Alban Berg’s Suite lyrique : an individual case of instrumental vocality

Abstract

Described as a latent opera, Berg’s Lyric suite prolongs the German tradition centered
on what Carl Dahlhaus called absolute music, that is to say a music that, freed
from all textual reference, finds in itself its own determinations. Nevertheless, the
narrative of this quartet, because of its intensity and the way it irrigates the structure,
cannot be separated from the musical texture itself. The purpose here is to determine
the many schemes, processes and procedures thanks to which this narrative is
neither “carried” nor “illustrated” by the sounds but intends to create its own “musical
transmutation”.