Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (1926)

VERMEER QUARTET
Shmuel Ashkenasi, 1st violin
Mathias Tacke, 2nd violin
Richard Young, viola
Marc Johnson, cello
March 5, 1999
Siena, Italy

Allegretto gioviale
Andante amoroso (2:50)
Allegro misterioso (8:19)
Adagio apassionato (11:47)
Presto delirando (17:14)
Largo desolato (21:46)
Many musicians consider Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite to be the most technically, intellectually, and emotionally challenging work in the standard string quartet repertoire. Shrouded in mystery, it is infused from beginning to end with a neurotic and rapturous beauty, worthy of Berg’s clandestine love affair with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin.
It was George Perle who illuminated many of the Lyric Suite’s secrecies and opacities – like the concealed soprano part in the final movement, and how Berg encoded his and Hanna’s initials in the music. He explained other enigmas as well – such as why the total number of bars in each movement, as well as every metronome marking in the piece, is divisible by 10 or 23.
The Vermeer began performing the Lyric Suite in 1985, both with the soprano part and without. Sadly, the number of public performances by other ensembles has diminished during this millennium. Wouldn’t it be tragic if this towering masterpiece disappears from the concert stage before it reaches its hundredth birthday?

Видео Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (1926) канала Vermeer Quartet