Berg

by Simms, Bryan R.; Erwin, Charlotte

• ISBN13: 9780190931445
• ISBN10: 0190931442
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2021-02-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Alban Berg (1885-1935), a student of Arnold Schoenberg and one of the most prominent composers of the Second Viennese School, is counted among the pioneers of twelve-tone serialism. His circle included not only the musicians of the Wiener modern but also prominent literary and artistic figures from Vienna's brilliant fin-de-siècle. In his short lifetime he composed two ground-breaking operas, Wozzeck and Lulu, as well as chamber works, songs, and symphonic compositions. His final completed work, the deeply moving and elegiac Violin Concerto, is performed by leading soloists across the world.

This new life-and-works study from authors Bryan R. Simms and Charlotte Erwin delivers a fresh perspective formed from comprehensive study of primary sources that reveal the forces that shaped Berg's personality, career, and artistic outlook. One such force was Berg's wife, Helene Nahowski Berg, and the book provides a unique assessment of her role in the composer's life and work, as well as her later quest to shape his artistic legacy in the forty-one years of her widowhood. The authors present insightful analysis of all of Berg's major works, bringing into play Berg's own analyses of the music, many of which have not been considered in existing scholarship. Berg is an accessible and all-encompassing resource for all readers who wish to learn about the life and music of this composer, one of the great figures in modern music.

Author Biography

Bryan R. Simms is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Southern California. He was formerly editor of the Journal of Music Theory and Music Theory Spectrum and has served on the Council of the American Musicological Society and Executive Board of the Society for Music Theory. He specializes in music and musical theory of the 20th century, and he is the editor and translator of Pro Mundo - Pro Domo: The Writings of Alban Berg (2014), an English edition of the complete writings of this composer.

Charlotte Erwin retired in 2015 from the California Institute of Technology where she was head of archives and special collections. After earning her doctorate from Yale, she taught musicology at the University of Southern California, UCLA, and Occidental College and has published on Richard Strauss, Ernst Toch, and other German and Austrian ?migr? composers.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: Music in the Twilight of the Habsburg Empire
Chapter 1. Two Viennese Families: The Bergs and Nahowskis
Berg's Early Life
The Specter of Ill Health
The Marie Scheuchl Affair
The Nahowski Family
Helene Nahowski and Paul Kammerer
Berg's Courtship of Helene Nahowski
Chapter 2. Berg's Musical Apprenticeship, 1899-1911
Studies with Schoenberg
Berg's Early Songs
Seven Early Songs (1907)
Four Songs, Op. 2
Music for Piano
Piano Sonata, Op. 1
String Quartet, Op. 3
Chapter 3. A Struggle for Recognition, 1911-15
Before the War
Berg's Work for Schoenberg
The Scandal Concert
Berg as Writer
Five Orchestral Songs to Picture Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg, Op. 4
Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5
Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6
Chapter 4. The War and Its Aftermath, 1915-22
Patriotic Enthusiasm
Berg's Conscription
Superstition and Pseudo-Science
Postwar Burdens
A Change of Profession
Chapter 5. Wozzeck
Operatic Plans and Uncertainties
From Play to Libretto
A Wozzeck Chronology
The Music of "Wozzeck"
"Wozzeck" on Stage
Chapter 6. International Acclaim, 1923-5
Wozzeck Triumphant
The Continuing Quest for Health
New Directions in Post-War Music: Neoclassicism and Dodecaphony
Chamber Concerto
Chapter 7. Secret Programs with Twelve Tones, 1925-7
The Hanna Fuchs Affair
A Return to Composing
Lyric Suite for String Quartet
Chapter 8. The Celebrated Composer, 1928-34
Summer Retreats and Family Entanglements
Flight from Reality
Berg's Music and the Nazi Threat
A Musical Digression: Der Wein
Chapter 9. Lulu
The Search for Lulu
Wedekind's Lulu Plays
Berg's Libretto for Lulu
A Chronology of Composition
The Music of Lulu
Prospects for Staging
Symphonic Pieces from the Opera "Lulu"
Chapter 10. Berg's Final Year, 1935
Berg's Financial Crisis
Political Turmoil and Austrofascism
The Violin Concerto
Berg's Final Illness
Chapter 11. Helene Berg and the Management of Berg's Legacy, 1936-76
The Completion of Lulu
Bereavement, Grief, and Helene Berg's "Eternal Marriage"
Helene Berg's Life Under the Nazis, 1938-45
Berg's Musical Manuscripts and Letters
Toward a Berg Biography
The Alban Berg Foundation
Helene Berg's Last Years
Epilogue: Berg the Outsider
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index