Wozzeck is a complicated score held together by a tight relationship between traditional musical forms and crucial events that propel the drama. But even Berg with his analytical mind felt that any knowledge of this on the part of the audience was completely unnecessary. In a lecture that he often gave prior to performances of the work in the 1920s, he said, “…from the moment when the curtain goes up until it falls for the last time, there should be nobody in the audience who is aware of any of these various fugues and inventions, suites and sonata movements, variations and passacaglias: nobody filled with anything but the idea of this opera, which transcends the individual fate of Wozzeck. And I believe that in this I have been successful.” [So here’s a warning: following Berg’s own wishes, if you don’t want to know any of the details of his compositional techniques in writing Wozzeck, then read no further! Simply let the drama of the opera and its music sweep you away when you see it. If you are curious about the details, read on!].
Wozzeck is often categorized as a so-called twelve-tone or atonal opera. This is not entirely true. But for purposes of understanding the opera, let’s define our terms. The twelve-tone technique of composition was devised by Arnold Schoenberg, Berg’s teacher, between 1920 and 1923 in various works that he was composing at the time. It was a way of breaking from the long held tradition of ‘tonality’ in Western music, characterized by a system of tension and release (think the ‘Amen’ cadences at the end of a hymn, or the final chords of a standard symphonic movement by Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven). Composers like Schoenberg came to feel that the tonal system was, in effect, a tyranny that needed to be ‘overthrown’ in order to explore new ways of communicating musically. In twelve-tone music all the tones of the chromatic scale are considered ‘free’ and ‘equal’. The result is music that is ‘atonal’ and it can sound quite dissonant to ears that aren’t used to it.
Being a student of Schoenberg, Berg was interested in exploring these new techniques in his music, but it must be remembered that Berg was writing the opera Wozzeck at the same time that Schoenberg was devising his new musical language. Much of the score of the opera predates the final codification of what we now call twelve-tone or ‘atonal’ music. So although Berg does make use of some of these techniques in the opera, there are also stretches of the opera in which we can definitely hear, if not tonality, certainly a tonal center.
Berg used an ingenious method to structure the opera musically: three acts divided into five scenes each. Each act has an overall structure and each scene has as its basis certain traditional musical forms.
Act I, for instance, is a collection of ‘Five Character Pieces’:
Scene 1: Suite with prelude, pavane, cadenza, gigue, gavotte and aria
Scene 2: Rhapsody and hunting song
Scene 3: Military march and lullaby
Scene 4: Passacaglia: a twelve-tone theme and 21 variations
Scene 5: Andante affettuoso (quasi rondo)
Act II is a ‘Symphony in Five Movements’:
Scene 1: Sonata form movement (exposition, development and recapitulation)
Scene 2: Invention and fugue on three themes
Scene 3: Largo or slow movement
Scene 4: Scherzo (ländler/trio/waltz/trio)
Scene 5: Rondo marziale con Introduzione
Act III is a series of ‘Six Inventions’:
Scene 1: Invention on a theme
Scene 2: Invention on a single note
Scene 3: Invention on a rhythmic pattern
Scene 4: Invention on a six-note chord
Scene 5: Invention on a rhythm (perptuum mobile)
Within these structures Berg uses all of the compositional techniques demanded by these structures, sometimes using twelve-tone language, sometimes using more tonal language. Some of these structures can easily be heard by the layman’s ear. The hunting song of Andres in Act I, scene 2 is obvious because the character is singing a hunting song! It is much the same with the military march in Act I, sc. 3, Marie’s lullaby in the same scene, the ländlers and waltzes in Act II, sc. 4 (the characters are dancing at a beer garden, after all!) and the invention on a single note heard in Act III, scene 2 (with that note, B-natural, being present in ever bar of the scene and finally pounded out by the timpani at the end of the scene, which features the murder of Marie). Other structures (the different movements of the suite in Act I, scene 1 for instance, or the movements of a symphony in Act II) are more challenging to hear.
If you want to get to know Wozzeck well, however, there is no substitute for repeated listening. Purchase a good recording of the work and spend time with it or rent a DVD of a staged performance and get to know it that way. Wozzeck is an extremely powerful work dramatically and emotionally. Its impact on an audience can be overwhelming and as effective as Madama Butterfly or Porgy and Bess. Why? Simply because it is about universal themes dealing with what it means to be human. The musical language of Berg is perfect in facing the themes of human isolation, poverty, subjugation to the will of others and what it means to be a faceless member of a societal ‘machine’. These are dissonant themes and they need music to match. If you are willing to allow Berg (and Büchner’s play) enter your heart, this opera will carry you away.