reference and association in the vier lieder, op. 2, of alban berg

8/20/2019 Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder, Op. 2, Of Alban Berg

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Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder, Op. 2, of Alban Berg

Robert Gauldin

Music Theory Spectrum , Vol. 21, No. 1. (Spring, 1999), pp. 32-42.

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Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder,Op 2 of Alban Berg

Robert Gauldin

The use of referential association originating from extra- orintra-musical sources is a recurring theme in the history ofWestern music.' The ma nner of its occurrence in individual piecesis both varied and ingenious. In some cases such references arerelatively conspicuous and obvious, while in other instances theyare artfully disguised within the musical fabric, revealing theirpresence only through analytical scrutiny. In this essay I enumer-ate several exemplars of this procedure in various works from theRenaissance to the present day, and then demonstrate how AlbanBerg employed associative keys centers, acronyms, quotations,and parody as the m eans of establishing referential associations inhis Vier Lieder, op. 2.

Recent research has explored Wagner's use of associativetonality in his later music dramas, where the initial key of certainpassages or leitmotifs linked to specific personages, objects, oremotions recurs in subsequent statements of similar dramatic im-port.* Thes e referential tonal centers, which usually originate at

'1 use the term r


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instrumental music.5 Specific keys may also hold more personal orintimate connections for a composer, our knowledge of which de-pends on historical documentation.

The use of musical acronyms, in which the initials or full nameof a person or place are expressed in hexachordal syllables or

modem letter names, may be traced back to thesoggetto cavatoof Renaissance practice, as in Josquin's Missa Hercules DuxFerariae (where the vowel sounds extracted from the dedicationcreate the subject re-ut-re-ut-re-fa-mi-re). Bach's ability to ex-press his own name in musical notation and his attendant fascina-tion with numerology (using alphabetical position to computeB A C H 2 1+3+8 14 and JSB AC H its reverse41 are evi-dent in several of his ow n wo rks,6 not to mention in subsequentuses of BAC H by such diverse composers as Mendelssohn, Liszt,Honegger, and Schoenberg. The use of either overt or disguisedacronyms, as practiced by Schumann (ASC H inCarnaval and hisABEGG Variations) and Brahms (AGAT[H]E in his G majorString Sextet op. 36 , found its continuation in the SecondViennese School. The degree of association between referrer andreferent varies considerably, from Schu mann's miniature tribute tothe Norwegian composer G AD E7 o Berg's invariant tetrachord inhis Lyric Suite, whose hidden relation to his secret mistress waseventually deciphered by George Perle.8

5Patrick McCreless, Schenker and Chrom atic Tonicization: AReappraisal, in Schenker Studies, ed. Hedi Siegel (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990), 125-45 [132-381.

61n addition to the last exposition of the unfinished (quadruple?) fugue in hisKunsr der Fuge and the clavier fugue in b major VW 898, both of which arebased on his name, see also Bach's use of the numbers 14 and 41 in the cantusnotes of his chorale preludek r deinen Tron tret' ich hiermit VW 668. Nor

was Bach the first to indulge in such practices: O(c) keghe m added a c to hislast name so that the numerical equivalents of the letters would form symm etri-cal patterns: OC 17, KE 15, GH 15, and EM 17. While the first four andlast four letters total 3 2, their sum 64 ( or the square of 8) forms a correlation tohis first name JOHA NNES , which sum s to 81 (or the square of 9).

'See Norse Song, Al bu mf ir the Young,no. 41.8George Perle. The Secret Program of theLyric Suite, The International

Alban Berg Society Newsletter5 (1977 ): 4-12.

Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder Op. 2 of Alban Berg

The practice of citing quotations from the works of other com-posers likewise occupies a considerable historical span, stretchingfrom the homages of Busnois and Josquin for the Renaissancemaster Ockeghemg to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, which superim-poses a collage of various excerpts against the background of

Mahler's Second Symphony. While Brahms intended the snippetfrom Tannhauser in his Third Symphony as an epitaph on Wag-ner's recent death,I0 other composers have used quotations toserve satirical purposes: see, for example, Saint-Saens's deliciousdeformations of melodies by Offenbach and Berlioz in hisCarni-v al of th e A n i r n a l ~ , ~ ~nd Debussy's maudlin setting of the openingphrase of Tristan in his Golliwog's Cake Walk. Composers haveeven engaged in self-quotation, as evidenced by Richard Strauss'sallusions to his earlier works in Ein Heldenleben and Vier letzteLieder.

The technique of parody, the more extensive modeling of acomposition on a previous work (either one's own or that of an-other composer) constitutes a final form of association. Once acommon practice in the liturgical literature of the High Renais-sance (nearly half of Palestrina's masses employ this procedure),it resurfaced in the Romantic period and after. In some cases there-compositional process is both conspicuous and intentional(such as the Liszt/Schubert and B uson iBach paraphrases, Stravin-sky's re-workings of Pergolesi, Tchaikovsky, Bach, and Gesualdo,or Lukas Foss 's Baroque Variations), while in other instances theextent of the parody is revealed only throug h analysis.lz

9Busnois's In hydraulis and Josquin's Nynrphes des bois contain quotationsfrom Ockgehem's Missa Caput.

