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Alban Berg鈥檚 Violin Concerto was given its world premiere on 19 April 1936 in Barcelona's opulent Palau de la Musica Catalana.

Berg had been reluctant to compose a concerto, but was persuaded by the violinist Louis Krasner, who was to give the premiere. In the end, Berg only accepted because he needed the money to complete his opera, Lulu. But he never completed Lulu - and the Violin Concerto was his last finished work. Berg died a few months before the premiere from blood poisoning, the result of an insect bite. (The date was 23 December 1935; Berg, a numerologist, had always believed that 23 was his "special" number.)

The violin concerto proved to be Berg's greatest popular success, although its premiere was nearly a disaster. The Casals Orchestra was to be conducted by Berg鈥檚 close friend, Anton Webern, who was, naturally, grief-stricken and wanted to pull out. Krasner persuaded him not to, and the pair travelled to Spain via Nazi Germany - a risky business, given that Krasner was Jewish. The orchestra had only three rehearsals, and Webern had real difficulty communicating with the players: his heavily accented Viennese German was unintelligible to the Catalans, and he was so nervous about getting the new concerto right that he barely got through a few pages of the score, blaming the orchestra for not understanding the music.

Eventually, Webern declared that the performance must be cancelled, went back to his hotel and locked himself in his room with the score. The organisers couldn鈥檛 persuade him to unlock the door and it was only the pleading of Helene Berg, the composer鈥檚 widow, that persuaded the exhausted Webern to relinquish the score so that the performance could go ahead under a replacement conductor.

The concerto was dedicated to the memory of an angel - Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, who had died two years earlier at the age of 18. It ended up being Berg鈥檚 own requiem for himself.

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 archive recording features violinist Alina Pogostkina with the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sakari Oramo.

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