Nacht [Night] (Carl Hauptmann) 
Schilflied [Song among the reeds] (Nikolaus Lenau) 
Die Nachtigall [The nightingale] (Theodor Storm)  
Traumgekrönt [Crowned in a dream] (Rainer Maria Rilke)  
Im Zimmer [Indoors] (Johannes Schalf) 
Liebesode [Ode to love] (Otto Erich Hartleben) 
Sommertage [Summer days] (Paul Hohenberg) 
 

Berg composed these songs during his time as a student of Schoenberg (between 1905 and 1908) – so they are almost exactly contemporary with Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet. Altogether during this period, Berg wrote more than eighty songs. The present selection was assembled by the composer in 1928 when he also made versions with orchestral accompaniment. Three of the songs were performed at a concert of music by Schoenberg’s pupils in 1907 – the first public hearing of any music by Berg. Stylistically they owe much to the legacy of Wolf and Mahler as well as Schoenberg’s earlier songs, and the influence of Wagner, Strauss and Debussy. But even though they are student works, they reveal a composer with a superb natural affinity with the human voice: Berg went on to write several mature sets of songs, as well as the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and that understanding of the expressive potential of the voice can already be heard in the Seven Early Songs. They range from relatively simple writing to almost expressionistic music which borders on atonality. Often intoxicating, sometimes shimmering, the ravishing opulence of these songs have love as their central obsession, so it is no surprise that Berg later dedicated the set to his wife Helena – recalling the blissful time when they first got to know each other. The soprano Diana Damrau has commented that the songs are ‘about a great love, and also physical love … the happiness of fulfilled togetherness. You don’t need anything else, and the circle closes with the last song, ‘Sommertage’. There he goes back to nature and what particularly characterises the romantic soul: the quest for freedom’. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024