I0Compare the harmonic progression inmm. 31-33 of the symp hony's firstmovement with the Sirens' Chorus in the Bacchanal ofTannhauser's first act.

I1ln Turtles, the can-can tune from Offen bach'sOrpheus in Hades occursin lugubrious augme ntatio n; in Elephants, Berlioz's elfin Dance of theSylphs (fromThe Damnation of Fa ust) is performed by the double basses.

[=T he ondo Finale of Brahms's D minor Piano Concerto appears to beclosely modeled after the rondo Finale of Beethoven's C minor Piano Concerto.For a discussion of Wagner's use of such techniques see Robert Gauldin,Wagner's Parody Technique: 'Trlume' and theTristan Love Duet, Musir

Theory Spectrum 1 (1979): 33-42.


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4 usic heory Spectrum

Some composers show a m ore pronounced tendency than oth-ers to employ extra- and intra-musical associations. In particular,Alban Berg utilized both overt and disguised referential tech-niques in his music, as has been demonstrated by s uch notable an-alysts as George Perle, Douglas Jarman, Allen Forte, and DaveHeadlam . Yet the focu s of scrutiny has rested primarily on B erg'sLyric Suite Chamber Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Wozzeck,unfortunately neglecting possible associational allusions in theVier Lieder op. 2.{3Although it may seem surprising that such anearly work of Berg's would incorporate each of the referentialprocedures discussed above, the remainder of this article will en-deavor to establish the concurrent existence of all such proceduresas a significant component of the song cycle's composition. Inconfining my com men ts to the musical aspects of the associations,I leave any attendant philosophical or aesthetic issues, such asmeaning, representation, or sym bolism, for others to ponder.

The analytical scrutiny already afforded the pitch structure in

these so ngs has resulted in a sizable literature.14 Rem nant s of tonal

Ulrich Kr2mer deals with the general topic of Quotation and Self-Borrowing in the Music of Alban Berg, Journal ~ f Mu.sicologica1Research1211-2 (1992): 53-82, but with the exception of one quotation from Schoen-berg, he ignores the op. 2 Son gs.

Surveys of the cyc le include Jay Wilkey, Certain Aspec ts of Form in theVocal Music of Alban Berg (P h.D . diss., Indiana University, 1965); MaryWen nerstrom , Pitch Relations in Berg's Songs Opus 2, Indiana TheoryReview 1 (1977): 12-22; Douglas Jarman,The Music (?f AlbanBerg (Berkeley:University of Californ ia Press, 1979), 30-31, 148; Geo rge Perle, Berg, inThe New Grove Dic.tior~rrr?,f Mu\ic. irnd Mu.cic.rarrs; Thom as Hattey, TheTransition to Atonality: an Analysis of Alban Berg's Vier Lieder Op. 2(Maste r's thesis, Eastman School of M usic, 1985, for which the present authorserved as adviser); Mark DeVoto, Berg, the Composer of Songs, inT l ~ eBergConrpanron. ed. Douglas Jarman (Lo ndon: Macmillan, 1989), 33-66; StephenKett , A Conserv at~veRevolution: the Music of the Four Songs Op. 2, inTheBerg Corrrpaniorr, 67-90; Dave Headlam , Tllr Musrc. of Alban Berg (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1996 ), 33-45, 167-74; and Anthon y Pople, Th eEarly Works: Tonality and Beyond, inTllr Canrbrrdgr Corrlparrion to Berg, ed.Anthony Pople (Cambrid ge: Camb ridge University Press, 1997), 66-76. The

function remain in the first three songs, prompting some analyststo approach them using Schenkerian voice-leading procedures.15Oth er more atonal passages, especially in the final song, invite theuse of s et-class analysis.16 A sum mary of the essential po intsfound in the sources listed in footnote 1 4 is presented below andcued to Example 1.

Son g 1 ( Schlafen, S chlafen, nichts als Schlafen ) opens in thekey of D minor and e stablishes the significant referential cho rdF #A C F (set-class 5-32 [01469]) w ith its related neighb or Eb A GC #F # 5-28 [02368]); within both is embedd ed the crucial trichord3-5 [016]. Refer to Example la .I7

Song 2 ( Schlafend tragt man mich ) relies heavily on theFrench-sixth-type sonority (4-25 [0268]) as a derived subset of

truncated analysis of the songs that appears as Chapter 40 of myHarnronicPractice in Tonal Music (Ne w York: Norton, 1997), 605-20 is based on the re-search for this article. Additional analyses pertaining to the individual songswill be duly documented in later footnotes.

