Alban Berg

Sieben frühe Lieder

Awarded the German Music Edition Prize 2016

Composed early, orchestrated late The cycle Seven Early Songs, based on texts by Lenau, Rilke, Storm and other poets, was compiled in 1928, more than twenty years after the individual songs were composed. Alban Berg selected seven of the large number of piano songs he had composed in his younger years, orchestrated them, and after careful consideration provided a definitive sequence in which the tempo constantly changes and the strength of the orchestration symmetrically decreases and increases again. After the printing of the piano and orchestral editions, the Seven Early Songs in both instrumentations quickly conquered the concert platforms on which they can still be found today. Reason enough, after the Violin Concerto, to also present this work by Alban Berg in an Urtext edition. The orchestral material is available for purchase for the first time.