Alban Maria Johannes Berg was born on February 9, 1885, in Vienna,
Austria. He was the third of four children in the upper-class family of
Conrad Berg and his wife Johanna, nee Braun. He was trained for a
career in accounting, but his father died in 1900, causing him a
depression and the onset of asthma. He started composing music, and
moved with his mother to their estate near the Palace of Schonbrunn.
Young Berg was stimulated by the cultural milieu in Vienna, where
Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and rising Arnold Schönberg were extending aesthetic
boundaries with their music.
Berg became a student of Arnold Schönberg in 1904, having little formal
education. His intellect was open and free of any dogma. His artistic
freedom was complemented with the twelve-tone (dodecafonic) system,
discovered and professed by his teacher. Lessons were free, Berg was
the special apprentice, just like Schoenberg was to Mahler. In 1907 his
music had first public performance. Berg composed five piano sonatas
and 'Seven Early Songs' under the tutelage of Schoenberg. Lessons ended
in 1911, when Schoenberg's teacher Mahler died, and Schoenberg moved
from Vienna to Berlin. At that time Berg married Helene Nahowski. In
1913 Berg invited his teacher to conduct the performance of his newly
composed "Altenberger Lieder". The concert was interrupted by the
rioting public. Schoenbrg, who traveled from Berlin for the occasion,
was somewhat critical of the music of his pupil. Still the teacher and
his apprentice maintained their special ties.
Berg interrupted composition during his military service in WWI. But
his creative thinking never stopped. His impressions from the play
'Wozzeck', by Georg Buchner, seen in Vienna in 1914, inspired Berg on
making it into an opera. He wrote sketches for several years, until the
work was completed in 1921. It's three parts were premiered in
Frankfurt in 1924, under the baton of Hermann Scherchen. In 1925 the
whole opera was premiered at the Berlin State Opera under Erich
Kleiber. In 1927 Berg made a trip to Leningrad, Russia for the
successful performance of 'Wozzeck' by the Leningrad Opera. It had
several performances at the Mariinsky (former Imperial) Opera House,
the best Russian opera company. 'Wozzeck' was in the Marrinsky
repertoire after the 'Love for Three Oranges' by Sergei Prokofiev, with both
composers in attendance. Both operas were soon banned by the rigid
Soviet censorship. In 1930 'Wozzeck' had it's premiere at the Vienna
State Opera, a success, and in 1931 it had the American premiere in
Philadelphia.
Berg's second opera 'Lulu' was strongly condemned by the Nazi
ideologists after it's Symphonic premiere in Berliner Staatsoper under
Erich Kleiber in November of 1934. Two months later Erich Kleiber
emigrated. Berg's music was banned in Germany and even the favorable
critics were officially condemned. Berg interrupted his work on the
opera, and composed the Violin Concerto, dedicated to Alma Mahler's
daughter. He died of blood poisoning, caused by the insect bite, on
Christmas Eve, December 24, 1935. The Nazi control extended to Austria
after the "Anschluss" in 1938 and brought the ban on all music from the
'New Viennese School'.
