A key figure in the music of the first half of the twentieth century, Berg studied with Arnold Schönberg (1904–09), and this relation largely determined his later artistic development. He remained closely associated with the Viennese artistic scene throughout his life. He stood out for his work on integrating dodecaphony with expressive qualities. His compositions are at the same time technically rigorous and deeply moving.
The opera Wozzeck, whose three acts are constructed using strict musical forms, proved a breakthrough in his career. The acts’ musical structure reflects their dramatic contents, whereas the forms and motifs symbolise the protagonists’ mental states. Berg’s other major works include the Kammerkonzert and Lyrische Suite, whose sound structures encode autobiographical elements related to the composer’s emotional and professional life (such as initials, letters from surnames, numbers, etc.) The unfinished opera Lulu was the first dodecaphonic opera to use series derived from the basic twelve-note rows as well as leitmotifs. Berg’s last work, the Violin Concerto (dedicated to the memory of Alma Mahler’s daughter, Manon Gropius) is based on a specific series made up of three-note cells, which allowed the composer to introduce diatonic references to such works as a Carinthian folksong and Bach’s chorale harmonisation Es ist genug, as well as genres such as the ländler and the Viennese waltz.
Wozzeck was one of the greatest musical experiences of his life, as he admits in a response to Muzyka journal’s questionnaire. Koffler considered himself as a representative of an artistic orientation akin to Berg’s own, namely, the group of composers aiming ‘to incorporate both old and new means of expression within the twelve-note method’ (J. Koffler, ‘Arnold Schönberg’, Orkiestra 12 (1934), 188). Following Berg’s unexpected death on the night before Christmas Eve, 1935, Koffler published a brief tribute in which he called Berg ‘a great, noble, and supportive friend’ (Orkiestra 1, January 1936, 15). We have no evidence of any closer relations between Koffler and Berg. Still, it was most likely to Berg as a jury member that Koffler largely owed the inclusion of his String Trio, Op. 10 in the programme of the ISCM festival in Oxford (1931). The fact of naming his only son (born in 1936) Alban says much about Koffler’s attitude to Berg.