Alban Berg (1885 – 1935) (died at 50 years old)

- Born and died in Vienna, Austria, where he spent the vast majority of his life.
- Composed over 100 lieder in his youth for performance by his family
o Schoenberg would later say that Berg’s imagination was entirely constricted to lieder
early on and he could not write instrumental lines.
- Father died in 1900, leaving him little money.
- In 1904 he met Arnold Schoenberg, who gave him composition lessons for free upon recognizing
his talent. They worked together for 6 years.
o Strained relationship, with Berg considering Schoenberg a father figure, but Schoenberg
considering him more of an incompetent assistant
o Considered the more emotional and human counterpart to Schoenberg
o Brought the soul of late romanticism to atonal music
- Relatively small body of work due to his slow, perfectionist compositional process.
- In 1914, he saw Georg Buchner’s play “Woyzeck” (1879) about a poor working-class man who
kills his lover for infidelity and then commits suicide while their child plays in the street.
o Completed Wozzeck in 1921 after writing the libretto in 1917.
o Dedicated the opera to Alma Mahler, whose late husband Gustav had dominated the
Viennese music scene when Berg was a boy and was a personal hero
 Alma actually helped Berg to pay off a loan used to finance the opera’s
publication
o The first full length atonal opera
o One of the most performed atonal works to date
o Political commentary on wealth inequality and its effect on virtue
 Is it easier to be a better person if you’re not struggling with poverty?
 Berg struggled with poverty for much of his life
 Partly due to the Nazi party and his “degenerate music” and known
association to Schoenberg, who was Jewish
 All of Berg’s later works are considered to contain some element of
autobiography
- His second and final opera, Lulu, was drawn from two plays by Frank Wedekind
o Erdgeist (Earth Spirit) and Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box)
o Titular character falls from well-off mistress to prostitute (reverse pretty woman)
 Takes home Jack the Ripper, who murders her
o Explores Lulu’s role as both victim and destroyer (she causes the death of three men)
o The first 12-tone opera, with all of the tone rows derived from one central 12-note set
o [Personal note: there are surprisingly beautiful moments for a serialist opera]
o Berg never finished the orchestration of the third act, dying in 1935 of Septicemia, a
bacterial infection of the blood
 Received from an insect sting
o Performed incomplete until…
o Premiered in full in 1979, with the orchestration completed by Friedrich Cerha

- Only choral work is “Es ist ein Reis entsprungen” written for his lessons and unpublished
- “Die Nachtigall” (The Nightingale) from his “7 Fruhe Lieder” (Seven Early Songs) was arranged by
Clytus Gottwald for 16-part choir (SSSSAAAATTTTBBBB)