Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The world of Alban Berg is full of paradoxes, secrets and allusions, but he was able to handle emotional and moral issues at a distance and with profound sympathy. His unhurried, almost aristocratic attitude to life and his extreme self-criticism in professional matters resulted in an extraordinarily small musical output, but it includes towering masterpieces such as the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and his last work, the Violin Concerto. All of Berg's substantial works are discussed in this Companion which brings together a team of experts who write from a variety of historical and critical perspectives, outlining the place of the music in the cultural history of its time and recontextualising it against the broader twentieth-century interplay of fashions, aesthetics and ideas.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Chronology
• Introduction
• Part I Culture and Environment
• 1 Defining home: BergÆs life on the periphery Christopher Hailey
• 2 Battles of the mind: Berg and the cultural politics of æVienna 1900Æ Andrew Barker
• 3 Berg and Adorno Raymond Geuss
• Part II From Song to Opera
• 4 Early works: tonality and beyond Anthony Pople
• 5 BergÆs 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 BergÆs atonal method Patricia Hall
• 10 Compositional technique 1923û6: the Chamber Concerto and the Lyric Suite Neil Boynton
• 11 In the orbit of Lulu: the late works Anthony Pople
• 12 LuluÆs feminine performance Judy Lochhead
• Part IV Postscript: Berg and the twentieth century Arnold Whittall

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This fourth volume in the "Cambridge Companion to Music" series is the first dealing with a 20th-century composer. Included are 13 essays by 11 authors from the UK and the US. First, three chapters, two by nonmusic specialists, describe Berg's Viennese milieu. Four subsequent chapters provide individual analyses of opp. 1-6 and Wozzeck. Part 3 offers five chapters that deal with the infamous secret programs and the late works (Chamber Concerto, Lyric Suite, Der Wein, Lulu, and the Violin Concerto) and their offshoots and provide a feminist view of Lulu. The final essay considers Berg's place in the history of 20th-century music. This volume is a valuable addition to two previous collections of essays (The Berg Companion, ed. by Douglas Jarman, 1990; Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives, ed. by David Gable and Robert Morgan, 1991). The three are complementary rather than redundant, broadening knowledge of the composer, who is emerging as the most significant of the Second Viennese School. Chapters dealing with specific pieces are highly technical in content and are addressed to the specialist. The first three and last two chapters will interest nonspecialists. Clear musical examples, a chronology of the composer's life, a list of his compositions, endnotes, a very "select" bibliography, and an index of proper names add to this handsomely printed and bound volume. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above. R. Stahura; Ripon College