View source for Wozzeck

{{short description|1925 opera by Alban Berg; Berg's first opera}}
{{other uses}}
{{Infobox opera
| name = Wozzeck
| composer = [[Alban Berg]]
| image = Hans Heinrich Palitzsch 1974 poster Wozzek.jpg
| caption = Poster from the 1974 [[Oldenburgisches Staatstheater]] production
| librettist = Berg
| language = German
| based_on = {{based on|''[[Woyzeck]]''|[[Georg Büchner]]}}
| premiere_date = {{Start date|1925|12|14|df=y}}
| premiere_location = [[Berlin State Opera]]
}}
'''''Wozzeck''''' ({{IPA|de|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 music]]al language and innovative approach to [[musical form]] heightened the opera's [[Psychological fiction|psychological realism]]. He used [[atonality]] and [[leitmotif]]s to show individuals' emotional and existential plight under [[Authoritarianism|forces of authority]]. Drawing on tonal and rhythmic idioms from folk and dance music, he linked [[Social psychology|psychological and social dimensions]] and exposed [[social alienation]]. He also invoked latent [[Theme (narrative)|theme]]s and [[Music semiology|topic]]s of destiny and nature, reflecting an understanding of humanity as shaped by universal forces.

A {{lang|fr|[[succès de scandale]]}} at its premiere, ''Wozzeck'' faced backlash but became a landmark of early 20th-century [[Opera#Modernism|modernist opera]]. It helped establish the viability of large-scale atonal drama and exerted wide influence. It remains a cornerstone of the repertoire, celebrated for its narrative power and complex musical structure.

==Background==
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* (left) [[Georg Büchner]], illustration in an 1879 French edition of his complete works
* (right) Plaque marking ''Wozzeck'''s composition at the present-day Alban Berg Villa in [[Trahütten]]
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}}

Berg created the {{lang|de|[[Literaturoper]]|italics=no}} (literary opera) ''Wozzeck'' from 1914 to 1922, stalled by [[World War I]].<ref name="Watkins 2003">{{cite book |author-last=Watkins |author-first=Glenn |author-link=Glenn Watkins |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pprwj |title=Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War |publisher=University of California Press |others=Sponsors, Sukey and [[Gil Garcetti]], Michael P. Roth, and the Roth Family Foundation |isbn=978-0-520-23158-0 |edition=First hardcover |publication-place=Berkeley |publication-date=2003 |pages=232–241 |jstor=10.1525/j.ctt1pprwj }}</ref>{{sfnm|Hall|2011|1loc=26–38|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=176}} He had first pursued a literary career, writing [[Lyric poetry|lyrical]] and dramatic [[juvenilia]], including after [[Henrik Ibsen]]'s play ''[[Ghosts (play)|Ghosts]]''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=17–21, citing Berg's "long love epic" titled "Hanna" as well as his "Bergwerk" or "Mining Drama" project}} But in 1904, he diaried that music was "a [[Classificatory disputes about art#Schemes of classification of arts|higher form]] of revelation".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=56, quoting Berg on Brahms's [[A German Requiem (Brahms)|German Requiem]], with phrasing likely from the [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]-attributed [[Epigraph (literature)|epigraph]] to ''Spemanns Goldenes Buch der Musik'': "Music is a form of revelation higher than all wisdom and philosophy"}} Berg's mentor [[Arnold Schoenberg]] advised, "let poetry lead you ... to music".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=4–5, quoting Schoenberg}} Schoenberg premiered some of Berg's aphoristic ''[[Altenberg Lieder]]'' (1911–1912), which caused the 1913 {{lang|de|[[Skandalkonzert]]|italics=no}}. He told Berg to write a [[Suite (music)|suite]] of [[character piece]]s (the [[Three Pieces for Orchestra (Berg)|Three Pieces for Orchestra]], 1913–1915) before trying a planned vocal symphony after [[Gustav Mahler]], but affirmed Berg's operatic interest in the [[chamber play]]s of [[August Strindberg]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=119–124, 140–142, 175, quoting Berg's letter to Schoenberg}}