I5Both Hattey and Headlam incorporate voice-leading graphs for the firstthree songs, but their results are often at odds. For instance, for the initial songHattey proposes a 3 b4 ? fundamental line (mm. 1. 15, 23), while Headlamposits a 3-2-1 Urlinie (mm.2 1 , 2 2 , 3 0 ) .

I6See the studies by Wennerstrom, Hattey, and Headlam, although Head-lam's discussion emphasizes int er ~a lycles, especially those based on intervals1 and 5.

''Most writers mentio n the 5-32 referential chord and the derived trichord3-5. Schoenberg observed the interesting character of this sonority during hisdiscussion of the last two harmonies of the cycle (5-32 and 6-30 [013679]) inhis Harmonielehre (191 I , but neglected to mention that lt occurs as early as m.5 of the initial song. For a discussion of the basic palindromic design of thissong see Robert F Morgan , The Eternal Return: Retrograde and Circular Formin Berg, in Alban Berg: Historical and Ar~alyticalPer.spec,tii e.\, ed. DavidGab le and Robert P. Morga n (Oxford : Oxford University P ress, 19 91), 47-91[841.


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Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder Op. 2 of Alban Berg 5

Example 1. Issues raised by analysts of Berg's Op. songs

a. Song 1: Schlafen, ScNafen, nichts als ScNafen b. Song : Schlafend triigt man michIN^ 1 8 (transferred voice-leading)

5-32 5-28

Ic. Song 3: Nun ich der Riesen

Imn. 1-2 ~n ln .4-6

d. Song 4: Warm die Liifte

cycle


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36 usic Theory Spectrum

5-28; a pair of superimposed 1 and 5 cycles frame the song(Example lb).IE

Song 3 ( Nun ich der Riesen ) features the emergence of the3-5 trichord as a part of a prominent four-note m otive, and a refer-ence in the song's m iddle section (mm . 7-9) to the D minor tonal-ity from the opening of the cycle. The relations of Song 3's threetonal areas, Ab, D, an d Eb, also refer to the the 3-5 trichord, as in-deed d o the key centers of the first three songs: D minor, Eb minor,and Ab minor (Exam ple lc).I9

181 suspect that the original fo rm of the opening four mea sures con sisted ofa superimposition of chromatically descending [026] trichords in the uppervoices against the projection of fourths in the bass, resulting in a succession ofFrench-sixth-type sonorities in a four-voice texture. Since every other chordin such a succession contains a doubling and thus does not form a complete[0268] tetrachord, Berg added notes in the vocal line to complete the tetra-chords; each successive three-chord segment forms the aggregate. Hattey andHeadlam both describe these opening four measures as a prolonged V7 of Ebminor, noting the existence of a long-range voice exchange between the Bb andFb (=Eh) in mm . 1 and4 followed by a resolution to Eb in measu re 9. Alsosee Craig Ayrey, Berg's 'Sch eide weg ': Analytical Issues In Op. Zlii, Mu.\irAnalysis 112 (1982): 189-202, and P hi l~ p ambert, lves and Berg: 'Norma-tive' Proced ures and Post-Tonal Alternative s, inCharle. Ives and the ClassicalTradition ed. Geoffrey Block andJ . Peter Burkholder (New Haven: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1996 ), 105-30 [121-221.

19Wennerstrom's discussion of this song is revealing, especially her obser-vations on the 3-5 trichord and its relation to the tonal centers of the first threesongs. Pople ( Early W orks, 69) traces no less than seven occurrences of theopenlng four-note motive (Ab-C-G-Db) in various transpos itions, all of whichcontain the embed ded 3-5. In contrast to the whole-tone-oriented sonorities ofthe previous song, this m otive features half-step relations. I must take exceptionto the analysis of the D minor recurrence in Matthew Brown, DouglasDempster, and Dave Headlam, The #I V (bV) Hypothesis: Testing the Limitsof Schenker's Theory of Tonality, Music Theory Spectrunz 1912 (1997):155-83 [179-801. In order to sidestep the tritone relation of D minor and itssubsequent prolongation to the tonic Ab minor, they attempt to explain it awayby sleight of hand thro ugh a functiona l assignm ent of IV of bII. The irvoice-leading graph is based on the analysis in Headlam,The Music o AlbanBerg 44 The nature of this passage will be examined below in light of the con-current Bh in the upper voice.

