An Analysis of Berg?s ?Warm die Lufte? from op. 2Berg?s ?Warm die Lufte? from op. 2 is a unique song. Within it , Berg weaves atonal and tonal writing tools to create a very interesting sound. The piano part suggests harmonic motion and recognizable tonalities while the vocal line features abstract relations to other musical excerpts throughout the piece. The question then arises , ? How does everything work together?? Through musical analysis one will find that the piano part and the vocal line have little if nothing to do with each other tonally or atonally , therefore it is best to observe each part separately.The vocal line is by far more abstract then the piano part. It appears to be very sporadic yet carefully crafted. There are several things Berg did to create a sense of unity and movement throughout the vocal line. The first aspect that Berg paid special attention to was his choice one particular interval. The interval of importance is the half-step or 1. In the vocal line there are 26 1?s (including 11?s). There are 107 intervals in the vocal line. This means that roughly 25% of all the intervals are 1?s. What we hear because of this , is a very tightly knit vocal line. Berg?s use of 1?s lends itself to his preference of a gradually changing movement through out a phrase. This is very different from Shoenberg?s disjointed 18?th leaps and things of that sort. Overall it creates an interlocking effect. An example of his use of 1?s occurs between mm. 9 through 14 (ex.1). The vocal line snakes around moving from chromatic neighbor notes for five long measures gradually building to the climax of the entire song ( m.16) While not a extreme interval , the 1 is essentially the main building block of the vocal line. Without it , the vocal line would be completely disjointed. The range of the vocal part also contributes to this argument. When the lowest note A (m19) and highest note G# (m.16) are put together ,...
