!!!Berg, Alban

b. Vienna, Feb. 9, 1885, 
d. Vienna, Dec. 24, 1935, composer. B., A.  Schoenberg and A.  Webern 
were the main representatives of what is known as the 12-tone or 
Second Viennese school of music ( dodecaphony). Brought up in the 
Viennese upper middle class in artistic turn-of-the-century 
atmosphere; his initial interest was in literature and poetry. 
1904-1910 pupil of Schoenberg, with whom he developed a lifelong 
friendship (likewise with Webern). Although he used the 12-tone 
approach, B. actually remained within the framework of traditional 
tonality ("last Romanticist"). Furthermore, he showed a lively 
interest in all contemporary composers and their work, e.g. A.  
Zemlinsky, E.  Wellesz). Being a perfectionist, he aspired to thorough 
structural forms in each of his few works. His opera "Wozzeck" (after 
G. Buechner), where he integrated his own experiences from World War I 
into the plot, brought him great acclaim (première in Berlin in 
1925). Of his second opera "Lulu" (after two plays by F. Wedekind) he 
finished the preliminary score but the orchestration of its third act 
remained incomplete at his death (1962-1978 completed by F.  Cerha). 
His violin concerto, composed as a kind of requiem and dedicated to 
Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler, shows his perfect mastery 
in amalgamating classical music forms with 12-tone music. B. 
additionally worked as an author of music publications and founded 
with Willi  Reich the magazine "23". Under the Nazi regime his 
compositions were regarded as "degenerate art". The A. B. Foundation, 
established in 1955, serves mainly to promote young composers.

!Further works
Lieder; orchestral works; chamber concerto, 1923-1925; 
lyric suite for string quartet, 1925/1926, three pieces from the lyric 
suite, 1928; violin concerto, 1935. Musicological works: compilation 
of 18 pieces of writing in the biography of W. Reich, 1937. - Edition: 
Saemtliche Werke, ed. by the A.-B.-Stiftung, 1994 ff.

!Literature
H. F. Redlich, A. B., 1957; T. W. Adorno, A. B. Der 
Meister des kleinen Uebergangs, 1968; V. Scherliess, A. B., 1975.



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