Son g No. ( Warm die Liifte ) is decidedly more atonal, withseveral characteristic half-step wedges. The oft-quoted concludingmeasures superimpose a series of 3-5 trichords in chromatic de-scen t over a 5 cycle (Example ld).20

Despite the feasibility of both Schenkerian and set-class ap-proaches to these songs, I would nevertheless suggest that previ-ous analyses have presented an incomplete picture of their pitchstructure. While analyses have addressed the question ofhow thevarious relationships interact, they have failed to engage the issueof where and why certain pitch form ations occur within the music.Fo r instance, what is the significance, if any, of the infamous ref-erential augmented ninth chord on D in mm. 5-10 and 23-26 ofthe initial song and its subsequent recurrence as the cycle'sjin lharmony, transposed to B? In order to answer this and other suchqueries, we must first reconstruct the historical circumstan ces sur-rounding the compo sition of these songs.21

Berg wrote the Vier Lieder during 1908-1910. At that time the

composer was courting the affections of Helene Nahowsky, whomhe would marry in 1911; the songs' original dedication bears theinscription To my H elene. Alban Berg. 22 I propose that Bergused the four types of referential association mentioned above-specific key relations, acronyms, quotations, and parody-all ofwhich are explicit in the tonal structures of the songs, to express

2oHeadlamprovides an extensive graph of cyclical tetrachords in th ~ song.In addition to Anthony Pople's comm ents in his Secret Programmes: Them esand Techniques in Recent Berg Scholarship, Music Analysis 1213 (1993):392-94, see H. H. Stuckenschmidt's famous Debussy o r Berg? The Mysteryof a Chord Progression, The Musical Quarterly 5113 (1965): 453-59. Gle nnWatkins refers to the latter in his brief comm ents on Warm die Ltifte inSoundings: Music in the Twentieth Century(New York: Schirm er Books, 1988),45-49.

ZIDeta iled inform ation on this period of Berg's life can be found inReinhard Gerlach,Musik and Jugenstil (Laaber: L aaber Verlag, 198 5).

One of the best sources for information about the relationship betweenAlban and H elene is Constantin Floros,Alban Berg: Musik als Autobiographic(Wiesbaden: Brietkopf Hartel, 1992), 143-52.


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his feelings toward Helene. Befo re offering details of these associ-ations in the songs, give a brief outlin e of their importance.While the application of these ideas to Op. 2 may initially seemsom ewha t speculative, trust their frequent occurrence in Berg'sother works will serve to substantiate the validity of my argu-ments.

1) Specific key relations. Berg continually associated the keyof minor with Helene.23 It functions as the basic tonal center ofthe initial song of op. 2 and as the hom e ("Heimat") key that re-curs in mrn. 6-8 of the third song. Berg's corresponden ce with hiswife includes a letter (1907?) that ends with a reference to her as"my most glorious Symphony in D minor," a phrase recalled inhis letter of 16 July 1909: "the most glorious D-min or chords ofy ou r S O U I . " ~ ~ouglas Jarman notes that this key occurs as an im-portant tonal center in the op. 6 Orchestral Pieces, in Der Wein,and in the f inal in ter lude of W o z ~ ec k .~ ~oncerning the last inter-lude, in a letter to Helene dated 27 May 1922 Berg states, "I oweit all to you and you alone. You com pose d it and only wrote itdown." 26

2) Acronyms. The initial chromatic ascent in mm . 2-4 ofthe first song (A-Bb-Bh) spells out an acron ym of AlbanBerg and Helene, where H = Bh. Rent Leibowitz and TheodorAdorno mention these pitches in regard to mm . 5-6 of the third

2'While writers have proposed the Beethoven Ninth or Mahler SixthSymphonies as possible ori gins of this association, David Schr oeder traces it toBerg's acquaintance with the plays of August Strindberg; see his "Berg,Strindberg, and D minor, College Music. Synzposiun~3012 (1990 ): 74-89. Thekey of D minor does occur in numerous pieces of this period: the D minorString Quartet of Schoenberg, the D minor Passacaglia of Webern, and certain

songs of Zernlinsky. In this instance, Berg's association of the key to Helenerepresents a specific case, a point not mentioned in the various analyses ofo p . 2 .

2JAlban Berg: Letters to his Wife, ed. Bernard Grun (London: Faber andFaber, 197 I) , l ,6 2.

25Jarman,Music (j 'Berg, 18.26AlbanBerg: Letters to His Wife,30 1


song,27but are silent concerning their initial appearance. In bothcases the original chromatic ascent continues on to C to form asemi-tonal tetrachord, whose associative significance I discussbelow. Acronyms occur in other works of Berg: the ChamberConcerto, whose mono theme is based on the names of ArnoldSchonberg, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg, the invariant tetra-chord of the Lyric Suite using the names Alban Berg and HannaFuch s, his secret mistress,Z8 and the set 4- 18 [0147] based o n thefram ing letters of H elene Berg in Woueck, no ted by Allen Forte.29Coincidentally, in a letter to Helene dated December 1908, thecom poser signed his n ame by n otating the pitches A and Bb in thetreble clef. Since Berg did not write his letter alluding to his mys-tical number "23" and Wilhelm Fliess's Vom Leben und Tod(1909) until 191 4, it is probably coinc idental that in the two inn ersongs, which f orm a single unit, the arrival at the pivotal D minorin the third song is concomitant with the first use of the A-B-Hmotive at the end of m. 23 and the beginning of m. 24 .

