Oslo Philharmonic' Chamber Concert Johann Strauss Jr.
Alban Berg
Arnold Schönberg

Denne konserten henger tematisk sammen med nyttårskonserten.

Alban Berg (1885–1935) composed Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano as his only set of miniatures. Lasting around eight minutes in total, the pieces were strongly inspired by his former teacher Arnold Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces. According to music historians, Berg wrote the works in the spring of 1913, though his wife claimed they were completed in June of that year—allegedly following a meeting between Berg and Schoenberg. During a trip to Berlin in 1913, Berg met his former teacher, who is said to have made harsh critical remarks—both about Berg’s music and his personality. It is possible that Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano was the very work that prompted Schoenberg’s criticism.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) is today regarded as the father of twelve-tone technique, but in 1907—when his Chamber Symphony No. 1 premiered—he had not yet earned this title. In this work, Schoenberg captures the grandeur and complexity typically associated with a full orchestra playing a symphony, despite scoring it for just 15 musicians. The Chamber Symphony No. 1 was groundbreaking: Schoenberg employs thematic use of quartal intervals and whole-tone scales, and while the work largely looks back toward the language of late Romanticism, it also foreshadows the modernist directions he would later pursue. The version performed in this concert is Anton Webern’s arrangement for a smaller ensemble consisting of violin, flute, clarinet, cello, and piano.

Few composer families are more closely associated with New Year’s concerts than Johann Strauss father and son. Although Johann Strauss II (1825–1899) would become the great master of the Viennese waltz, it was his father, Johann Strauss I, who first made the genre internationally popular—not least with the Radetzky March. Yet it was far from certain that the son would follow in his father’s footsteps: it is said that Strauss I physically punished his son upon discovering that he had secretly taken violin lessons. The Kaiser-Walzer was composed by Strauss II to mark the 40th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria’s coronation. The waltz was also meant to symbolize the friendship between the Austrian emperor and the German emperor, Wilhelm II, and thus opens as a Prussian-inspired march before flowing seamlessly into an elegant Viennese waltz.