Then Berg twice attended the May 1914 Vienna premiere of [[Georg Büchner]]'s play ''[[Woyzeck]]'' (1836) at the {{lang|de|{{ill|Kammerspiele der Josefstadt|lt=Residenzbühne|de}}|italics=no}}. He recalled seeing [[Albert Steinrück]] as Wozzeck among visitors from the [[Munich Residenz#The Old Residenz Theatre|Munich Residenz Theatre]] and said he "immediately" decided to make it an opera.{{sfnm|Berg|2014a|1loc=327|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=175–176}} Berg wrote his own [[libretto]], which is indebted partly to writer [[Karl Emil Franzos]]. Franzos's version, titled ''Wozzeck'' by a misreading of poorly legible papers shared by Büchner's brother, physician [[Ludwig Büchner]], first appeared in a ''[[Neue Freie Presse]]'' serial (1875) and in his "critical, complete" Büchner edition (1879).{{sfnm|sfn|Hall|2011|1loc=26–38|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=179, 181–185}}

===Büchner, Woyzeck, and Berg===

====Büchner and Woyzeck====
Trained in biology and medicine,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=180}} Georg Büchner taught [[comparative anatomy]] at the [[University of Zurich]].<ref name="Reddick 1990">{{cite book |author-last=Reddick |author-first=John |chapter=The shattered whole: Georg Büchner and {{lang|de|Naturphilosophie}} |editor-last1=Cunningham |editor-first1=Andrew |editor-last2=Jardine |editor-first2=Nicholas |title=Romanticism and the Sciences |url=https://archive.org/details/romanticismscien0000unse |language=English |edition=Hardcover |publication-place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |publication-date=1990 |pages=326, 328 |isbn=978-0-521-35602-2 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref> A [[Romanticism in science|Romantic in science]] like his patron [[Lorenz Oken]],<ref name="Dedner 2017">{{cite book |author-last=Dedner |author-first=Burghard |chapter=Producing 'thoughts by means of the body'. Büchner and the Enigma of Consciousness |editor-last1=Gillett |editor-first1=Robert |editor-last2=Schonfield |editor-first2=Ernest |editor-last3=Steuer |editor-first3=Daniel |title=Georg Büchner: Contemporary Perspectives |series=Amsterdamer Beitrage zur neueren Germanistik |url=https://brill.com/display/title/34315 |language=English, German |volume=89 |others=Founding editor, Gerd Labroisse; series editors: William Collins Donahue, Norbert Otto Eke, Martha B Helfer, Sven Kramer; cover, Armin Smailovic |edition=Hardcover |publication-place=Leiden |publisher=Brill |publication-date=2017 |pages=31, 34 |isbn=978-90-04-33859-3 |issn=0304-6257 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715133727/https://brill.com/display/title/34315 |archive-date=15 July 2024 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref> he treated [[taboo]] topics like sex, religion, and politics in literature<ref name="Reddick 1994">{{cite book |author-last=Reddick |author-first=John |title=Georg Büchner: The Shattered Whole |url=https://archive.org/details/georgbuchnershatOOOOredd |language=English |edition=Hardcover |publication-place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |publication-date=1994 |pages=5 |isbn=978-0-19-815812-7 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref> and stressed [[characterization]] over [[narrative]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=180}}<ref name="Guthrie 1995">{{cite book |author-last=Guthrie |author-first=John |chapter=Introduction |editor-last1=Reddick |editor-first1=John |title=Georg Büchner: Woyzeck |url=https://archive.org/details/woyzeck0000buch |language=English |edition=2nd revised |publication-place=London |publisher=Duckworth Books |publication-date=1995 |pages=17–20 |isbn=978-1-85399-374-9 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref> He had proto-[[Marxism|Marxian]]{{sfn|Reddick|1994|loc=6}} or similarly [[radical politics]] and studied the [[French Revolution]] for his first play, ''[[Danton's Death]]'' (1835), which left him feeling "crushed" by forces he sought to describe in an 1834 letter to his fiancée [[Minna Jaeglé]]: "I find in [[human nature]] a terrible sameness [...]. Individuals are but froth on the waves, ... a ridiculous struggle against an [[iron law (disambiguation)|iron law]] [...]."{{sfnm|Perle|1980|1loc=24|Reddick|1994|2loc=108–110|Simms and Erwin|2021|3loc=180–181}}<ref name="Büchner 1993">{{cite book |author-last=Büchner |author-first=Georg |chapter=Selected Letters |editor-last1=Reddick |editor-first1=John |title=Georg Büchner: Complete Plays, ''Lenz'' and Other Writings |url=https://archive.org/details/completeplayslen0000buch |language=English |edition=Revised paperback |publication-place=London |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |publication-date=1993 |pages=195–196 |isbn=978-0-14-044586-2 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref>

