Alban Berg composed his Three Pieces for Orchestra (German – Drei Orchesterstücke), Op. 6 between 1913 and 1915. It is dedicated "to my teacher and friend Arnold Schoenberg in immeasurable gratitude and love". A revised version of the score was published in 1929 by Universal Edition.
The three pieces are:
Präludium (Prelude)
An instrumentally colourful, impressionistic prelude. After a murmuring introduction, an evocative, wide-ranging theme is stated by bassoons and violins, and then fully developed.
Reigen (Round Dance)
Replete with both waltz music and Ländler music, this piece demonstrates an inherent eclecticism that, as in many of Berg's works, permitted a synthesis of old and new, classical and popular, often infused with grotesquerie.
Marsch (March)
A sizable and highly imaginative march, notable for its element of chaos and its extremes of orchestration. Berg is said to have declared: "There had to come a day when we could hear how a chord of eight tones really sounds in the brasses!".
The work is scored for:
4 flutes (all doubling piccolo), 4 oboes (4th doubling cor anglais), 4 clarinets in A (3rd doubling clarinet in E flat), bass clarinet in B flat, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon;
6 horns in F, 4 trumpets in F, 4 trombones (1 alto, 2 tenor, 1 bass), contrabass tuba;
2 sets of timpani, percussion (4 players), 2 harps, celesta;
strings: violins I & II, violas, violoncellos, double basses.