3) Quotations. Based on a consideration of the texts that Bergchose, Stephen Kett describes the op. 2 songs as "a psychologicalexploration of, and journey to, a distant world of 'sleep-death' asan escape from reality"; he cites Tristan as the most likely influ-ence.'O W hile the first three son gs feature a prom inent u se of theword sle ep ("Schlafen"), the last song concludes with an allusionto death ("Stirb "), suggesting a longing for the "night" or eternalsleep of death,31 the prevailing Schopenhauerian/metaphysical

27RenCLeibowitz, Srhoenberg et son Prole (Paris: J. B. Janin, 1947), 146,and Theod or Adorno,Alban Berg: Master ofthe Smallest Link, trans. JulianeBrand and Christopher Hailey (Cambridge: Cambridg e University Press, 1991),49. At my suggestion, Hattey included this, as well as other allusions referred toin this article, in his Thesis during his discussion of the first and third songs.

28Perle,"The Se cret Program of theLyrir Suite, 4-12.Z9Allen Forte, "Berg's Symphonic Epilogue to Wouerk, in Alban Berg:

Historical and Analytical Persp ectives, 157.3oKett,"Conservative Revolution," 67-68.?'Th e only two low A's in the vocal line of the cycle occur at the opening of

the first song on the word "Schlafen" and near the end of the last song on theword "Stirb."


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8 Music Theory Spectrum

motif that runs throughout Wagner's music drama. I believe thereare numerous disguised musical references to Tristan throughoutthe songs, casting Alban and Helene as the star-crossed lovers.Melodic gestures and harmo nies cited at their original pitch levelsand d rawn f rom the Prelude to Act I, the Ab Love D uet in Act 11,

and Isolde's final Transfiguration ("Liebestod) occur in each ofthe last three songs. This is not totally surprising, since similarquotations from Wagner's opera appear in his other works. In ad-dition to emb eddin g a "Tristan progression" in his op. 1 Pian oSonata rnrn 90-101),32 Be rg actually quotes the open ing mea-sures of that opera's Prelude in the Finale of the Lyric Suite.33Douglass Green sug gests that the text of a poem by Baudelaire, onwhich the last movem ent of that work wa s originally based, showsa decided similarity to the opening scene of Act I11 in T ri ~ ta n. 3~nhis correspondence to Helene during the composition of the op. 2songs, Berg made several specific references to the opera: "Any-one who could write Tristan must surely have believed in lovewith the uttermost conviction" (2 June 1907), and "to die for youthe death of love ('Liebestod')" (30 July 19 09).3r

'This reference is omitted in Janet Schmalfeldt's extended voice-leadinganalysis of the Sonata; see her "Berg's Path to Atonality: The P iano Sonata Op.1, in Alban Berg : Historic.al an dA na lyt ic~ 11 er.\pective.s, 79-1 10.

"In his provocativ e article Tristan and Berg's Lyric. Suite, In Tl ~e or y nly813 ((1984): 33-41, Joseph N Straus points out that a rearrangement and trans-position of Hanna's A-B-H-F motive [0126] yields the opening cello pitchesof Tristan. A-F-E-D#. He further demo nstrates how three segme nts of the tonerow (his "set B") in the last movem ent (m m 2-4 in the viola) may be mappedinto the Tristan quotation. These remarks were reiterated in his laterR e s h a p i n ~the Pa.\t; Music.al Modernisn~and tlle Influence of' tll r fina l Traditton (Cam-b r ~ d g e ,Mass : Harvard University Press , 1990), 144-49. Wagner h~m sel fquoted the opening gesture of the Tristan Prelude in his own works. Aside fromthe obvious citation in Act 111 of Mei.ster.singer (p. 452, mm. 1-4 of the Schir-mer vocal scor e), he alluded to it in the "Paris" revision ofTannhduse r :~Bacchanal. The progression permeates m uch of the exchange between Parsifaland Kundry in Act I1 of Parsif id , especially during the "kiss" (p. 184,rnm.3-7).

'4Douglass Green, "Berg's De P rofundis: The Finale of theLyric Suite , T l~ eInterr ~atior~ allban Berg Soc.iery Newsletter 5 (1977): 13-23.

35AlbanBerg: Letters to His Wife,24, 78.

4 Parody. The third song of the cycle may represent the re-composition of an extended passage from Act I1 of Tristan.Although I have been unable to find this degree of parody occur-ring in other works of Berg, his Violin Concerto does feature"re-workings" of a Carinthian folk song and Bach's setting of the

chorale Es ist g e n ~ g . ~ ~Based o n his study of extant sketch material, Stephen Kett con-

cludes that the two interior songs, both of w hich incorporate textsfrom Alfred Mombert's D er Gli ihende (1896), were w ri t t en fi r~ t . ~This view reinforces Jay Wilkey's con tention that these two songsform a sin gle unit as th e centerpiece of a triptych.38 In tracing thecomplete cycle's compositional chronology in the followinganalysis, I will hereafter assum e that the second and third songs inthe opus ("Schlafend tragt man rnich" and "Nun ich der Riesen")were composed first and second, respectively, followed by op. 2,no. 1 ("Schlafen, Schlafen, nichts als Schlafen") and then op. 2,no. ("Warm die Liifte"). Wh en viewed fro m this standpoint, it iseasy to see that the opening progression of "Schlafend tragt" al-

ready lays out the superimposed cycles l and5 that permeate andeventually close the set during the final measures of "Warm."