His work expresses a [[unity of opposites]], or [[negation|complement]]s, from [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] and [[Baruch Spinoza|Spinoza]].<ref name="Thompson 2017">{{cite book |author-last=Thompson |author-first=Peter |chapter=Büchner, Science and the Metaphysics of Contingency |editor-last1=Gillett |editor-first1=Robert |editor-last2=Schonfield |editor-first2=Ernest |editor-last3=Steuer |editor-first3=Daniel |title=Georg Büchner: Contemporary Perspectives |series=Amsterdamer Beitrage zur neueren Germanistik |url=https://brill.com/display/title/34315 |language=English, German |volume=89 |others=Founding editor, Gerd Labroisse; series editors: William Collins Donahue, Norbert Otto Eke, Martha B Helfer, Sven Kramer; cover, Armin Smailovic |edition=Hardcover |publication-place=Leiden |publisher=Brill |publication-date=2017 |pages=55–59 |isbn=978-90-04-33859-3 |issn=0304-6257 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715133727/https://brill.com/display/title/34315 |archive-date=15 July 2024 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref> Philosopher [[György Lukács]] called him a [[literary realism|literary realist]] after the hero of Büchner's [[Lenz (fragment)|''Lenz'' fragment]] (1835), who calls for artists to "submerge themselves in the life of the ... humblest person and ... reproduce it with all its faint agitations, hints of experience, the subtle ... play of his features [expressions]."<ref name="Lukács 1993">{{cite book |author-last=Lukács |author-first=György |author-link=György Lukács |chapter=The Real Georg Buchner and his Fascist Misrepresentation [1937] |editor-last1=Livingstone |editor-first1=Rodney |translator-last1=Gaines |translator-first1=Jeremy |translator-last2=Keast |translator-first2=Paul |title=German Realists in the Nineteenth Century |trans-title=''translated reprint, with editor's introduction, of [[Ferenc Jánossy]]'s'' {{lang|de|Deutsche Realisten des 19. Jahrhunderts}} ''(1951)'' |url=https://archive.org/details/germanrealistsin00luka |language=English |edition=First hardcover |publication-place=Cambridge, MA |publisher=The MIT Press |publication-date=1993 |pages=86–88 |isbn=978-0-262-12171-2 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Lukács 1937">{{cite web |last=Lukács |first=György |author-link=György Lukács |editor-last=Blunden |editor-first=Andy |title=The Real Georg Büchner and his Fascist Misrepresentation |trans-title="{{lang|de|Der faschistisch verfälschte und der wirkliche Georg Büchner|italics=no}}", originally published in ''[[Das Wort]]'' |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/buchner/lukacs.htm |series=Georg Lukács Archive |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |language=English |translator-last1=P |translator-first1=Anton |publication-date=19 February 1937 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250215102457/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/buchner/lukacs.htm |archive-date=15 February 2025 |access-date=11 November 2025 |quote=As a great realist, however, he portrayed Woyzeck [...]. And in the short story fragment ''Lenz'', Büchner has his hero, the well-known friend of [[Goethe]]'s from his youth, express the following commitment to true realism: '[...] Try once to immerse yourself in the life of the little one and reproduce it in the twitches, the hints, the whole delicate, hardly noticed play of expressions [...]. They are the most prosaic men under the sun; but the vein of feeling is the same in almost everyone, only the shell through which it has to break is more or less dense. You just have to have an eye and an ear for it.'}}</ref> [[German literature]] scholar John Reddick argued his style expressed [[paradox]]es in [[mosaic]]s, as in a "shattered whole": "All my being is in this single moment", says Leonce at the climax of ''[[Leonce and Lena|Leonce und Lena]]'' (1836).<ref name="Reddick 1993">{{cite book |author-last=Reddick |author-first=John |title=Georg Büchner: Complete Plays, ''Lenz'' and Other Writings |url=https://archive.org/details/completeplayslen0000buch |language=English |edition=Revised paperback |publication-place=London |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |publication-date=1993 |pages=xiv–xvii |isbn=978-0-14-044586-2 |access-date=11 November 2025}}</ref>{{sfn|Reddick|1994|loc=9–10, 74–75, 252–267}}

