Sahst Du Nach Dem Gewitterregen Essay

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Mackenzie Newton 4/28/17 MUT 4571 Sahst du nach dem Gewitterregen Alban Berg’s Sahst du nach dem Gewitterregen (“Did you see, after the summer rain”), is the second piece from Funf-Orchester der Lieder (Five orchestral songs). Five Orchestral Songs Op.4 also known as Altenberg Lieder, was written for medium voice and orchestra. It strays away from traditional lieder, which caused a riot at its first performance because of it being so contrastive. It is Bergs first orchestral work. Berg studied under Arnold Schoenberg, who is also well known for his atonal pieces and influenced this work as well. Altenberg lieder consists of songs, that began and ended similarly when it came to motivic gestures. The text of Five Orchestral songs was from a contemporary but unconventional Viennese poet, Peter Altenburg. Berg chose the text to match his artistic needs that were differing as well. The Five Orchestral Songs Op. 4, is considered to …show more content…

Berg approaches this piece in a dramatic way, which makes sense with the text being somewhat dramatic, coming from Altenburg. The text is reflecting love and longing and the song draws longful on formal schemes. Most of the phrases of the piece connects one to the other, which goes with the connective motives of the piece as well. In the context, the poet is talking about the beauty of the forest after the rain, and expresses to the woman, that she is beautiful as is, but she is even more beautiful after going through a struggle, or conflict. I had thought the song was through-composed and not repetitive, because of the phrasing of the piece. After thinking about the text, going through the piece and marking the pitches, I had found a few pitch-class sets that repeated and after listening to it again, I could hear the returning aspects of the piece. Figuring this out, it pointed to it being a piece with formal schemes and not a through composed

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