"Schlafend tragt" employs two significant linear motives.Although I originally suspected that the first of these (Example2a) represented a quotation from some other work, I have beenunable to locate it, either in Tristan or in earlier pieces of Schoen-

l6For a discussion of the sources and their occurrences, see Anthony Pople,Berg:s Violin Conc,erto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991); andDouglas Jarman, "Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess, and the Secret Programme ofthe Violin Concerto," in Tlie Berg Con ~panio n, 81-96.

j7Kett ("Cons ervative Revo lution," 80-82) provides a diagram linking thetonal structure of the pair of interior songs, but his use of the term "French 6th"in several instances is midleading, because the harmonies so denoted inmm 3and 6 of "Nun ich" are half-diminished seventh chords.

38See Kett, "Conservative Revolution," 69-70, and Wilkey, "CertainAspects of Form," 23. Kett also suggests that Joseph Engelhart 's paintingDieSc,hlejienden,which features three sleeping women and a "faun-like creature"(3 I) , may have been the initial inspiration for op. 2.


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Example 2. Two significant linear motives in Schlafend tragt

berg and Berg.39 On the other hand, the second melodic motive ofa rising minor sixth following by descending half-step motion(Example 2b) does suggests the opening cello statement of theTristan Prelude. Occurring nine times during the song, thej r s tstatement in the piano part (mm.4-5) starts with the same threenotes used at the beginning ofTristan (A-F-E). The minor sixth isconfined to occurrences of that single interval within the om-

nipresent French-sixth chords of the song. At this stage of thecycle's composition, no reference appears either to Helene's Dminor or the A-B-H motive, leading me to speculate that these as-sociations may not have occurred to Berg until midway throughNun ich at the crucia l words led by a white fairy's hand.

To facilitate discussion of the next-composed song ( Nunich ), Exam ple 3 provides a graph of its underlying voice-leading.The dominant-like cadence on Eb at the end of the previous songresolves to Ab min or at the beginnin g of Nun ich, first suggeste dby the arpeggiated tonic triad in the vocal line of the first twomeasures. After the bass pulls up chromatically to the Eb that sup-ports an Ab-minor (with an added sixth) at the end of m. 2, a pairof fifth-related harmonies (E7-A7, mm. 4-5) an ive at the homekey of D minor ( heimfand ) in m.6. Just prior to this resolution,the voice begins the A-B-H motive with Hele n's Bh approp riately

39Kr lmer Quotations and Self-Borrowing,80 contends thatm 5 and23 of Schlafen. Schlafen are quotations fromm 15-16 of Schoenberg'sDns u d drr lziingencien Giirren No. 5. He does not, however, propose asource for the opening of Schlafend tr igt .


occumng over her D minor harmony (m. 6), a tritone removefro m the Ab min or tonic of the song; the text at this point ( led ba white fairy's hand ) doubtless represents a direct reference tthe composer's beloved.40 During the subsequent prolonged Dminor chord ofmrn. 6-8, the piano intones the D-A fifth, portray -

ing the tolling of the bell and anticipating the opening interval oSchlafen, Schlafen, the next song to be composed. In both ocurren ces of the A-B-H motive here-in the vocal line of m. 5-and in the piano of m. 8-the chrom atic ascent continues to (mm. 6-7 9 , forming chromatic tetrachords. If we are willing taccept the existence of the A-F-E gesture in the previous song a derivation from theTristan Prelude, what would be more naturalthan to include Wag ner's subseque nt oboe G#-A-A#-B gesture ithis song? The A B H acronym does occur as the last three noteof the Tristan motive, but Berg transposed it up one half-step(A-BC-B-C) so that its ope ning note (A, not Wagn er'sGI) wouldform a consonant relation with the underlying A7 chord. This islikewise true at the opening of the cycle's first song, where th

supporting harmony for the acronym's A is now a D minor triadBut there is m ore, for the Ab minor $ /added sixth chord at the enof m. 2 represents an enharmonic form of theTristan chord ( F CbEb Ab F B D# G#), which properly resolves to theE B Dchord in m. 4, com pleting Wagner's progression. The final threbars of the song represent a variant of mm. 2-3, concluding withhalf cadence on E b

Mar k DeVoto has suggested that Nun ich bears a certain resemblance to the Hagen's Wacht music in ActI of Gotterdam-m e r ~ n g . ~ ' would go even farther and propose that this songrepresents a truncated parody of the initial Ab portion of the extended Lo ve Duets in ActI of T r i ~ t a n , ~ ~hich in turn is based onWagner 's Wesendonck song Tr a~ me . ~3oth are preceded byan extended dominant on Eb prior to the initiation of the Ab toni

'OFor a reference to the comm ents of Adom o and Leibow itz on this passagsee note 27 above.