[[File:Johann Christian Woyzeck.jpg|alt=|thumb|upright|Woyzeck (1780–1824) of Leipzig]]In ''Woyzeck'', Büchner mixed [[Grotesque#In literature|the grotesque]] with [[tragicomedy]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=179–180, 190, 200}} He used [[case report]]s of [[Femicide#Among intimate partners|romantic femicide]], mainly physician [[Johann Christian August Clarus]]'s on [[Johann Christian Woyzeck]], a barber and [[military veteran]],{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=180–181}} published in a [[medical journal]] to which Büchner's brother contributed.{{sfnm|Perle|1980|1loc=23, 25, 32|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=180–181}} At the [[Competency evaluation (law)|competency evaluation]], Clarus reported that his [[patient]] had "{{lang|de|freier Vernunftgebrauch|italics=no}}" ([[freedom|free]] use of [[reason]]) and "{{lang|de|Willensfreiheit|italics=no}}" ([[free will]]) despite a [[medical history]] that included recurrent episodes of [[psychosis]], leading to Woyzeck's 1821 conviction and 1824 beheading.{{sfnm|Reddick|1994|1loc=327, quoting Clarus: {{lang|de|"Freiheit des Willens", "Willensfreiheit", "freier Vernunftgebrauch"|italics=no}}|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=180–181}} Büchner died of typhus in 1837, leaving an untitled, fragmentary script with shifting character names,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=180–181}} perhaps as an {{ill|Geschlossene und offene Form im Drama#Offenes Drama|lt=open drama|de}}.{{sfn|Guthrie|1995|loc=14–15 (26n6), 19–21}}

