Berg portraits

[mercia]

an enquiry to the knowledgable of you

if you click through these images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p00ryccd

both Manon Gropius and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin are said to be portrayed in the Berg violin concerto
in fact might HF-R be more associated with the Lyric Suite ?

[Curalach]

Mercia, I'm sure the image caption for HF-R is incorrect. It is indeed the Lyric Suite which she is believed to have inspired.
I have certainly never heard her mentioned in association with the Violin Concerto which was about Manon Gropius "To the memory of an angel".

[Roehre]

Mercia, I'm sure the image caption for HF-R is incorrect. It is indeed the Lyric Suite which she is believed to have inspired.
I have certainly never heard her mentioned in association with the Violin Concerto which was about Manon Gropius "To the memory of an angel".

There is strong circumstantial evidence that HF-R is linked with -and portrayed in- the Lyric Suite.
I've never heard from any relation with the Violin concerto. The Angel is Manon Gropius, Alma Mahler's then 18year old daughter, to whose memory it has been composed.
The caption is therefore not correct.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anthony Pople, in his Cambridge Music Guide to the Berg Violin Concerto writes:

... the relevance of this for the Violin Concerto in particular lies in the widespread appearance of Berg's private cyphers in the score of that work also: the numbers 10, 23 and 28, and the initials AB and HF. (page 61)

... the marking "Amoroso" in particular has suggested an association with Hanna Fuchs-Robbetin. (page 63)

[Bryn]

There are Perles[sic] of wisdom regarding the link between Hanna and the Violin Concerto:

http://dickstrawser.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/alban-bergs-lulu-up-close-maybe-too.html

[mercia]

thanks all, and for link

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Having said all that, mercs, your concluding statement was correct: H F-R is "more associated" with the Lyric Suite than with the Vln Conc.

Manon Gropius is the main "Angel" in whose memory the concerto was dedicated, but, like Elgar and Schumann, there are layers and layers. Besides HF-R, there is also Marie Scheuchl (a servant in the Bergs' house in Carinthia - hence the use of the Carinthian folksong, otherwise inexplicable in connection with Manon) and her daughter, whom Berg fathered when he was 17.

EDIT: Apologies, Bryn - Berg's illegitimate daughter is already mentioned in the dickstrawser link you provide in # 5.

[Dave2002]

Mmmm. They can't spell Bantock on that gallery site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p00ryccd

[mercia]

They can't spell Bantock

oh yes, I kept reading that as Bartok