Cambridge Companion to Berg

Alban Berg's achievement is based on an extraordinarily small musical output, but it includes towering masterpieces such as the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and his last work, the Violin Concerto. These and all Berg's other substantial works are discussed in this wide-ranging Companion, which contains essays written from a variety of historical and critical perspectives, outlining the place of the music in the cultural history of its time and within the broader interplay of twentieth-century fashions, aesthetics and ideas.

A wide-ranging Companion to the work of Alban Berg.

Chronology; Introduction; Part I. Culture and Environment: 1. Defining home: Berg's life on the periphery Christopher Hailey; 2. Battles of the mind: Berg and the cultural politics of 'Vienna 1900' Andrew Barker; 3. Berg and Adorno Raymond Geuss; Part II. From Song to Opera: 4. Early works: tonality and beyond Anthony Pople; 5. Berg's aphoristic pieces Kathryn Bailey; 6. Berg, Mahler and the Three Orchestral Pieces, Op.6 Derrick Puffett; 7. The musical language of Wozzeck Anthony Pople; Part III. After Wozzeck: 8. Secret programmes Douglas Jarman; 9. Compositional process in Wozzeck and Lulu: a glimpse of Berg's atonal method Patricia Hall; 10. Compositional technique 1923-6: the Chamber Concerto and the Lyric Suite Neil Boynton; 11. In the orbit of Lulu: the late works Anthony Pople; 12. Lulu's feminine performance Judy Lochhead; Part IV. Postscript: Berg and the twentieth century Arnold Whittall.