The image of Alban Berg as a member of the Second Viennese School and a devoted student of Arnold Schoenberg, even in his mature years, pervades our understanding of the composer.¹ This image is derived, as Joseph Auner has demonstrated, from a historical narrative that turned the notion of a Second Viennese School of composers into a concept—a concept in which important critics such as René Leibowitz went so far as rendering Schoenberg as the sole leading genius, leaving Berg and Webern as mere derivatives whose existence as composers would have been “inconceivable” without Schoenberg’s teaching.² Obviously, we have...

By establishing a principle of identity between Berg and Wagner, this chapter is bound to cause suspicion, as it could rightly be argued that a person’s identity is formed by a multitude of factors—including the appropriation of historical or fictional narratives—by which the individual and collective identities are in a constant process of reconfiguration. To single out one element asthemost important factor in the formation of one’s identity would seem to establish a rather rigid category that overlooks other relational properties in identity formation. To be sure, as is well-known, Berg identified himself overtly with an...

Berg’s fixation on constructing narratives of identity is reflected most overtly in his rendering of the character of Alwa, who is transformed into an opera composer, the “WozzeckKomponist” (composer ofWozzeck),¹ from the original playwright in Wedekind’s play. This sort of self-identification was not unusual within his Viennese circle of friends; perhaps the closest model is Schoenberg’s identification with Moses in his operaMoses und Aron.² Yet Berg complicates his self-identification with Alwa because, as Patricia Hall has rightly argued, “many sketches for the Rondo suggest that on some level Berg associated the character of Alwa with Tristan from...

As is well-known and has been discussed in previous chapters, Karl Kraus’s introductory lecture to the 1905 private performance of Frank Wedekind’sDie Büchse der Pandorain Vienna left a lasting impression on Berg. This impression lay dormant until 1928, when he settled on Wedekind’sLuluplays,ErdgeistandDie Büchse der Pandora, for his second opera after considering and eventually rejecting Gerhart Hauptmann’sUnd Pippa tanzt!¹ Kraus’s lecture was extensive and addressed several issues, including the perception of womanhood and the typological roles of some characters, all of which he related to the moral message of the play. The...

When Berg explained his progress with composingLuluin a letter to Schoenberg on August 7, 1930, he had already set his mind on one of the most important distinctions between his new opera and the plays by Frank Wedekind on which the libretto was based: namely, the return of Lulu’s “victims” (her husbands) as her clients in the final scene. After describing the role of the orchestral interlude between the first and second scenes of act 2 as the “focal point for the whole tragedy,” Berg added this parenthetical comment: “(Incidentally: the 4 men [actually three] who visit Lulu...

In the conclusion ofLuluthe audience is left with the dying Geschwitz, a lesbian character whose devoted, self-sacrificing love for Lulu and eventual decision to pursue a law degree and fight for women’s rights is cut short by her fateful encounter with Jack the Ripper. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this ending is that Berg places Lulu’s death offstage; the only victim onstage, and therefore seen and heard by the audience, is Geschwitz. Berg even considered, at some point during the compositional process, leaving Lulu alive, making Geschwitz the only fatal victim of Jack the Ripper.¹ This subtle...