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3 - Refiguring Tristan

from Part One - Berg's Ideal Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Silvio J. dos Santos
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
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Summary

[The] modernization of Wedekind [from the “fin de siècle” atmosphere of the 1890s to the 1920s] can only be understood as an act of self-identification, deep down in Berg's subconscious, with the character of Alwa.

—Hans Ferdinand Redlich

In fact it is not Lulu who is the self out of whose perspective the music comes, but rather Alwa, who loves her. That affects the point of view of the music to its literary subject. Berg pays scarcely any attention to the cynical aspect of the text: he approaches Wedekind the way Schumann approached Heine's poems.

—Theodor Adorno

Berg's fixation on constructing narratives of identity is reflected most overtly in his rendering of the character of Alwa, who is transformed into an opera composer, the “Wozzeck Komponist” (composer of Wozzeck), from the original playwright in Wedekind's play. This sort of self-identification was not unusual within his Viennese circle of friends; perhaps the closest model is Schoenberg's identification with Moses in his opera Moses und Aron.” Yet Berg complicates his self-identification with Alwa because, as Patricia Hall has rightly argued, “many sketches for the Rondo suggest that on some level Berg associated the character of Alwa with Tristan from Wagner's opera.” This conflation of Alwa and Tristan completely changes the dramatic plot in the opera and also affects Berg's musical choices, particularly the formal plan for the exposition of the rondo in the first scene of act 2.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Refiguring Tristan
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
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  • Refiguring Tristan
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
Available formats
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  • Refiguring Tristan
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
Available formats
×