Staatskapelle Dresden
Conductor - Giuseppe Sinopoli
Soprano - Alessandra Marc

I - Act 1, Scene 2-3 - 0:00
II - Act 3, Scene 1 - 6:52
III - Act 3 Scene 4-5 - 12:25

In January 1923 Berg sent a note to potential subscribers announcing the publication of the piano reduction of his opera Wozzeck. The cost of printing this score had been largely funded by Alma Mahler (to whom the opera is dedicated) and Berg hoped with its publication not only to recoup some of the costs but also to attract the attention of opera companies, conductors and critics to some of whom he also sent complimentary copies. Berg sent a copy of the piano score of Wozzeck a few weeks later and in March 1924 Scherchen wrote to say that, while it was not possible to perform the whole opera, the committee of the ‘Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein’ had agreed to include the excerpts in a concert at the International Music Festival in Frankfurt that June.

The Drei Bruchstücke centre on the figure of Marie, Wozzeck’s mistress and mother of his child. The first starts with the orchestral interlude that closes act 1, scene 2, as night falls and the sound of military fanfares call Wozzeck and Andres back to the barracks, and continues into scene 3 in which Marie watches the Drum Major marching at the head of the military band that passes her house and then, slamming the window shut to escape the lewd remarks of her neighbour, sings a lullaby to the child. The second piece comprises the whole of act 3, scene 1 and the following orchestral interlude in which, overcome by guilt because of her infidelity, Marie reads the biblical story of Christ forgiving the woman taken in adultery. Like all the other scenes in the opera the scene has a strict ‘abstract’ formal design – in this case as a set of seven variations and a fugue. The final fragment opens with the music that depicts Wozzeck’s drowning at the end of act 3, scene 4. This leads into the great D minor interlude which forms the expressive climax of the whole work, followed by the final scene of the opera in which, playing in the street with other children, Wozzeck and Marie’s child (now an orphan) hears of the death of his mother. The music, marked ‘senza rit.’, fades to ppp and, rather than ending, simply stops – suggesting that the whole tragedy could start again with the child taking his father’s place.

Unfortunately, this recording lacks the childrens choir in the 3rd part, however you can listen to wonderful recording of the full opera with score (including childrens choir) here: [ Ссылка ]

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