The music of Alban Berg

by David John Headlam

Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), along with his contemporaries Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, dramatically altered the musical landscape of the Western world. In this original book, Dave Headlam offers a comprehensive analysis of Berg's music. He examines each of the composer's works - including the Piano Sonata, Opus 1, the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and the Violin Concerto - and defines the main components of his musical language. Charting Berg's development as he progressed from late-romantic tonality to atonality and finally to his own distinctive dodecaphonic language, Headlam demonstrates with clarity and sophistication the compositional continuity that underlies all Berg's music. Headlam closely analyzes Berg's compositional technique and the use of symmetry and cycles throughout his oeuvre. He brings into the discussion Berg's own writings, as well as those of composer and musicologist George Perle; the techniques of Schoenberg, Webern, and other serialists; and asp