The Alban Berg Monument, in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria, is a memorial to the composer

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

(1885–1935), unveiled in 2016. It is situated on Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz next to

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by ...

History

The project, funded by the Alban Berg Foundation, began in April 2015, and was managed by . The monument was designed by

Wolf Dieter Prix Wolf Dieter Prix is an Austrian architect. In 1968 he co-founded the architects' cooperative Coop Himmelb(l)au, which has an international reputation as an important representative of deconstructivism. Life Early life Wolf Prix's father ...

and Sophie C. Grell of

Coop Himmelb(l)au Coop Himmelb(l)au (a pun meaning '' Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design and art firm founded in 1968 by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria. History Coop Hi ...

, and the structural design was by Bollinger & Grohmann."Denkmal für Alban Berg enthüllt"
wien.orf.at, 20 June 2016. Retrieved 17 August 2022."Das Alban Berg Denkmal vor der Wiener Staatsoper"
Alban Berg Stiftung. Retrieved 18 August 2022.

Description

The monument was unveiled in June 2016. It is made of cast

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

, and weighs about 1.5 tonnes. Its height is about .Alban Berg Monument
''Bollinger & Grohmann''. Retrieved 18 August 2022. Prix, whose great-uncle Klaus Maetzl was a violinist in the

Alban Berg Quartet The Alban Berg Quartett (ABQ) was a string quartet founded in Vienna, named after the composer Alban Berg. Active from 1970 to 2008, the group included first violinist Günter Pichler and cellist Valentin Erben, while the second violinist was ...

, described the sculpture as reacting to the expressive lines of the music with expansive loops. He said that it is "frozen music, that stands in the right place." The sculpture is on a pedestal one metre high, consisting of twelve steps, referring to the

twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...

used by the composer."Alban-Berg-Denkmal vor Staatsoper"
wien.orf.at, 2 November 2015. Retrieved 17 August 2022. The monument is also intended to pay tribute to three composers who were colleagues of Berg:

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

and

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and ...

, director of the court opera in Vienna. , Viennese councillor for culture during the realization of the project, said that the monument is "a striking symbol of artistic obstinacy and the courage to innovate".

References

{{Reflist Monuments and memorials in Vienna Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt