaticism, whole-tone scales, and wandering key centers, giving the tonality a very unstable feel. The piece is in the typical sonata form, with an Exposition, Development and Recapitulation, but the composition also relies heavily on Arnold Schoenberg's idea of developing variation, a method to ensure the unity of a piece of music by deriving all aspects of a composition from a single idea.
Schoenberg stated that the unity of a piece is dependent on all aspects of the composition being derived from a single basic idea. Berg would then pass this idea down to one of his students, Theodor Adorno, who in turn stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different". The Sonata is a striking example of the execution of this idea — the whole composition can be derived from the opening quartal gesture and from the opening leitmotif.
