Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg, an Austrian composer associated with the Second Viennese School, blended Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone method. Despite producing a modest body of work, he is regarded as a major 20th-century figure for his emotionally charged style, which has been described as containing "entire worlds of emotion and structure."

Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children. His father ran a prosperous export business, and the family owned several estates in Vienna and the countryside. After his father’s death in 1900, finances declined, and Berg struggled academically, repeating both sixth and seventh grades. A close lifelong friend, architect Hermann Watznauer (who later wrote an early biography under the pseudonym Hermann Herrenried), served as a father figure, ten years Berg’s senior. Berg wrote him lengthy letters, often in florid, dramatic prose with unusual punctuation. As a child, Berg was more drawn to literature than music and considered becoming a writer; he turned to music slowly and uncertainly, not composing until age fifteen, when he began teaching himself. He took piano lessons from his sister’s governess. With Marie Scheuchl, a maid fifteen years his senior at the family estate in Carinthia, he fathered a daughter, Albine, born in December 1902.

In 1906, Berg met singer Helene Nahowski, from a wealthy family rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Despite her family’s hostility, they married in May 1911, though her father insisted on a Protestant ceremony to ease a potential divorce.

Berg began studying counterpoint, music theory, and harmony with Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904. By 1906 he studied music full-time, and by 1907 he started composition lessons. His student works included five drafts for piano sonatas and songs, among them his *Seven Early Songs*. Three of these were his first publicly performed pieces, in a 1907 concert showcasing Schoenberg’s pupils. His early sketches led to the *Piano Sonata, Op. 1*, published in 1910 and composed around 1908–1909, often called one of the most formidable first works ever written. Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Schoenberg taught that a composition’s unity derives from a single basic idea—later known as developing variation. Berg passed this principle to his own students, including Theodor W. Adorno, who noted that everything was meant to develop from something else yet remain distinct. The *Piano Sonata* exemplifies this, deriving entirely from its opening quartal gesture and phrase.

Berg moved in Vienna’s fin de siècle cultural elite, including musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, painter Gustav Klimt, writer Karl Kraus, architect Adolf Loos, and poet Peter Altenberg. In 1913, two of his *Altenberg Lieder* premiered in Vienna, conducted by Schoenberg in the infamous *Skandalkonzert*. The songs, set to aphoristic poems and accompanied by a huge orchestra, caused a riot and the performance was halted. Berg withdrew the work; it was not performed in full until 1952, and the score remained unpublished until 1966. Berg had a notable fascination with the number 23, using it to structure several works. Possible reasons include the biorhythm theories of Wilhelm Fliess (which involve a 23-day cycle) or that Berg first suffered an asthma attack on the 23rd of a month.

From 1915 to 1918, Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. During leave in 1917, he accelerated work on his first opera, *Wozzeck*. After World War I, he settled in Vienna, teaching private pupils and helping Schoenberg run the Society for Private Musical Performances, which aimed to create an ideal environment for new music through open rehearsals, repeat performances, and a ban on professional critics. In 1924, three excerpts from *Wozzeck* were performed, bringing Berg his first public success. The opera, completed in 1922, premiered in Berlin on 14 December 1925, conducted by Erich Kleiber. *Wozzeck* remains a landmark work.

Berg’s other major works include the opera *Lulu* (begun in 1928, finished after his death), the chamber pieces *Lyric Suite* and *Chamber Concerto*, and a *Violin Concerto*. He also composed numerous songs (lieder). He died from sepsis in 1935. Berg is often said to have brought more “human values” to the twelve-tone system, with his works seen as more emotional than Schoenberg’s. His music possessed a surface glamour that attracted admirers at a time when Schoenberg himself had few.