Angel Called Manon Gropius

The NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo concert on 15 May at the Rudolfinum will feature one of the most remarkable works of the 20th century: the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, which bears the poignant subtitle “To the Memory of an Angel”. The composer originally did not want to compose a violin concerto at all. The inspiration for his last work was sparked by the death of the only 18-year-old Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and the founder of the Bauhaus, the architect Walter Gropius.

Manon was exceptionally gifted, gentle, spirited and beautiful. She was studying acting when she was stricken with cerebral palsy, which led to paralysis of the spine and death. The shaken Berg composed a concerto as a requiem for this lovely girl. The subtitle “To the Memory of an Angel” is then a very specific reference, as the famous director Max Reinhardt was at that time planning the girl’s debut as the Angel in his Salzburg production of Everyman.

Berg had a reputation as a very slow composer, but the Violin Concerto burst out of him with an urgency, ease and speed he had never experienced before. “I am perhaps even more surprised than you,” he wrote to violinist Louis Krasner, who premiered the work in 1936 and who initiated Berg into the mysteries of violin playing. “I was certainly diligent like never before in my life, and I must add that the work brought me great pleasure. I hope, nay, I am convinced that I have succeeded.”

The premiere of the Violin Concerto with the Spanish Orchestra in Barcelona was originally to have been conducted by Anton Webern, but he withdrew at the last minute, so that in the end on 19 April 1936 conductor Hermann Scherchen gave a downright heroic performance. Alban Berg did not live to see the first performance of one of his most famous works. He died on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1935.