41DeVoto, Berg: Composer of Songs,44.'*See p. 162,m 17-21 in the Schirm er vocal score ofTristan.''See G auldin , Wagner's Parody Technique.


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4 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 3. Voice-leading graph of Nun ich

ab: TC d v7/v V

ab: V

While the Love D uet employs the major mode, its opening mea- Even if these similarities wer enot intentional on B erg's part, theysures exploit numerous mixture references, especiallyb and b6; do represent a striking coincidence and tend to reenforce thethese relations are mirrored in Berg's song as C versus Cb (m. 1) melodic/harmonic quotations from Wagner's Prelude.and F versus Fb rnm. 2-3). The initial prominent notes of the Having realized the compositional potential of Helene'ssong's vocal line outline the Tristan chord, especially in mm. 2-3 minor tonality and the A-B-H motive in Nun i c h along with the(F-Ab- Cb-Eb), a procedure that likewise opens the Wagner pas- Tristan citations in both of first two songs, I believe that Berg thensage (p. 163 , mm . 1-5 of the Schirmer vocal score). A continuous attempted to incorporate them in a more meaningful mannerpulsating tripletJduplet syncop ation underlies the rhythmic su rface within the fabric of the next-comp osed song in Op. 2, Schlafen,of both the Duet and song.44 n the latter portion of the Love Du et Schlafen. In his search for another text that dealt with the com -(p. 16 8, mm . 2-8) the E7 of theTristan progression resolves to mon theme of Sleep and Death, the compos er was forced toan A major and then moves on to a D in the bass. Berg mimics look outsid e the Mo mbe rt cycle ; Schlafen, Schlafen is based onthis same harmonic motion in mm . 2-6, but now the D supports a a poem from Friedrich Hebbel's collection em Schmerz seinminor-mode tonicization on that tone. Both pieces conclude on Recht (1836). It opens in Helene's D minor establishe d by a reiter-their Eb dominants; Wagner appends a brief codetta (p. 1 69, mm .

ated fifth (D-A) in the bass , with the A-B-H moti ve emp hatica lly3-11) that exploits passing chromatic motion around the Ab tonic. stated in the inner voice (mm . 1- 4 and Example 4a), continuingon to C as in Nun ich. Thes e original pitch classes then recur inmm . 11-12 of the vocal line rearranged to spell outB-A-C-H,'4This figuration is already anticipated in the last two measures of the previ-

ous song; a preceding domina nt likewise establishes the rhythmic pulsation in which immediately appears in sequence a tone higher in the fol-.

the Love Duet. lowing measures (C-B-D-C#). This allusion to Bach may repre-


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Example 4. Use of acronyms in ScNafen, Schlafen

b u 1 5a. 1 5 B C H seg. T2

sent an intentional clue on Berg's part, hinting that a less obviousacronym (the A-B-H reference) is disguised somew here in thesong. The brief 5 cycle in the bass (C -F&B-E and Example 4b)that supports the B-A-C-H quotation recalls the framing progres-sions of the Schlagend tragt. 45 A fleeting sonority in m. 19suggests the sam e pitches and spacing of the bell fourth-chordin mm . 6-7 of Nun ich. Beginning with the upbeat to m. 21, theopening melodic gestures recur in the manner of a free palin-drome (underpinned by the referential 5-32 [01469] sonority onD) before com ing to rest on the originalD minor tonic (Example4c), as has been previously observed by Morgan.46The three oc-

curre nces of the retrog raded H-B-A (m m. 20-21, 21-22, 27-29)

'SLambert ( Ives and Berg, 108-9) points out that following an interrup-tion, this 5 cycle (C#-F#-B-E) continues in mm . 18-20 with A-D-G. The tri-tone relation between this cycle's framing C # and G recalls the opening5 cycleof Schlafe nd tragt, which span s the tritoneBbIFb.

46Morgan, The Eternal Return, 84.


may symbolize the composer's hope that the middle B = Berg)will eventually become their shared name. Although no overt ref-erences to risran appear in Schlafen, Schlafen, the prevailingD minor may also allude to the dramatic events in the final sceneof Act 11, where King Mark is associated with the same key.Wagnerian scholars have compared the good-hearted monarch toOtto Wesendonc k, who initially seem ed oblivious to the affair ofthe heart developing between his wife Mathilde and Richard.Perhaps Berg sensed a parallel to Helene's father, who was suspi-cious of Berg's ability to support his daughter.

