Alban Berg in the context of "Romantic music"

Theodor W. Adorno (/əˈdɔːrnoʊ/ ə-DOR-noh; German: [ˈteːodoːɐ̯ aˈdɔʁno] ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has come to be associated with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, for whom the works of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and G. W. F. Hegel were essential to a critique of modern society. As a critic of both fascism and what he called the culture industry, his writings—such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Minima Moralia (1951), and Negative Dialectics (1966)—strongly influenced the European New Left.

In an intellectual climate shaped by existentialism and logical positivism, Adorno developed a dialectical conception of history and philosophy that challenged the foundations of both, anticipating the divide that would later emerge between the analytic and continental traditions. As a classically trained musician, Adorno studied composition with Alban Berg of the Second Viennese School, influenced by his early admiration for the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Adorno's commitment to avant-garde music formed the backdrop of his subsequent writings and led to his collaboration with Thomas Mann on the latter's novel Doctor Faustus (1947), while the two men lived in California as exiles during the Second World War. Working at the newly relocated Institute for Social Research, Adorno collaborated on influential studies of authoritarianism, antisemitism, and propaganda that would later serve as models for sociological studies the institute carried out in post-war Germany.

Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality, in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a single, central triad is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another. More narrowly, the term atonality describes music that does not conform to the system of tonal hierarchies that characterized European classical music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. "The repertory of atonal music is characterized by the occurrence of pitches in novel combinations, as well as by the occurrence of familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar environments".

The term is also occasionally used to describe music that is neither tonal nor serial, especially the pre-twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, principally Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern. However, "as a categorical label, 'atonal' generally means only that the piece is in the Western tradition and is not 'tonal'", although there are longer periods, e.g., medieval, renaissance, and modern modal music to which this definition does not apply. "Serialism arose partly as a means of organizing more coherently the relations used in the pre-serial 'free atonal' music. ... Thus, many useful and crucial insights about even strictly serial music depend only on such basic atonal theory".

The Second Viennese School (German: Zweite Wiener Schule, Neue Wiener Schule) was a group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late-Romantic expanded tonality and later, a totally chromatic expressionism without a firm tonal centre, often referred to as atonality; and later still, Schoenberg's serial twelve-tone technique. Using this technique when composing, Schoenberg employed all 12 tones present in Western music's chromatic scale when forming a melody, this melody being the "prime series". This method would later be enhanced in compositions by Schoenberg and his followers through permutations such as "retrogrades", "inversions", "transformations" etc. Later, composers such as Pierre Boulez drew influence from Schoenberg's technique in furthering serialization; serializing not only pitch but rhythm, articulation, and dynamics as well. Theodor Adorno said that the twelve-tone method, when it had evolved into maturity, was a "veritable message in a bottle", addressed to an unknown and uncertain future. Though this common development took place, it neither followed a common time-line nor a cooperative path. Likewise, it was not a direct result of Schoenberg's teaching—which, as his various published textbooks demonstrate, was highly traditional and conservative. Schoenberg's textbooks also reveal that the Second Viennese School spawned not from the development of his serial method, but rather from the influence of his creative example.

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, and a central element of his music was its use of motives as a means of coherence. He propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space".

Schoenberg's early works, like Verklärte Nacht (1899), represented a Brahmsian–Wagnerian synthesis on which he built. Mentoring Anton Webern and Alban Berg, he became the central figure of the Second Viennese School. They consorted with visual artists, published in Der Blaue Reiter, and wrote atonal, expressionist music, attracting fame and stirring debate. In his String Quartet No. 2 (1907–1908), Erwartung (1909), and Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg visited extremes of emotion; in self-portraits he emphasized his intense gaze. While working on Die Jakobsleiter (from 1914) and Moses und Aron (from 1923), Schoenberg confronted popular antisemitism by returning to Judaism and substantially developed his twelve-tone technique. He systematically interrelated all notes of the chromatic scale in his twelve-tone music, often exploiting combinatorial hexachords and sometimes admitting tonal elements.

Anton Webern (German: [ˈantoːn ˈveːbɐn] ; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonal and twelve-tone techniques. His approach was typically rigorous, inspired by his studies of the Franco-Flemish School under Guido Adler and by Arnold Schoenberg's emphasis on structure in teaching composition from the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the First Viennese School, and Johannes Brahms. Webern, Schoenberg, and their colleague Alban Berg were at the core of what became known as the Second Viennese School.

