A Struggle for Recognition, 1911–15

Chapter 3 covers Berg’s life and music from the end of his apprenticeship until his conscription in the Austrian army during World War II. During this time Berg worked mainly as an assistant for his teacher, Schoenberg, and he also made several piano arrangements for the publisher Universal Edition. Berg was increasingly active as a writer on music, and in 1913 he completed a lengthy technical analysis of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. His compositions during the period contain many new procedures and materials that go beyond those approved of by Schoenberg. His Altenberg Songs (1912) and Orchestra Pieces (1914–15) reach a new level of complexity in their deep structure, and these works are intensely unified by the development and variation of themes. His Clarinet Pieces (1913) are brief works in an “aphoristic” style also used at the time by Schoenberg and Anton Webern.

Berg’s Musical Apprenticeship, 1899–1911

In Chapter 2 Berg’s early musical activities are outlined, and his musical studies with Arnold Schoenberg are examined in detail. His first efforts as a composer were songs, some thirty-three of these composed before he had formal training in music. His studies with Schoenberg began in 1904, beginning with exercises in counterpoint and fugue, then progressing to composition per se. In these disciplines Schoenberg emphasized a mastery of traditional musical forms and materials. The emphasis on time-honored forms had a lasting impact on Berg’s later music, and Schoenberg’s philosophy concerning musical evolution reinforced Berg’s own musical instincts. Berg’s early compositions—songs, piano works, and his Opp. 1–3—are discussed and described to show their relation to contemporary musical developments and Berg’s impulse toward originality. Whenever possible Berg’s own descriptions and analyses of his early music are cited, and Berg’s approach to “atonal” harmony is described.

Lulu

Berg had several early ideas for a text for his second opera, and his choice finally fell on Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Berg adapted the plays into a single three-act structure and made other changes in the names of characters and their attributes, and he titled his opera Lulu, after the central figure. The subject matter of the opera was highly controversial, with a perverse eroticism and sordid violence. Given the political climate of the early 1930s, prospects for a performance of the work were dim. The chronology by which Berg created the libretto for Lulu and its music reveals many delays that suggest a struggle on the composer’s part in grappling with the subject and with his relatively new twelve-tone method of composing. Berg completed the basic compositional work for the opera in spring 1934, and he then created a concert suite from the work, much as he had done with Wozzeck, which he titled Symphonic Pieces from the Opera “Lulu.” The necessary revisions to the opera that Berg foresaw and most of the orchestration of Act 3 remained incomplete at the time of his death in December 1935, and the opera was performed in its entirety only in 1979. In Lulu Berg fully developed his own distinctive twelve-tone method of composing but continued to invoke traditional musical forms.

The Celebrated Composer, 1928–34

In this chapter aspects of Berg’s life during his last eight years are recounted. Berg’s childhood friend Hermann Watznauer proposed a biography of Berg, in which project the composer concurred. Berg was offered an academic appointment at the Berlin Musikhochschule, but he preferred to stay in Vienna, hoping for a position at the Vienna Music Academy, which did not materialize. His complex relations with his family contributed to a slowing of his attention to music. As his mood darkened, he complained of losing his ability to compose, and he attempted to revive his spirits by flirtations with two women, Anny Askenase and Edith Edwards. Berg purchased a summer retreat, the Waldhaus, in 1932. From about this time, with the rise of the Nazis, Berg’s music had few performances in Germany and Austria and he gradually faced a financial crisis. In 1929 he received a lucrative commission from the soprano Ružena Herlinger to compose a concert aria for her use. Berg then composed Der Wein, a setting for voice and orchestra of poetry by Baudelaire. The work was his first to bring in styles from popular dance music such as the tango.

Secret Programs with Twelve Tones, 1925–27

Chapter 7 covers the years 1925–27, the period in which Berg first began composing with a version of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method. His first such work was the song “Schließe mir die Augen beide,” for which he reused the poetic text of an earlier song. Berg continued to apply and to refine his twelve-tone method in the Lyric Suite for string quartet and in all of his later works. The method ultimately became his alone, only remotely resembling that of Schoenberg. Berg also faced a midlife crisis during these years. In 1925 he fell in love with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a Prague industrialist and sister of the writer Franz Werfel. The “affair” was largely a fantasy on Berg’s part, although it inspired him to compose and to encode aspects of his encounter with Hanna Fuchs using ciphers and numbers. His Lyric Suite for string quartet made extensive use of such symbols.

