Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and def ...
of the
Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined
Romantic lyricism with the
twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
. Although he left a relatively
small ''oeuvre'', he is remembered as one of the most important composers of the 20th century for his expressive style encompassing "entire worlds of emotion and structure".
Berg was born and lived in Vienna. He began to compose at the age of fifteen. He studied counterpoint, music theory and harmony with
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
between 1904 and 1911, and adopted his principles of ''developing variation'' and the twelve-tone technique. Berg's major works include the operas ''
Wozzeck'' (1924) and ''
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, a C ...
'' (1935, finished posthumously), the chamber pieces ''
Lyric Suite'' and
Chamber Concerto, as well as a
Violin Concerto. He also composed a number of songs (''
lieder''). He is said to have brought more "human values" to the twelve-tone system; his works are seen as more "emotional" than those of Schoenberg. His music had a surface glamour that won him admirers when Schoenberg himself had few.
Berg died from
sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs.
This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...
in 1935.
Life and career
Early life
Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Konrad Berg. His father ran a successful export business, and the family owned several estates in Vienna and the countryside. The family's financial situation turned to the worse after the death of Konrad Berg in 1900, and it particularly affected young Berg, who had to repeat both his sixth and seventh grade to pass the exams. One of his closest lifelong friends and earliest biographer (under the pseudonym Hermann Herrenried), architect Hermann Watznauer, became a father figure (partly at Konrad's request), being ten years Berg's senior. Berg wrote him letters as long as thirty pages, often in florid, dramatic prose with idiosyncratic punctuation. Berg was more interested in literature than music as a child and would consider a career as a writer several times, turning to music slowly and at times unconfidently until the success of ''
Wozzeck''. He did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music, although he did take piano lessons from his sister's governess. With Marie Scheuchl, a maid in the family estate of Berghof in
Carinthia and fifteen years his senior, he fathered a daughter, Albine, born 4 December 1902.
In 1906 Berg met the singer (1885–1976), daughter of a wealthy family (rumoured to be in fact the illegitimate daughter of Emperor
Franz Joseph I from his liaison with
Anna Nahowski). Despite the outward hostility of her family, the couple married on 3 May 1911, although "her father insisted on a Protestant ceremony to facilitate the divorce he foresaw as inevitable."
Early works (1907–1914)
With little prior music education, Berg began studying
counterpoint,
music theory
Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...
, and
harmony
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
under
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
in October 1904. By 1906 he was studying music full-time; by 1907 he began
composition lessons. His student compositions included five drafts for
piano sonatas. He also wrote songs, including his ''
Seven Early Songs'' (''Sieben frühe Lieder''), three of which were Berg's first publicly performed work in a concert that featured the music of Schoenberg's pupils in Vienna that year.
The early sketches eventually culminated in the
Piano Sonata, Op. 1, published in 1910 and likely composed 19081909; it has been described as one of the most formidable "first" works ever written. Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Among Schoenberg's teachings was the idea that the unity of a musical composition depends upon all its aspects being derived from a single basic idea; this idea was later known as ''developing variation''. Berg passed this on to his students, one of whom,
Theodor W. Adorno, stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to
develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different". The Piano Sonata is an example—the whole composition is derived from the work's opening
quartal gesture and its opening phrase.
Berg was a part of Vienna's cultural elite during the heady ''
fin de siècle'' period. His circle included the musicians
Alexander von Zemlinsky and
Franz Schreker, the painter
Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist
Karl Kraus, the architect
Adolf Loos, and the poet
Peter Altenberg.

In 1913 two of Berg's ''
Altenberg Lieder'' (1912) premiered in Vienna, conducted by Schoenberg in the infamous ''
Skandalkonzert''. Settings of aphoristic poetic utterances, the songs are accompanied by a very large orchestra. The performance caused a riot, and had to be halted. Berg effectively withdrew the work, and it was not performed in full until 1952. The full score remained unpublished until 1966.
Berg had a particular interest in the number 23, using it to structure several works. Various suggestions have been made as to the reason for this interest: that he took it from the
biorhythms theory of
Wilhelm Fliess, in which a 23-day cycle is considered significant, or because he first suffered an asthma attack on the 23rd of the month.
''Wozzeck'' (1917–1924) and ''Lulu'' (1928–1929)
From 1915 to 1918 Berg served in the
Austro-Hungarian Army. During a period of leave in 1917 he accelerated work on his first opera, ''
Wozzeck''. After the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna, where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run his
Society for Private Musical Performances, which sought to create the ideal environment for the exploration and appreciation of unfamiliar new music by means of open rehearsals, repeat performances, and the exclusion of professional critics.
