ANNOUNCEMENT: César San Miguel is spreading the word about a concert/party this Saturday in the Bronx given by the Villalobos Brothers, classically trained violinists who play folk/jazz with a Mexican inflection. Should be lots of fun!
The self-styled Second Viennese School comprised three avant-garde composers: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and his students Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (1883-1945). They were the pioneers of atonal music, that is, music without any key or tonal center.
READ about the Second Viennese School, and about Berg's opera Wozzeck in particular, in Chapter 16 of Kelly. The reading is even more indispensable than usual, both for the discussion of key concepts like expressionism, atonality, and Sprechstimme, and for the story of the opera, which may not be clear from the excerpts.
PRINT the questionnaire and fill it out as you LISTEN to excerpts from Berg's Wozzeck. FOLLOW along with the Kelly text (pp. 447-460), or watch the Interactive Listening Guides on the Kelly web page, for texts and translations.
From Wozzeck
conducted by Pierre Boulez with the Opéra National de Paris
Act 1, Scene 3 (Marie's Room): March and Lullaby (4'53)
with Isabel Strauss (Marie), Ingeborg Lasser (Margret), and Walter Berry (Wozzeck)
Act 3, Scene 2 (Forest Path by a Pool): Invention on a Note (5'15)
with Isabel Strauss (Marie) and Walter Berry (Wozzeck)
Act 3, Scene 3 (A Tavern): Invention on an Irregular Rhythm (3'01)
with Walter Berry (Wozzeck), Ingeborg Lasser (Margret), Raymond
Steffner and Walter Poduschka (Apprentices)
Act 3, Scene 4 (Forest Path by a Pool): Invention on a Chord (4'36)
with Walter Berry (Wozzeck), Albert Weikenmeier (Captain), and
Carl Doench (Doctor)
Act 3 (Interlude): Invention on a Key (3'48)
Act 3, Scene 5 (Bright Morning, Sunshine): Invention on a Regular Rhythm (1'27)
with the children's chorus of the Opéra National de Paris