The Cambridge Companion to Berg

All of Berg's substantial works are discussed in this Companion, including early songs and piano music that have only recently seen the light of day. The volume brings together a team of experts who write from a variety of historical and critical perspectives and while the book naturally gives centre stage to the music itself, it also outlines its immediate cultural context and places it in the broader twentieth-century interplay of fashions, aesthetics and ideas.

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.