In 1924 three excerpts from ''Wozzeck'' were performed, which brought Berg his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was first performed on 14 December 1925, when
Erich Kleiber conducted the first performance in Berlin. Today, ''Wozzeck'' is seen as one of the century's most important works. Berg made a start on his second opera, the three-act ''
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, a C ...
'', in 1928 but interrupted the work in 1929 for the concert aria ''Der Wein'' which he completed that summer. ''Der Wein'' presaged ''Lulu'' in a number of ways, including vocal style, orchestration, design and text.
Other well-known Berg compositions include the ''
Lyric Suite'' (1926), which was later shown to employ elaborate cyphers to document a secret love affair; the post-Mahlerian
Three Pieces for Orchestra (completed in 1915 but not performed until after ''Wozzeck''); and the
Chamber Concerto (''Kammerkonzert'', 1923–25) for violin, piano, and 13 wind instruments: this latter is written so conscientiously that
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.
Born in Montb ...
has called it "Berg's strictest composition" and it, too, is permeated by cyphers and posthumously disclosed hidden programs. It was at this time he began exhibiting
tone clusters in his works after meeting with American avant-garde composer
Henry Cowell, with whom he would eventually form a lifelong friendship.
Final years (1930–1935)

Life for the musical world was becoming increasingly difficult in the 1930s both in Vienna and Germany due to the rising tide of
antisemitism
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
and the
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
cultural ideology that denounced
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the ...
. Even to have an association with someone who was Jewish could lead to denunciation, and Berg's "crime" was to have studied with the Jewish composer
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
. Berg found that opportunities for his work to be performed in Germany were becoming rare, and eventually his music was
proscribed and placed on the list of
degenerate music.
In 1932 Berg and his wife acquired an isolated lodge, the ''Waldhaus'' on the southern shore of the
Wörthersee, near
Schiefling am See in
Carinthia, where he was able to work in seclusion, mainly on ''
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, a C ...
'' and the
Violin Concerto. At the end of 1934, Berg became involved in the political intrigues around finding a replacement for
Clemens Krauss as director of the
Vienna State Opera.
As more of the performances of his work in Germany were cancelled by the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
, who had come to power in early 1933, he needed to ensure the new director would be an advocate for modernist music. Originally, the premiere of ''Lulu'' had been planned for the
Berlin State Opera, where
Erich Kleiber continued to champion his music and had conducted the premiere of ''Wozzeck'' in 1925, but now this was looking increasingly uncertain, and ''Lulu'' was rejected by the Berlin authorities in the spring of 1934. Kleiber's production of the ''Lulu'' symphonic suite on 30 November 1934 in Berlin was also the occasion of his resignation in protest at the extent of conflation of culture with politics. Even in Vienna, the opportunities for the Vienna School of musicians were dwindling.
Berg had interrupted the orchestration of ''Lulu'' because of an unexpected (and financially much-needed) commission from the Russian-American violinist
Louis Krasner for a
Violin Concerto (1935). This profoundly elegiac work, composed at unaccustomed speed and posthumously premiered, has become one of Berg's frequently performed compositions. Like much of his mature work, it employs an idiosyncratic adaptation of Schoenberg's "dodecaphonic" or
twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
, that enables the composer to produce passages openly evoking tonality, including quotations from historical tonal music, such as a
Bach chorale and a Carinthian folk song. The Violin Concerto was dedicated "to the memory of an Angel",
Manon Gropius, the deceased daughter of architect
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...
and
Alma Mahler.
Death
Berg died aged 50 in Vienna, on Christmas Eve 1935, from
blood poisoning apparently caused by a
furuncle on his back, induced by an insect sting that occurred in November. He was buried at the
Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna.
Before he died, Berg had completed the orchestration of only the first two of the three acts of ''Lulu''. The completed acts were successfully premièred in Zürich in 1937. For personal reasons Helene Berg subsequently imposed a ban on any attempt to "complete" the final act, which Berg had in fact completed in
short score. An orchestration was therefore commissioned in secret from
Friedrich Cerha and premièred in Paris (under
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.
Born in Montb ...
) only in 1979, soon after Helene Berg's own death.
Legacy

Berg is remembered as one of the most important composers of the 20th century and the most widely performed opera composer among the Second Viennese School. He is said to have brought more "human values" to the
twelve-tone system, his works seen as more "emotional" than Schoenberg's. Critically, he is seen as having preserved the Viennese tradition in his music.
Berg scholar Douglas Jarman writes in ''
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...
'' that "
sthe 20th century closed, the 'backward-looking' Berg suddenly came as
eorge Perle remarked, to look like its most forward-looking composer."
The
Alban Berg Foundation, founded by the composer's widow in 1969, cultivates the memory and works of the composer, and awards scholarships. The
Alban Berg Monument, situated next to the
Vienna State Opera and unveiled in 2016, was funded by the Foundation.
