Alban Berg

Alban Berg's incomparable work

Of a calm and introverted disposition, Alban Berg spent almost all his life in Vienna. His operas conveyed his expressionistic Angst like his doubts related to musical language. In Wozzeck (1922), he transcribed musically his vision of death, whereas Lulu is a testament to the unconscious, desire and violence. Weakened by the scandals his works provoked, Berg had difficulty finding his place when faced with modernity and avant-gardism. His personality remained profoundly discreet.

Although his work exploited the Viennese School’s techniques with incomparable artistic sensitivity, its nostalgia, freedom and indefinable purity remain exceptional. He used the serial technique for his Lyric Suite, yet the music is heartrending, evoking his passionate love for Hanna Fuchs-Robertin, Alma Mahler’s sister-in-law. Suffering from bad health, Alban Berg died of septicaemia in 1935 at the age of 50, leaving unfinished the last act of his opera Lulu.