Helene Berg and the Management of Berg’s Legacy, 1936–76

Following Berg’s death the most pressing problem was the completion of the opera Lulu. Universal Edition contracted with Arnold Schoenberg to complete the work but Schoenberg subsequently declined. The opera was premiered in a two-act version in Zurich in 1937. Helene Berg’s involvement with anthroposophy shaped her contention that Berg was still in communication with her and that Lulu’s third act should never be completed. Universal Edition commissioned the completion by Friedrich Cerha, and the premiere of the three-act version was held in Paris in 1979, after Helene Berg’s death. Helene Berg undertook a publication of her husband’s letters to herself, created the Alban Berg Foundation, and donated Berg’s manuscripts and papers to the Austrian National Library. Helene Berg died in 1976. Biographies of Berg were first written by his friends and students, including Willi Reich and Soma Morgernstern, later by those outside of his circle such as Hans F. Redlich.

Wozzeck

Chapter 5 offers a broad historical background for and analysis of the opera Wozzeck. Berg’s interest in adapting Georg Büchner’s play Wozzeck as an operatic text began in 1914 after seeing the work staged. Büchner’s life and works are surveyed. Berg used a version of the play reconstructed by Karl Emil Franzos, who freely added his own texts to his sources to provide the work with dramatic continuity and to heighten its pathos. Berg composed Wozzeck over a period of eight years, during which his attention was interrupted by his military service. The opera itself is examined, showing the main musical themes that connect the drama to the music. The composer’s decision to mix atonal harmony with traditional harmony and melody helped to project the contrasts in the dramatic action. Berg also composed a concert suite from the opera, the Wozzeck Fragments, whose three movements focus on music for the character Marie. Berg’s very specific ideas for staging Wozzeck are outlined.

The War and Its Aftermath, 1914–20

In this chapter Berg’s service in the Austrian military is outlined. He began as an officer trainee in the infantry, but a health crisis led to his reassignment in guard duty and later in office work at the War Ministry in Vienna. He had a lifelong belief in predestination, which he increasingly perceived in circular patterns and occurrences. His superstitious interest in numbers focused on the number twenty-three, which he saw as his fateful number. His belief in fate and numerology had a growing influence on his music. Berg’s progress on the opera Wozzeck was delayed by his military service and also by major confrontations with those in his family, especially over the sale of family property. Around 1920 Berg even considered making his main profession that of a writer on musical topics, and he wrote polemics attacking the ideas of Hans Pfitzner and Viennese music critics at this time. Eventually he put aside his activity as a writer and returned to composing, to complete his opera Wozzeck.

Berg’s Final Year, 1935

Chapter 10 describes Berg’s final year, 1935. His financial and physical condition continued to deteriorate, and the rise of National Socialism prevented performance of his works in Germany and Austria. Completion of Lulu was delayed by a commission from the American virtuoso Louis Krasner to compose a violin concerto. Completed in the summer of 1935, the work became a memorial to Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler. Berg’s Symphonic Pieces from Lulu was the last composition that he heard performed before his death on 24 December 1935. Berg’s final illness is analyzed. His death by sepsis was likely caused by an underlying immune deficiency brought about by his lifelong habit of excessive self-medication.

Two Viennese Families

In the book’s first chapter major events in Berg’s early life (1885–1911) in Vienna are traced: his family, his artistic impulses and influences, his self-instruction in music and art, his schooling, and his early professional aspirations. Berg’s lifelong struggle with poor health is assessed. The Nahowski family, Berg’s future in-laws, is studied, including Anna Nahowski’s affair with Emperor Franz Joseph and the possibility that Helene Berg was the Emperor’s natural daughter. The love triangle of Berg, Helene, and Paul Kammerer (a brilliant Viennese scientist and musician) is explored, and the chapter ends with Berg’s marriage to Helene in 1911.