Alban Berg - Piano Sonata, Op. 1

- Composer: Alban Maria Johannes Berg (9 February 1885 -- 24 December 1935) - Performer: Maria Yudina - Year of recording: 1964 Piano Sonata, Op. 1, written ca. 1907-1908. Berg’s Piano Sonata was the composer’s first published work. To the dismay of his most important mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, Berg had a great affinity with the lied; before beginning his studies with Schoenberg in 1904, the self-taught young Berg had already written dozens of songs. However, Schoenberg directed Berg toward instrumental composition, and under Schoenberg’s tutelage Berg composed the Piano Sonata, the 12 Variations on a Theme (1908-1909) for piano, and the String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910). The sonata represents a major stylistic leap for Berg. As musicologist Bruce Archibald notes, the composer’s earlier piano music is “in the language -- tonal, textural, and gestural -- of Brahms and Schumann.“ The sonata, on the other hand, is in a newer idiom, exhibiting the strong influence