Violin Concerto - Berg, Alban

The Violin Concerto from 1935 is probably Alban Berg's best-known and most frequently performed instrumental work. Commissioned by violinist Louis Krasner, it is his last completed composition. Krasner played the solo part at the premiere in the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona on 19 April 1936 after Berg's death. The concerto is dedicated to "The Memory of an Angel". In it, Berg processed the death of the 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler-Werfel from her marriage to the architect Walter Gropius, who had polio. His intention was "to translate traits of the young girl into musical characters". With over 1,200 titles of orchestral and choral literature, chamber music and music theatre, Edition Eulenburg is the largest score series in the world. It covers a large part of music history from the Baroque to classical modernism and looks back on a long tradition.