June 23, 2022 35CC (do do in the solfège system). In
the last movement he even quotes the
opening chord of Wagner’s Tristan und
Isolde, the ultimate musical love poem.
Berg’s secret symbols and the true
meaning of his expressive tempo mark-
ings were revealed only in 1976, when
the composer George Perle, acting on
information provided years earlier by
Hans Redlich, discovered Fuchs’s per-
sonal copy of the score among the be-
longings inherited by her daughter.Berg’s life and works have been the
subject of numerous studies. Simms
and Erwin’s biography stands out for
its thoroughness, its copious use of
newly published correspondence, and
its focus on Berg’s relationships with
Schoenberg and Helene.
Berg’s father died in 1900, when he
was just fifteen, and Simms and Erwin
speculate that Schoenberg later stepped
in to become his substitute father.
Schoenberg provided Berg with compo-
sition lessons for seven years and coun-
seled him on musical issues long after
that. But he also treated his pupil as a
personal servant, asking him to handle
financial matters and raise funds, make
piano- vocal arrangements, and carry
out many menial and time- consuming
chores. In Simms and Erwin’s account,
Schoenberg comes across as an almost
abusive figure, declaring Berg’s Alten-
berg Songs and Clarinet Pieces “worth-
less” and insisting that Berg write a
chamber piece rather than a symphony
for him as a fortieth- birthday tribute.
Berg acquiesced to such demands and
praised Schoenberg in godlike terms in
a volume edited on his behalf. As lateas 1925, Berg, at age forty, declared to
Helene his absolute fidelity to three
people: her, himself, and Schoenberg—
all while trying to free himself from
Schoenberg’s grasp.
Helene, too, appears as a compli-
cated figure. Her mother, Anna Na-
howski, was a mistress of Emperor
Franz Joseph, and Helene may have
been his illegitimate daughter. When
she was courted by Berg she was also
wooed by his sister, Smaragda, who
made no effort to hide her attraction.
During Berg’s lifetime, Helene’s ongo-
ing illnesses and the turmoil within the
Nahowski family were great burdens.
After his death, however, she managed
his estate with an iron hand, not only
determining the fate of Lulu but shap-
ing his image for posterity. She con-
trolled access to his correspondence,
for instance, and insisted on dictating
the text of the letters to a secretary for
publication, sanitizing them in the pro-
cess. Simms and Erwin devote large
portions of their book to Helene’s life,
covering such details as her pre- Berg
relationship with the biologist Paul
Kammerer, her painful menstrual cy-
cles, her troubling spa visits (she was
abused by one of the doctors), and
her deathbed scene. So much space is
dedicated to Helene, including the en-
tire last chapter, that one wonders if
the book should have been called The
Bergs.
That said, Berg also features excellent
German translations and detailed analy-
ses of each of the composer’s mature
works. Wozzeck and Lulu receive a
chapter each, and even the unpublished
Chamber Concerto is given thirteen
pages of discussion. Simms and Erwinalso engage in Freudian speculation
about Berg’s motives for numerous com-
positional decisions, which seems appro-
priate given the atmosphere in Vienna
at the time. (The Bergs knew Freud but
did not undergo analysis with him.)
On the other hand, the compart-
mentalization of chapters—some are
devoted to works, some to biographi-
cal events—leads to backtracking and
redundancy. On page 338 Berg dies
after writing Lulu, but on page 367 he
springs back to life to compose the Vi-
olin Concerto. In addition, the intense
focus on Berg and the attempt to pen-
etrate his inner world sometimes leads
to a myopic narrative that ignores much
that was going on elsewhere. There is lit-
tle discussion of the Great Depression or
the wildly fluctuating value of currencies
during the Weimar Republic. Neverthe-
less, this is the most three- dimensional
por t ra it of Berg to date. It even i ncludes
his autopsy report in an appendix.Simms and Erwin conclude with an
epilogue titled “Berg the Outsider.”
Its premise is that Berg’s music can’t
be comfortably classified as modernist.
Although it contains twelve- tone rows
and intense dissonance—characteris-
tics of the Second Viennese School—it
is too lyrical and contains too many tra-
ditional tonal devices to be considered
atonal. The moving melodies (both
newly composed and cited from earlier
works), the lush orchestration, and the
unambiguous tonal references point
rather to late Romanticism. Simms and
Erwin suggest that Berg might best be
placed at the end of the procession of
late- nineteenth- and early- twentieth-century German symphonic composers
that stretches from Wagner to Mahler
(Berg’s hero) to Richard Strauss.
But Berg’s music can also be seen as
a harbinger of postmodernism, with
its return to tonal composition and
its commitment to stirring listeners
once again. The exactingly structured,
highly emotional scores of Wozzeck
and Lulu foreshadow postmodern mas-
terpieces such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s
Three Movements for Orchestra, Jenni-
fer Higdon’s blue cathedral, and Kaija
Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin (to cite
works of three distinguished women
composers not included in the Master
Musicians series, which astonishingly
remains limited to men).
Berg has traditionally been viewed as
the least strict member of the Second
Viennese School. While Schoenberg
and Webern never wavered in their
systematic pursuit of atonal composi-
tions, Berg combined tonal and atonal
techniques to create a more attractive,
seemingly freer idiom. But as Simms
and Erwin convincingly demonstrate,
his meticulous control of every aspect
of his music and his reliance on sub-
liminal organizational elements and
hidden codes may make him the most
calculating composer of the three. Most
importantly, he viewed dissonance as
the means to an end rather than the
product of abstract manipulations. As
he once said to Alma Mahler, disso-
nances “give music and love, friendship
and nature their true worth, and really
everything that has any life—even sen-
suality itself.” This may best explain
the enduring appeal of Berg’s complex
works and our ongoing fascination with
their equally complex composer. QNew York’s leading nonprofi t cinema for independent fi lm premieres and repertory programming
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