Webern was arguably the first and certainly the last of the three to write music in an aphoristic and expressionist style, reflecting his instincts and the idiosyncrasy of his compositional process. He treated themes of loss, love, nature, and spirituality, working from personal experiences. Unhappily peripatetic and often assigned light music or operetta in his early conducting career, he aspired to conduct what was seen as more respectable, serious music at home in Vienna. Following Schoenberg's guidance, Webern attempted to write music of greater length during and after their World War I service, relying on the structural support of texts in many Lieder.

In music, Hauptstimme (German for primary voice) or Hauptsatz is the main voice, chief part; i.e., the contrapuntal or melodic line of primary importance, in opposition to Nebenstimme. Nebenstimme (German for secondary voice) or Seitensatz is the secondary part; i.e., a secondary contrapuntal or melodic part, always occurring simultaneously with, and subsidiary to, the Hauptstimme. The practice of marking the primary voice within the musical score/parts was invented by Arnold Schoenberg.

The terms are used primarily by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern, but are not uncommon in scores for string quartet. They are commonly indicated in musical scores with the marks "H" and "N" ligatured with the right half of a T (𝆦 and 𝆧). When the "primary voice" ends in one instrument/staff/part, it may be marked with a closing bracket (such as 𝆨) at the point where it passes to another instrument/staff/part.

The following is an incomplete list of the compositions of Alban Berg:

• Jugendlieder (1), composed 1901–4, voice and piano, published 1985

1. "Herbstgefühl" (Siegfried Fleischer)
2. "Spielleute" (Henrik Ibsen)
3. "Wo der Goldregen steht" (F. Lorenz)
4. "Lied der Schiffermädels" (Otto Julius Bierbaum)
5. "Sehnsucht" I (Paul Hohenberg)
6. "Abschied" (Elimar von Monsterberg-Muenckenau)
7. "Grenzen der Menschheit" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
8. "Vielgeliebte schöne Frau" (Heinrich Heine)
9. "Sehnsucht" II (Paul Hohenberg)
10. "Sternefall" (Karl Wilhelm)
11. "Sehnsucht" III (Paul Hohenberg)
12. "Ich liebe dich!" (Christian Dietrich Grabbe)
13. "Ferne Lieder" (Friedrich Rückert)
14. "Ich will die Fluren meiden" (Friedrich Rückert)
15. "Geliebte Schöne" (Heinrich Heine)
16. "Schattenleben" (Martin Greif)
17. "Am Abend" (Emanuel Geibel)
18. "Vorüber!" (Franz Wisbacher)
19. "Schummerlose Nächte" (Martin Greif)
20. "Es wandelt, was wir schauen (Joseph von Eichendorff)
21. "Liebe (Rainer Maria Rilke)
22. "Im Morgengrauen (Karl Stieler)
23. "Grabschrift (Ludwig Jakobowski)

• Jugendlieder (2), composed 1904–8, voice and piano, published 1985

1. "Traum" (Frida Semler)
2. "Augenblicke" (Robert Hamerling)
3. "Die Näherin" (Rainer Maria Rilke)
4. "Erster Verlust" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
5. "Süss sind mir die Schollen des Tales" (Karl Ernst Knodt)
6. "Er klagt das der Frühling so kortz blüht" (Arno Holz)
7. "Tiefe Sehnsucht" (Detlev von Liliencron)
8. "Über den Bergen" (Karl Busse)
9. "Am Strande" (Georg Scherer)
10. "Winter" (Johannes Schlaf)
11. "Fraue, du Süsse" (Ludwig Finckh)
12. "Verlassen" (Bohemian folksong)
13. "Regen" (Johannes Schlaf)
14. "Traurigkeit" (Peter Altenberg)
15. "Hoffnung" (Peter Altenberg)
16. "Flötenspielerin" (Peter Altenberg)
17. "Spaziergang" (Alfred Mombert)
18. "Eure Weisheit" (Johann Georg Fischer)
19. "So regnet es sich langsam ein" (Cäsar Flaischlein)
20. "Mignon" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
21. "Die Sorglichen" (Gustav Falke)
22. "Das stille Königreich" (Karl Busse)
23. "An Leukon" (Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim)

