Seven Early Songs (Berg)

The "Seven Early Songs" ("Sieben frühe Lieder"), (c. 1905 to 1908), are early compositions of Alban Berg, written while he was under the tutelage of Arnold Schoenberg. They are an interesting synthesis combining Berg's heritage of pre-Schoenberg song writing with the rigour and undeniable influence of Schoenberg. The writing very much carries with it the heritage of Richard Strauss (although the influences of a number of other composers can be discerned - Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf for example as well as Debussy's harmonic palette in evidence in Nacht), through the expansiveness of gesture and 'opening of new vistas,' and that of Richard Wagner. The songs were first written for soprano and piano; they were revised and orchestrated in 1928.

The songs are:

# "Nacht" (text by Carl Hauptmann)
# "Schilflied" (Nikolaus Lenau)
# "Die Nachtigall" (Theodor Storm)
# "Traumgekrönt" (Rainer Maria Rilke)
# "Im Zimmer" (Johanes Schlaf)
# "Liebesode" (Otto Erich Hartleben)
# "Sommertage" (Paul Hohenberg)