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Adorno was 21 years old when he travelled to Vienna in March 1925 to study musical composition with Alban Berg. Twenty years later, Adorno wrote: 'How much of my writing will remain is beyond my knowledge or my control, but there is one claim I wish to stake: that I understand the language of music as the heroes in fairy tales understand the language of birds.' It was no less than the desire to learn to speak this language that drew him to Berg. Adorno already knew what he wanted to compose before he came to Berg and the aim of his stay in Vienna and the following years was to learn to put this knowledge of musical compostition into practice.

His correspondence with Berg, who was soon to be world-famous, is partly defined by his engagement with the compositional problems posed for the musical avant-garde by Schönberg's discovery of the twelve-tone technique, for which Adorno was to become an advocate, not least in Vienna and through Berg. This correspondence documents how he wrote numerous essays on Berg, Webern and Schönberg during this time, and tried in vain to establish a platform for the Second Viennese School against 'moderated modernity' in the journal Der Anbruch, where he exerted considerable editorial influence. It also shows how much Adorno - continually admonished by Berg to focus only on his musical composition - strove to reconcile his academic duties and his literary and journalistic work with the constant wish to do nothing more than compose. ... Read more

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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.Amazon.com Review
In this addition to the Cambridge Companion series, 13 essaysby 11 authors provide a useful and interesting introduction to themusic and personality of Alban Berg. The volume is divided into threemain sections and a postscript: "Culture and Environment,""From Song to Opera," and "After Wozzeck."The essays deal with everything from "cultural politics" toBerg's compositional techniques, and the postscript tries to establishBerg's place in and influence on the history of 20th-centurycomposition. The book suffers in places from an overly academicapproach to its subject (not to mention an overly academicvocabulary), but the reasonably informed lay reader with an interestin Berg will still find it informative and helpful in understandinghis music and its context. ... Read more

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After 50 years of analysis we are only beginning to understand the quality and complexity of Alban Berg's most important twelve-tone work, the opera Lulu. Patricia Hall's new book represents a primary contribution to that understandingthe first detailed analysis of the sketches for the opera as well as other related autograph material and previously inaccessible correspondence to Berg.In 1959, Berg's widow deposited the first of Berg's autograph manuscripts in the Austrian National Library. The complete collection of autographs for Lulu was made accessible to scholars in 1981, and a promising new phase in Lulu scholarship unfolded. Hall begins her study by examining the format and chronology of the sketches, and she demonstrates their unique potential to clarify aspects of Berg's compositional language. In each chapter Hall uses Berg's sketches to resolve a significant problem or controversy that has emerged in the study of Lulu. For example, Hall discusses the dramatic symbolism behind Berg's use of multiple roles and how these roles contribute to the large-scale structure of the opera. She also revises the commonly held view that Berg frequently invoked a free twelve-tone style.Hall's innovative work suggests important techniques for understanding not only the sketches and manuscripts of Berg but also those of other twentieth-century composers. ... Read more

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Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, modern composers living in Vienna near the turn of the 20th century are examined in a broad artistic context illustrating how their works grew from earlier Viennese musical developments. Presenting a coherent analysis of a central school of modern musical composition, the essays compare the modernism in these artists' music to that in the nonmusical arts in Vienna at the time. A prominent musical phenomenon during the period, the Second Viennese School of Music would exert a profound impact on European and American composers in the decades following World War II. The recent discoveries and critical perspectives on the composers discussed in these essays detail new information on central aspects of their work, including the origins of atonal composition, the 12-tone method, and the literary models that often inspired their works. Coherent and current, this collection of essays offers unique insight into the personalities and artistic accomplishments of these three major figures who introduced modernism to music. ... Read more

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Vienna, Universal Edition, 1955 study score, 8vo 7 x 10 ins 486pp green leatherette, gilt titling. Glossary of terms inserted in rear inside cover pocket. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Somewhat small but a steal in comparison with conductor-size score!
Atonal music is never an easy exercise in listening (the very nature of such music goes against the ear's natural inclinations, especially when considering its basic extremity of intenseness);and when one gets into a work that's so multithreaded, intense even with the words alone, heavily-scored and overall challenging, period, it's all the more desireable to have a score even if one's music-reading skills are limited.Only in this way can one fully appreciate everything that's going on (and for those of us who don't know German, this score benefits us with a very good English singing-translation to boot!), particularly given Universal-Edition's high-quality engraving.

