Berg

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.

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.