While no further references toD minor occur in Warm, the

final song of the set, acronyms of Berg's nam e (A-B) occur inmm . 9-10 and at the climax of the work (last beat of m. 15through m. 19) concom itant with the word Stirb. (Does this rep-resent a Schopen hauerian rejection of the Will?) This may b e con-nected with th e cycle's final bass note Bh to suggest onc e again ananticipated marriage under one name: Berg, Alban and Helene.


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4 usic Theory Spectrum

Finally, the last referential 5-32 sonority of the cycle, built onHelene's Bh, may represent a double allusion both to Wagner'sIsolde and to Berg's Helene: the final chord of Isolde's Trans-figuration, B D F# , plus Helene's A and D , derived fro m herD

minor.47 Thus the cycle's opening 5-32 in Helene's D minor

( Schlafen, Schlafen ) is transfigured by Isolde's sacrificial love,concluding Warm with the same sonority now on Bh. I sus-pect that Berg sketched out this final progression of the set aftercompleting the first two songs; the final song's 5 cycle and 3-5trichords, as noted above and shown in Example Id, had al-ready been introduced in Schlafend tragt and Nun ich. H ethen transferred the last augmented ninth chord on B back toSchlafen, Schlafen, the next-comp osed song, and transposed it

to Helene's original D minor. Further disguised references to theWagn er's Liebestod suggest a possible parody: while the promi-nent upper F #s in m m. 4-6 of the final song may allude to the F#Kopfton of last B major section of Isolde's Transfiguration, thesemitonal wedges in mm . 12-15 of the song display a strikingsimilarity t those passages of contrary chromatic motion found inthat aria (p . 297, m. 7 through 298, m . 3, and p. 295, m. 7 through299, m.7 of the Schirmer vocal score).48

Kett ( Conservative Revolution, 84) suggests that the split third in thisfinal sonority refers back to the tonalities of Schlafen, Schlafen (D minor)and Schlafend tragt P[D l] minor).

48See he discussion of these wedges in Leonard Meyer,Music and Srylr(Ph lade lphi a: University of Pennsylvania P ress, 1989), 3 19-23.

While nothing in the above discussion negates the findings ofprior studies of this cy cle, it does, I trust, illustrate the significantroles played by extra- and intra-musical associations in the songs.Despite the speculative nature of some of my proposals, they donot represent anything radically different from what has been sim -

ilarly described in Berg's other w0rks.~9As other scholars havepointed out, he seemed intent on imbuing every phrase or gesturewith as many intra- and extra-musical meanings as possible. Assuch, this brief study may open further vistas for the explorationof Berg's referential associations in his later works.

A B S T R A C TWhile scholars have focused considerable attention on extramusical refer-ences and associations in certain works of Alban Berg (especially theLyric Suite, Chamber Concerto, Wozzeck,and the Violin Concerto), littleattention has been given to these kinds of procedures in Berg's early VierLieder, op. 2. Referential associations in the op. 2 songs originate fromthe composer's relationship with Helene Nahowsky, whose affections he

was courting during the time of their composition (1908-10). The refer-ences involve the key of D minor ( Helene's key ), an acronym based onthe couple's initials (A B H A Bb Bb), and quotations and parody allud-ing to passages from Wagner's Tristnn und I.solde.

Even in the more abstract instrumental works of Webern, extra-musicalinfluences occasionally app ear; see David Cohen , Anton Webern and theMagic Square, Prr.spec.tive.s ~ ~ N C Mu.sic 1311 (19 74) : 213-15, which dealswith the Latin word square based on SATOR and its use in the final measures ofthe op. 24 finale.


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Reference and Association in the Vier Lieder, Op. 2, of Alban BergRobert Gauldin Music Theory Spectrum , Vol. 21, No. 1. (Spring, 1999), pp. 32-42.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0195-6167%28199921%2921%3A1%3C32%3ARAAITV%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B

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[Footnotes]

12 Wagner's Parody Technique: "Träume" and the "Tristan" Love DuetRobert Gauldin Music Theory Spectrum , Vol. 1. (Spring, 1979), pp. 35-42.

Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0195-6167%28197921%291%3C35%3AWPT%22AT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9

18 Berg's 'Scheideweg': Analytical Issues in Op. 2/iiCraig Ayrey Music Analysis , Vol. 1, No. 2. (Jul., 1982), pp. 189-202.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0262-5245%28198207%291%3A2%3C189%3AB%27AIIO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V

20 Debussy or Berg? The Mystery of a Chord ProgressionH. H. Stuckenschmidt; Piero WeissThe Musical Quarterly , Vol. 51, No. 3. (Jul., 1965), pp. 453-459.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4631%28196507%2951%3A3%3C453%3ADOBTMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y

49 Anton Webern and the Magic SquareDavid CohenPerspectives of New Music , Vol. 13, No. 1. (Autumn - Winter, 1974), pp. 213-215.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-6016%28197423%2F24%2913%3A1%3C213%3AAWATMS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K

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reference and association in the vier lieder, op. 2, of alban berg

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