The
Alban Berg Quartett was a
string quartet
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
named after him, active from 1971 until 2008.
The asteroid
4528 Berg is named after him (1983).
Major compositions
Piano
:
Piano Sonata, Op. 1
:
String Quartet
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
, Op. 3
:''
Lyric Suite'', string quartet
:''
Chamber Concerto'' (1925) for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments
Orchestral
:
Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6
:
Violin Concerto
Vocal
:
Seven Early Songs
:''Vier Lieder'' (''Four Songs''), Op. 2
:
''Five Orchestral Songs on Postcard Texts of Peter Altenberg'', Op. 4
:''
Der Wein''
:''
Schließe mir die Augen beide''
Operas
:''
Wozzeck'', Op. 7 (1925)
:''
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, a C ...
'' (1937)
Notes and references
Notes
References
Sources
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Further reading
*
Adorno, Theodor W. ''Alban Berg: Master of the Smallest Link''. Trans. Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
* Brand, Juliane, Christopher Hailey and Donald Harris, eds. ''The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters''. New York: Norton, 1987.
*
Carner, Mosco. ''Alban Berg: The Man and the Work''. London: Duckworth, 1975.
* dos Santos, Silvio J. ''Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 2014.
*
Floros, Constantin. Trans. by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch
''Alban Berg and Hanna Fuchs''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
*
Grun, Bernard, ed. ''Alban Berg: Letters to his Wife''. London: Faber and Faber, 1971.
* Headlam, Dave. ''The Music of Alban Berg.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
*Jarman, Douglas. "Dr. Schon's Five-Strophe Aria: Some Notes on Tonality and Pitch Association in Berg's ''Lulu''". ''
Perspectives of New Music
''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory
Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Musi ...
'' 8/2 (Spring/Summer 1970).
*Jarman, Douglas. "Some Rhythmic and Metric Techniques in Alban Berg's ''Lulu''". ''
The Musical Quarterly'' 56/3 (July 1970).
*Jarman, Douglas. "''Lulu'': The Sketches". ''International Alban Berg Society Newsletter'', 6 (June 1978).
*Jarman, Douglas. "Countess Geschwitz's Series: A Controversy Resolved?". ''
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association
In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings are a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confere ...
'' 107 (1980/81).
*Jarman, Douglas. "Some Observations on Rhythm, Meter and Tempo in ''Lulu''". In ''Alban Berg Studien''. Ed. Rudolf Klein. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1981.
*Jarman, Douglas. "''Lulu'': The Musical and Dramatic Structure". Royal Opera House Covent Garden program notes, 1981.
*Jarman, Douglas. "The 'Lost' Score of the 'Symphonic Pieces from ''Lulu''". ''International Alban Berg Society Newsletter'' 12 (Fall/Winter 1982).
*
* Leibowitz, René. ''Schoenberg and his school; the contemporary stage of the language of music''. Trans.
Dika Newlin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.
*
Redlich, Hans Ferdinand. ''Alban Berg, the Man and His Music''. London: John Calder, 1957.
* Reich, Willi. ''The life and work of Alban Berg''. Trans.
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental mu ...
. New York : Da Capo Press, 1982.
* Schmalfeldt, Janet. "Berg's Path to Atonality: The Piano Sonata, Op. 1". ''Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives''. Eds. David Gable and Robert P. Morgan, pp. 79–110. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
* Schweizer, Klaus. ''Die Sonatensatzform im Schaffen Alban Bergs''. Stuttgart: Satz und Druck, 1970.
*
*
*
* Wilkey, Jay Weldon. ''Certain Aspects of Form in the Vocal Music of Alban Berg''. Ph.D. thesis. Ann Arbor: Indiana University, 1965.
External links
*
Alban Bergbiography and works on the UE website (publisher)
LiederNet Archive
*
*
ttp://www.pytheasmusic.org/berg.html Alban Berg at Pytheas Center for Contemporary Musicalbanberg.resampled.deThe most comprehensive acoustic representation of Alban Bergs Works in digital realisations.
*
Alban Berg's obituary in the 24 Dec. 1935 issue of ''The New York Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berg, Alban
1885 births
1935 deaths
19th-century Austrian people
20th-century Austrian musicians
20th-century Austrian male musicians
20th-century Austrian people
20th-century Austrian classical composers
Austrian male classical composers
Austrian opera composers
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
Composers from Vienna
Deaths due to insect bites and stings
Deaths from sepsis
Expressionist music
Austrian male opera composers
Pupils of Arnold Schoenberg
Second Viennese School
Twelve-tone and serial composers
Lieder composers