Berg Piano Sonata op 1

Two posts in one day!

Do you remember that picture where, if you look at it one way it looks like a young woman with a feather in her hat, and if you look at it another way it looks like an old woman in a headscarf. That is how I feel about Berg’s Piano Sonata. If you listen to it one way, it is ripe Romanticism; if you listen to it the other way, it’s atonal. It is interesting to compare it with Scriabin’s “Black Mass” sonata, which is undeniably Romantic, but pushing the boundaries. It doesn’t get me nearer to an answer with the Berg, but at least it shows I am not way off beam.