Why is Berg's op 6 still so difficult to understand? - O'Connell, Kevin (The Musical Times, 2014)
Among composers who hold that complexity alone is certain good, Alban Berg’s Drei Orchesterstücke are often invoked as a kind of foundational scripture. A glance at almost any page of the note-dense score would appear to support their view. Passages like bars 90–95 of the second movement, Reigen, or the climactic Höhepunkt of the third movement, Marsch, (bar 126) leave the advocates of complexity in no doubt: Berg has penetrated to the dark centre of the expressionist labyrinth. But how justified is this idea? In this essay, I will suggest that other aspects of op. 6 contradict it.
Keywords: Music; Music analysis; Berg, Alban, 1885-1935; Berg, Alban, 1885-1935 - Drei Orchesterstücke, op 6