====Toward Berg's ''Wozzeck''====
Berg came from the same expressionist milieu, rooted in [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]] with its exaltation of outcast artists,{{efn|For example, Symbolist [[Stefan George]]'s poetry was often set by the [[Second Viennese School]].{{sfnm|Barnouw|1999|1loc=73–74|Schroeder|1999|2loc=232–233, 236|Shreffler|1999|3loc=253|Simms|1999a|4loc=xiii–xiv|Simms|1999b|5loc=136–137, 157–158, 182n33|Simms and Erwin|2021|6loc=4, 281, 306, 308, 485n62}} Shreffler described his poems as "hyperexpressive", eliciting "equally vivid and extreme music".{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=266}} They may have influenced Schoenberg's atonal turn in the [[String Quartets (Schoenberg)#String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10|String Quartet No. 2]].{{sfnm|Barnouw|1999|1loc=73–74|Simms|1999a|2loc=xiii–xiv|Simms|1999b|3loc=136–137, 157–158, 182n33|Simms and Erwin|2021|4loc=4}} Webern set fourteen George texts, ten as atonal {{lang|de|Lieder}} Opp. 3–4.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=267}} George translated Baudelaire's ''[[Les Fleurs du mal]]'', from which Berg took the hidden text of his ''[[Lyric Suite (Berg)|Lyric Suite]]'' and three poems for ''[[Der Wein]]''.{{sfnm|Schroeder|1999|1loc=232–233, 236|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=281, 306, 308, 485n62}}}} as novelist [[Franz Kafka]], painters [[Oskar Kokoschka]]{{efn|Schoenberg called Kokoschka "the greatest living painter".{{sfn|Simms|1999b|loc=159}} Kokoschka was nearly arrested at the 1909 production of his play ''[[Murderer, the Hope of Women]]'',{{sfn|Barnouw|1999|loc=118n20}} on which Paul Hindemith's first expressionist opera ''[[Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen]]'' is based.{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=74}} Its gender conflict may have influenced Schoenberg's ''[[Die glückliche Hand]]''.{{sfn|Simms|1999b|loc=159–160}} After the Nazis' defeat, in 1951, Kokoschka expressed interest, at [[Will Grohmann]]'s suggestion, in producing ''Wozzeck'', though this never transpired.{{sfn|Görner|2020|loc=§7A. "Progressive Restoration, or in the Middle of Loss"}}}} and [[Emil Nolde]], and poets [[Gottfried Benn]], [[Rainer Maria Rilke]],{{efn|Berg set Rilke's "Traumgekrönt" in [[Seven Early Songs (Berg)|Seven Early Songs]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=71, 75}}}} and [[Franz Werfel]].{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=23}} In expressionist [[opera in German|German opera]], ''Wozzeck'' followed Richard Strauss's ''[[Elektra (opera)|Elektra]]'' and Schoenberg's ''[[Die glückliche Hand]]'' (''The Lucky Hand'').{{sfn|Griffel|2018|loc=xxi}} Schoenberg's ''[[Erwartung]]'' (''Expectation'') and Strauss's ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'' had explored the grotesque in particular, and Berg saw operatic potential in Büchner's mad murderer and dark social criticism.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=175, 181}}

Berg grew up playing a broad opera repertoire [[piano four hands]] with his sister Smaragda, and his taste was wider than Schoenberg's or Webern's.{{sfnm|Schroeder|1999|1loc=185–186, 209–210|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=175–176}} A frequent opera-goer, he attended multiple rehearsals of the 1908 Vienna premiere of Paul Dukas's ''[[Ariane et Barbe-bleue]]'' and studied the score and its "thousands of splendid passages".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=175–176, quoting Berg's letter to Helene}} He may have learned from Schreker's ''[[Der ferne Klang]]'', having prepared its piano-vocal score in 1911{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=79–80}} (though he disliked Schreker's next opera, ''[[Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin]]'').{{sfn|Schroeder|1999|loc=210}} At forums like the [[Café Museum]], Berg met innovative, popular figures across styles, including the successful composer [[Erich Korngold]] and [[operetta]] composers [[Franz Lehár]] and [[Oscar Straus (composer)|Oscar Straus]], through [[Viennese coffee house culture]].{{sfn|Schroeder|1999|loc=185–186, 209–210}} He knew Claude Debussy's ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' as a model of modernist Literaturoper, a direction he had explored in drafting a libretto (without music) from [[Franz Grillparzer]]'s play ''{{ill|Die Ahnfrau|de}}''. As in ''Pelléas'', Berg linked ''Wozzeck''<nowiki/>'s scenes with short interludes,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=181, quoting Berg's letter to Webern}} while keeping Büchner's jagged brutality and eerie realism.{{sfnm|Hall|2011|1loc=26–38|Watkins|2003|2loc=232–241}}

