Bidspirit auction | [MUSIC AUTOGRAPHS] - ALBAN BERG

[MUSIC AUTOGRAPHS] - ALBAN BERG (1885–1935) - Autograph Musical Fragment - ALBAN BERG (1885–1935) - Autograph Musical Fragment, probably preparatory material for Wozzeck. [Vienna?], 30 January [before 1922?]. Autograph musical fragment with both textual and musical variants from the definitive score. The fragment can be related with considerable probability to the scene between the Doctor and the Captain in Act II, Scene 2 of Wozzeck (bars 244–247). Berg composed the opera between 1914 and 1922, setting his own libretto drawn from Georg Büchner’s unfinished drama Woyzeck. Several material, graphic and textual features suggest that the present fragment should be understood not as an autograph quotation written as a dedication or souvenir, but rather as a working note belonging to a preparatory stage in the composition. Both the musical notation and the accompanying words are rapidly written, while the bass clef appears to have been left implicit. Nor does the sheet bear the features normally associated with a presentation quotation: there is no splace or complete date, only the abbreviated notation “30/I”, perhaps indicating 30 January. Of particular interest is the text accompanying the melodic line. Although the handwriting is difficult to decipher, it appears to read: “so machen wir unsterbliche Experimente” (“so we shall conduct immortal experiments”). This wording is closer to Büchner’s Woyzeck, the source from which Berg himself fashioned his libretto, whereas in the definitive version of Wozzeck the passage reads “so machen wir die unsterblichsten Experimente” (“so we shall conduct the most immortal experiments”). The fragment’s greater proximity to Büchner’s text lends further support to its identification as preparatory material. The musical notation likewise differs in a small but significant respect from the definitive score. The opening D natural is here written as a quaver, whereas in the final version of Wozzeck it appears as a semiquaver. Considered alongside the textual variant, the rapid ductus and the economical notation, this rhythmic discrepancy is consistent with a working document predating the final form of the passage. Written in pencil on a folded and mounted sheet, 80 × 155 mm. Donated by Berg’s widow after 1954. This fragment offers a compelling glimpse of Wozzeck in the process of composition, preserving a stage at which Berg’s setting remained closer to Büchner’s original wording and a detail of the melodic line had yet to assume its definitive rhythmic form.