麻豆社

On 14 December 1925, the world premiere of Alban Berg鈥檚 opera Wozzeck took place at the Berlin State Opera.

11 years previously, Berg had seen Woyzeck, an unfinished play by Georg Buchner about a man driven to madness and murder by poverty and bullying. That very night, Berg declared that the play must be set to music. He began sketches almost immediately.

But the great war interrupted. Berg was at first an enthusiastic volunteer in the German army, but his delicate health meant that he was soon relegated to a repetitive desk job. Here he was subject to the sort of petty officialdom that he would later depict with devastating precision in Wozzeck, with music so complex that it took 137 rehearsals for the Berlin State Opera to master it.

After the premiere, the critics were mostly hostile. "It breaks all records for dissonance and cacophony," wrote one, while others criticised its "pandemonium of dismembered orchestral sounds". Despite all this, Wozzeck was a huge success for Berg and many more productions ensued all over the world.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 麻豆社 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 麻豆社 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This 麻豆社 archive recording ifeatures soloist Claire Booth with the 麻豆社 Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Simone Young.

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