Berg worked mainly from writer {{ill|Paul Landau|de}}'s ''Wozzeck–Lenz:'' Zwei Fragmente (''Wozzeck'' and ''[[Lenz (fragment)|Lenz]]'': Two Fragments; 1909, reprinted 1913; {{ill|Insel–Verlag|de}}), which mostly just resequenced Franzos's 26 scenes.{{sfnm|Perle|1980|1loc=24, 28n16|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=179}} Theater director {{ill|Arthur Rundt|de}}, whose scene cuts Berg mostly followed, had used it in 1914.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=179}} That year, scholar {{ill|Hugo Bieber|de}} tied the play to Clarus's Woyzeck.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=182, citing Hugo Bieber's "Wozzeck und Woyzeck"}} In 1919, scholar [[Georg Witkowski]] issued a critical edition claiming Franzos's omissions, edits, and additions ruined Büchner's play.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=182–183, citing Georg Witkowski's 1919 "Büchners Woyzeck"}} Berg mostly chose Franzos's freer, livelier text, which polarized grotesque and tragic aspects, over Witkowski's. Franzos's publisher lost the rights, so Berg retained his title. Berg's staging and lighting synced time and action as Franzos's sequential flow suggested ("The drama ... must go forward ... breathlessly", Berg replied to writer [[Hanns Heinz Ewers]]'s 1925 offer to collaborate).{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=179 quoting Franzos, 183–184}} As became habit, Berg added bits of his life: scripted coughs echo his [[asthma]], and the Doctor's salamanders line mocks [[Paul Kammerer]], the scientist–musician once loved by his wife, {{ill|Helene Karoline Berg|lt=Helene|de}}.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=38–43, 182, 243, 319}}{{efn|Kammerer was scandalized by fraud allegations and died by suicide in 1926.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=53}}}} Berg's epilogue was not Franzos's or Landau's final scene,{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=34, 41}} but it was more Franzos's invention than Büchner's.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=183–184}}

===1914–1922: History of composition process===
====1914–1916: Genesis amid war====
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}}On frugal {{lang|de|[[:de:Sommerfrische|Sommerfrischen]]|italics=no}} (summer vacations), often at his wife's [[family farm|family's farm]] and villa in [[Trahütten]], Berg [[precomposition|precomposed]] ''Wozzeck'' from as early as 1914, conceptualizing and [[Sketch (music)|sketch]]ing perhaps two scenes while continuing to compose ''Three Pieces for Orchestra''. He hesitated when Schoenberg said the play was unsuitable.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=36, 46, 108, 147, 175–178, 185–186, 295}} Then war erupted, and his patriotism was cooled by [[Karl Kraus (writer)|Karl Kraus]]'s attack on "the cash register of world history".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=147–149, quoting Karl Kraus's 1914 "{{lang|de|In dieser grossen Zeit|italics=no}}" ("In these great times")}}[[File:Karl Kraus, 1913 (SOA Praha) cr.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Karl Kraus (writer)|Karl Kraus]], 1913]]

Long fearing death from severe asthma, then a possibly allergy-related [[somatic symptom disorder]], Berg was first deemed unfit by the [[Austro-Hungarian Army]].{{sfnm|Perle|1980|1loc=19|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=23–26, 150–151, quoting Berg's 1912 letter to Schoenberg: "I went to a professor in Vienna [whose] opinion is that it is a nervous irritability or an oversensitivity of the mucous membranes ... of the nose [which] are extremely irritated by pollen in the air ... caus[ing symptoms]"}} His pupil [[Theodor W. Adorno]] saw the [[substance dependence]] and [[hypochondriasis]] of a [[tortured artist]] in his [[self-medication]] and physician visits, including to [[Sigmund Freud]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=23–26, 393, {{lang|lt|et passim:}} Berg's remedies included [[opioid]] analgesics, laxatives, [[cocaine]] solution, [[menthol]], Arsenferratone, and [[Brunswick Mum]]; quoting Adorno: "Part of this hypochondria came from addiction"; "Berg lived, as he once said, from aspirin and tea, and he probably enjoyed the euphoric aspects of illness"; "[he was of] that generation of artists who felt the ailing [[Tristan]] to be a model"}} "[M]y spirit would ... have broken", Berg wrote Schoenberg, rejecting "a past time and a beloved place" as evoked by a bell to bait "curious Russian heads" from trenches to shoot.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=13–14, 30n9, quoting Berg's 1914 letter to Schoenberg}} In mid-1915, Berg was conscripted anyway and bought the play while finishing ''Three Pieces for Orchestra''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=141, 150, 175–178, 181, 473n5}}

