A music blog written by Rich Brown
“I have never worked harder in my life.” -Alban Berg, about composing his Violin Concerto Berg worked at a furious pace in composing his Violin Concerto, and the entire piece was finished in just a few months. He drove himself to keep working, ignoring his own health, his own pains, and at times even ignoring... Continue Reading →
When composing music using Schoenberg’s serial methods, there is a great deal of preparatory, or “precompositional” work to be done. The twelve-tone technique has at its heart a pre-determined tone row. In brief, a proper twelve-tone row is an ordering of the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, with no single note repeated in the... Continue Reading →
The so-called “Second Viennese School” of Austrian composers consists of Arnold Schoenberg and his two students, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg. There is part of me that very much identifies with the music of Webern, and another part that finds a kindred soul in the music of Berg. I vacillate between the two, at times... Continue Reading →
Good Music Speaks 