Piano Sonata, Op.1 (Berg, Alban)

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Performances

Recordings

Performer Pages Peter Bradley-Fulgoni (piano)
Publisher Info. PianOLYPHONY: Music of and around the 20th Century
Peter Bradley-Fulgoni
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Misc. Notes Recorded 2012, St. Paul's Hall, Huddersfield University. Peter Hill (sound engineer)
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Publisher Info. Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Performers Jonathan Biss (piano)
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Performer Pages Glenn Gould (piano)
Publisher Info. Columbia Masterworks, 1959. ML 5336.
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Misc. Notes Source: Internet Archive
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Sheet Music

Scores

Editor First edition (reprint)
Publisher. Info. Berlin: Schlesinger, n.d.[1910]. Plate S.9539.
Reprinted New York: Associated Music Publishers, n.d.
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Misc. Notes This file is part of the Sibley Mirroring Project.
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Editor First edition (reprint)
Publisher. Info. Berlin: Schlesinger, n.d.[1910]. Plate S.9539.
Reprinted Vienna: Universal Edition, 1926. (with spurious copyright claim)
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Publisher. Info. Moscow: Muzyka, n.d.(ca.1970). Plate 6250.
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Misc. Notes from unidentified collection
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Editor Antoine Portes (b. 1990)
Publisher. Info. Antoine Portes, 2020.
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Misc. Notes Made with Musescore 3.5.013199
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Braille Scores

BRF typeset by editor
Feduol (2024/1/15)

Editor Hu Haipeng (b. 1984)
Publisher. Info. Hu Haipeng, 2020.
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Misc. Notes Braille score in bar-over-bar format, 40 cells per line.
See here for additional information on Braille scores.
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Free Recordings

General Information

Work Title Piano Sonata
Alternative. Title
Composer Berg, Alban
Opus/Catalogue NumberOp./Cat. No. Op.1
I-Catalogue NumberI-Cat. No. IAB 9
Key B minor
Year/Date of CompositionY/D of Comp. 1907–1909?
First Performance. 1911-04-24 in Vienna. Etta Werndorff, piano
First Publication. 1910 – Berlin: Robert Lienau
(Monatsbericht (1910), p.251)
Composer Time PeriodComp. Period Early 20th century
Piece Style Early 20th century
Instrumentation piano
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The early sonata sketches of Berg while being a student under Schoenberg eventually culminated in this sonata; while considered to be his "graduating composition", it is one of the most formidable initial works ever written by any composer (Lauder, 1986)

This sonata consists of a single movement centered in the key of B minor, but Berg makes frequent use of chromaticism, whole-tone scales, and wandering key centers, giving the tonality a very unstable feel. The piece is in the typical sonata form, with an Exposition, Development and Recapitulation, but the composition also relies heavily on Arnold Schoenberg's idea of developing variation, a method to ensure the unity of a piece of music by deriving all aspects of a composition from a single idea.

Schoenberg stated that the unity of a piece is dependent on all aspects of the composition being derived from a single basic idea. Berg would then pass this idea down to one of his students, Theodor Adorno, who in turn stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different". The Sonata is a striking example of the execution of this idea — the whole composition can be derived from the opening quartal gesture and from the opening leitmotif.