Although the size-format is somewhat smallish in comparison with a full conductor-size score, the price is only an 8th or less in comparison (and if you've good eyesight, it's still possible to conduct from it).

When one can get it here, it's all the more for the better.Thus, when it's here available and assuming you care for the work, GET IT!! ... Read more

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Chapters: Lulu, Wozzeck. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Wozzeck (1925)Lulu (1937) Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904). Berg first saw Die Büchse der Pandora in 1905 in a production by Karl Kraus, but did not begin work on his opera until 1929, after he had completed his other opera, Wozzeck. He worked steadily on the score until 1935, when the death of Manon Gropius, the daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler, prompted him to break off work to write his Violin Concerto. Berg completed the violin concerto swiftly, but the time he spent on that meant he was unable to complete the opera before his death later in 1935 he had completed the work up to bar 268 of Act III, Scene 1, leaving the rest of the work in short score with indications of instrumentation for much of it. The opera was first performed by the Zurich Opera in an incomplete form in 1937. Erwin Stein made a vocal score of the whole of Act III following Berg's death, and Helene Berg, Alban's widow, approached Arnold Schoenberg to complete the orchestration. Schoenberg at first accepted, but upon being sent copies of Berg's sketches he changed his mind, saying that it would be a more time-consuming task than he had thought. Helene subsequently forbade anybody else to complete the opera, and for over forty years only the first two acts could be given complete, sometimes with parts of Berg's Lulu Suite played in place of Act III. The last recording made of the original two-act version Christoph von Dohnányi conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, with Anja Silja in the title role (Decca/London, recorded 1976 and released 1978) present...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=113319 ... Read more

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First ever publication of Alban Berg's Piano Sonata op. 1 here transcribed for guitar duo. Prepared from Alban Berg's later revised version of this work by Gangolf Hontheim. ... Read more

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We are pleased to announce three more titles in the ongoing Universal Edition Study Score Series, which has grown from its original 20 titles to now 42. Each score is larger and clearer than the previous edition, and all are handsomely bound in uniform covers. The Series represents the most significant works of the 20th century in the Universal Edition catalog and, indeed, of the music world. ... Read more

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Chapters: Alban Berg Quartet, Kolisch Quartet, Hellmesberger Quartet, Barylli Quartet, Quatuor Mosaïques, Rosé Quartet, Hagen Quartet. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 30. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after the famous composer Alban Berg. Its debut performance was in 1971. The widow of the composer attended one of their earliest concerts, and was moved by their performance. When she greeted them after the concerts, she offered the idea to name themselves after him, and they accepted. The quartet members decided to disband in July 2008. The Berg Quartet was founded in 1970 by four young professors of the Vienna Academy of Music, and made its debut in the Vienna Konzerthaus in autumn 1971. Its inclination and conviction was towards the Viennese classics, through the Romantic tradition to the works of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern and Bartok, and embracing great contemporary composers. The focus of their activities became a yearly cycle at the Vienna Konzerthaus, and also regular participation in major world musical events including the Berlin Festiv weeks, the Edinburgh Festival, IRCAM in the Pompidou Centre, Paris, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna Festival. Concert trips took the group to almost all the countries of Europe, and also to the USA, to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Recordings were an important part of the work of the Alban Berg Quartet. Among the prizes obtained by their recordings were the Grand Prix du Disque, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, the Japanese Grand Prix and the Vienna Flötenuhr. The group received the highest accolades from the international press, and was considered one of the great ensembles of its time by critics around the worl...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=468692 ... Read more

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Vienna, Universal Edition, 1977, 1985 printing Quarto 9.1 x 12 ins 28pp stapled wraps. Ensemble consists of string quartet, harmonium and piano. ... Read more