With 210 musical examples; worklist (including manuscripts and sketches,
with locations); fine bibliography of about 150 items, fully described; expan-
sive index of names, titles, and topics.- Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work.2nd ed. London: Duck-
worth, 1983. xx, 314p. ISBN 0-7156-0769-3. ML410 .B47 C28.
First edition, 1975. The principal biography of Berg, including some musical
analysis (most importantly of Lulu), with notes and musical examples. Perle’s
work appears to have been ignored. Worklist, bibliography (about 70 items),
expansive index of names and titles.
Operas in General
- Perle, George. The Operas of Alban Berg. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U. of Cal-
ifornia Press, 1980–1985. 2v. ISBN 0-520-03440-6; 0-520-04502-5. ML410
.B47 P45.
V.1: Wozzeck;v.2: Lulu. Perle, the leading authority on Berg’s music, has been
writing intriguing articles on the operas for 40 years. He offers extremely
detailed analyses of pitch and structural organization in these works, as well as
an acerbic review of what others have written about them. Perle steps away
from the large-scale total-unity approach; he identifies the components of
Berg’s atonal universe and relates music to text at specific moments but does
not find it worthwhile to seek unification of those components into a “single
comprehensive system.” Friedrich Cerha’s completion of Luluis discussed,
and there are biographical matters as well. Bibliography of about 200 entries,
index.
Individual Works
Lulu
ASO181/182 (1998), COH (1991), Rororo (1985).
- Hall, Patricia. A View of Berg’s “Lulu” through the Autograph Sources.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: U. of California Press, 1996. xi, 184p. ISBN 0-520-
08819-0. ML410 .B57 H17.
An examination of the sketches; chronology of the autograph sources, interac-
tion of role and form, Dr. Schön, the tone rows. Wondering why Berg’s 12-tone
music is so difficult to analyze, Hall concludes it is because of the “multiple
levels of dramatic symbolism” and “the network of motivic and thematic
coherence, the frequent tonal allusions.” The composer manipulates the 12-
tone method to accommodate those things, as well as tonality. Backnotes, bib-
liography, index. Based on the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, Yale U., 1989. - Ertelt, Thomas F. Alban Bergs “Lulu”: Quellenstudium und Beiträge zur
Analyse.Alban Berg Studien, 3. Vienna: Universal, 1993. 220p. ISBN 3-7024-
0208-X. MT100 .B5 E73.
A close study of the opera, based on Berg’s manuscripts. Clarifies the relation-
ship of the sources. Most of the book concerns materials about Dr. Schön and
the variation interlude of act 3. Bibliography, no index.
120 Opera