by Daniel Hathaway

Much had changed in the 130-some years that separate Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Vienna from that of Alban Berg. The Cleveland Orchestra titled episode 11 of its In Focus digital series “Order and Disorder,” presumably to contrast Mozart’s well-behaved, Enlightenment-inspired Clarinet Quintet from 1789 with the societal chaos reflected musically in Berg’s Lyric Suite, three of the six movements from the composer’s 1925-1926 String Quartet that he arranged for full string orchestra in 1928.

Music director Franz Welser-Möst set the stage in his introductory video remarks, describing the Berg era as “the ‘Roaring 20s’ aftershock of World War I, a blooming of musical styles never experienced before or since.” [Read more…]