That winter, he began another opera with the working title ''[[Nacht (Nokturn)]]'' (''Night/[[Nocturne]]''; 1915–1917, unfinished).{{efn|Drafts surfaced in 2006.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=175–178, 473n9}}}} In it, a semi-autobiographical "He" falls asleep discussing philosophy with the subconscious "[[Other (philosophy)|Other]]". Then a [[dream sequence]] by turns nostalgic, erotic, and nightmarish ends with a film{{efn|Berg used film in his next opera, ''[[Lulu (opera)|Lulu]]''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=328}}}} showing a dark mountain forest thinning upon the [[snow line]] to sky and [[snow field]]s at dawn. This echoes [[monodrama]]s such as Schoenberg's ''Erwartung'' and ''Glückliche Hand'', and Strindberg's ''{{lang|sv|Jakob brottas}}'' (''Jacob Wrestles'').{{sfnm|Busch|2010|1loc=94–103|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=175–178}} Berg used musicodramatic ideas from ''Nacht (Nokturn)'', like snoring, in ''Wozzeck''.{{sfn|Busch|2010|loc=103–104}}

As of February 1916, Berg was still sketching ''Wozzeck'''s outline, in four acts and 23 scenes.{{sfnm|Hall|2011|1loc=28–31|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=151, 474n38, citing [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/13225E3D/1 one of Berg's ''Wozzeck'' notebooks with the ''Wozzeck'' scene outline]}} He wrote Helene of Austrian [[Prisoners of war in World War I|prisoners of war]] "imprisoned and starving in unheated [[prisoner-of-war camp|stall]]s" under the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=20, quoting Berg}} and was himself first assigned 30-hour guard-duty shifts in Vienna.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=151}} He wrote that April of seeing fellow soldiers, including deserters, confined and [[strappado]]ed at a military base in [[Bisamberg]], where he was then on office duty:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=151, quoting Berg's 14 April 1916 letter to August Göttel}}{{blockquote|Their arms are crossed and tied behind ... then hoisted up on a tree so that the prisoner can only stand on his toes. When he can do that no more, he hangs until he faints from the pain. The barracks are atop a remote hill ... an hour up a path through a sea of dust and excrement. It is surrounded by pickets and barbed wire, and we can leave only on Sundays. The barracks outdo any description. Completely lice-ridden. [...] I'll have to tell you [more] in person.}} Berg never saw combat{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=15}} and served as a [[one-year volunteer]] ({{lang|de|Einjährig-Freiwillige|italics=no}}) officer, including at the [[Minister of War (Austria-Hungary)|Imperial War Ministry]]—more likely via his brother Karl (Charly or Charley), also posted there, than Helene's possible nonmarital father [[Franz Joseph I of Austria]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=12, 31–32, 150–153, 223, 435, 442, citing Karl Berg's letter of having "offered [Berg] a position at the War Ministry" and questioning [[Soma Morgenstern]]'s account}} In August, he wrote Helene: "For months I haven't done any work on ''Wozzeck''. Everything suffocated, buried!".{{sfn|Hall|2011|loc=33, quoting Berg's 22 August 1916 letter to Helene}}