• Seven Early Songs, voice and piano, composed 1905–8, revised and orchestrated 1928

1. "Nacht" (Carl Hauptmann)
2. "Schilflied" (Nikolaus Lenau)
3. "Die Nachtigall" (Theodor Storm)
4. "Traumgekrönt" (Rainer Maria Rilke)
5. "Im Zimmer" (Johannes Schlaf)
6. "Liebesode" (Otto Erich Hartleben)
7. "Sommertage" (Paul Hohenberg)

• Schliesse mir die Augen beide (Theodor Storm), voice and piano, composed 1907, published in 1930 & 1955
• An Leukon (Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim), voice and piano, composed 1908; published in 1937 & 1963 (Reich) & 1985 (UE) (2 versions exist: in G minor [1907]; in E minor [1908])
• Frühe Klaviermusik, published 1989
• Zwölf Variationen über ein eigenes Thema in C, piano, composed Nov. 8, 1908; published in 1957 & 1985
• Symphony and Passacaglia, fragment, composed 1913
• Piano Sonata, Op. 1, composed 1907–8, published April 24, 1911
• Vier Lieder, Op. 2, voice and piano, composed 1909–10, published 1910

1. "Schlafen, schlafen" (Friedrich Hebbel)
2. "Schlafend trägt man mich" (Alfred Mombert)
3. "Nun ich der Riesen Stärksten" (Alfred Mombert)
4. "Warm die Lüfte" (Alfred Mombert)

• String Quartet, Op. 3, composed 1910, published 1920
• Fünf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtkartentexten von Peter Altenberg, Op. 4, soprano and orchestra, 1912 (Altenberg Lieder)

1. "Seele, wie bist du schöner"
2. "Sahst du nach dem Gewitterregen"
3. "Über die Grenzen des All"
4. "Nichts ist gekommen"
5. "Hier ist Friede"

• Vier Stücke, Op. 5, clarinet and piano, composed 1913, published 1920

• Three Pieces for Orchestra (Drei Orchesterstücke), Op. 6, composed 1914–15

• Wozzeck, Op. 7, composed 1914–22
• Drei Bruchstücke aus ‘Wozzeck’, soprano and orchestra
• Kammerkonzert, piano, violin, and 13 winds, composed 1923–5
• Adagio, violin, clarinet and piano, arranged 1926 (arrangement of Kammerkonzert mvmt. 2)
• Schliesse mir die Augen beide (Theodor Storm), voice and piano, composed 1925
• Lyric Suite, string quartet, composed 1925–6
• Drei Sätze aus der Lyrischen Suite, arranged for string orchestra, 1928
• "Der Wein" (Charles Baudelaire), concert aria, soprano and orchestra, composed 1929
• Four-part Canon Alban Berg an das Frankfurter Opernhaus, composed 1930
• Lulu, composed 1929–35, orchestration of Act 3 completed by Friedrich Cerha
• Symphonische Stücke aus der Oper ‘Lulu’ (Lulu-Suite), soprano and orchestra, premièred under Kleiber in 1934
• Violin Concerto, composed 1935
• Vocal scores
  • Franz Schreker: Der ferne Klang (1911)
  • Arnold Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder (1912)
  • Arnold Schoenberg: Litanei and Entrückung from String Quartet no.2, 1912
• Arrangement for string quartet, piano, and harmonium
  • Johann Strauss II: Wein, Weib und Gesang, 1921

Wozzeck (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔtsɛk]) is the first opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg, created between 1914 and 1922 and premiered on 14 December 1925 at the Berlin State Opera. Based on Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck (1836), it depicts a soldier's tragic slide into madness and murder amid militarism and oppression.

Berg's expressionist musical language and innovative approach to musical form heightened the opera's psychological realism. He used atonality and leitmotifs to show individuals' emotional and existential plight under forces of authority. Drawing on tonal and rhythmic idioms from folk and dance music, he linked psychological and social dimensions and exposed social alienation. He also invoked latent themes and topics of fate and nature, reflecting an understanding of humanity as shaped by universal forces.