====1917–1918: Resolve and state collapse====
In early 1917, Berg wrote playwright {{ill|Erhard Buschbeck|de}} that his two opera ideas were "equally old".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=177, quoting Berg's letter to Buschbeck}} That summer, he worked on ''Wozzeck'' while on several weeks' leave at Trahütten, as was his habit, composing at the piano from early morning. In the afternoon, he sketched outside while [[Mushroom hunting|foraging mushrooms]] and hiking the mountains, lakes, and springs before reading himself to sleep at night. Helene identified this "love of nature" in his music, including ''Wozzeck''.{{sfnm|Hailey|2010|1loc=12–13, quoting Helene's {{lang|de|"Dokumentation"|italics=no}}|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=147, 185–186, 295}} He marked 1917 as the symbolic year he committed to ''Wozzeck'' in a letter to Schoenberg that August.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=178, 473n10: "as always the date was largely symbolic"; quoting Berg's 13 August 1917 letter to Schoenberg}} Likely from his war service,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=185, 474n31, citing Berg}} which in the same letter he called "slavery" that might go on "for years",{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=19–20, 188, quoting Berg's 13 August 1917 letter to Schoenberg}} he saw more subjugation than poverty in ''Wozzeck''. Asked what "inner point of contact" moved him to adapt the play in a 1930 interview, he said:<ref name="Berg 2014a">{{cite book |author-last=Berg |author-first=Alban |editor-last1=Simms |editor-first1=Bryan |title=Pro Mundo–Pro Domo: The Writings of Alban Berg, edited with commentaries by Bryan R. Simms |url=https://archive.org/details/promundoprodomow0000berg |language=English |publication-place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |publication-date=2014a |pages=327 |isbn=978-0-19-976406-8 |access-date=26 October 2025}}</ref>
{{blockquote|There was probably some natural relationship between me and this poem.{{efn|{{lang|de|Dichtung|italics=no}} ("poem") is a German term combining meanings of invention, fiction, poetry, and imaginative creation. It gained prominence in the late 18th century as [[Johann Gottfried Herder|Herder]] used it to denote the authentic poetic language of humanity, acquiring [[nationalism|nationalist]] connotations of true inspiration against the claimed artifice of French {{lang|de|Literatur}} and becoming the dominant term for German literary production through Goethe, [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], Hegel, and [[Georg Gottfried Gervinus|Gervinus]]. Use declined after [[World War II]].<ref name="Décultot 2014">{{cite book |author-last=Décultot |author-first=Élisabeth |translator-last1=Rendall |translator-first1=Steven |translator-last2=Hubert |translator-first2=Christian |translator-last3=Mehlman |translator-first3=Jeffrey |translator-last4=Stein |translator-first4=Nathanael |translator-last5=Syrotinski |translator-first5=Michael |editor-last1=Cassin |editor-first1=Barbara |editor-last2=Apter |editor-first2=Emily |editor-last3=Lezra |editor-first3=Jacques |editor-last4=Wood |editor-first4=Michael |chapter=Dichtung |title=Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon |language=English |publication-place=Princeton |publisher=Princeton University Press |publication-date=2014 |isbn=978-0-691-13870-1 |pages=215–220 }}</ref>}} ... ''Wozzeck'' is no simple "we-poor-people" play. What happened to Wozzeck can happen to any poor person, regardless of what type of clothing he wears. It can happen to anyone who is subjugated by others and cannot defend himself.}}

[[File:Jännerstreik 1918 in Wiener Neustadt.png|thumb|[[Austro-Hungarian strike of January 1918]]]]

In summer 1918, on six weeks' regiment leave at Trahütten, Berg revised the libretto as he finished two scenes (likely the second scenes of acts 1 and 2).{{sfnm|Hailey|2010|1loc=12–13, quoting Helene's {{lang|de|"Dokumentation"|italics=no}}|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=147, 179, 185–186, 295, citing [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/10010C1E/1 Berg's second ''Wozzeck'' sketchbook]}} That June, he wrote Schoenberg that he had been "degraded to the point of self-loathing" during the war (in 1924, he drafted a letter to Kraus confiding he had experienced [[suicidal ideation]]).{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=151}} "There's a bit of me in [Wozzeck]", he wrote Helene that August, "since I have been spending these war years just as dependent on people I hate ... in chains, sick, captive, resigned, humiliated."{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=181, 474n22, quoting Berg's 7 August 1918 letter to Helene}} Days later, he wrote his friend and colleague [[Anton Webern]], "the fate of this poor man [Wozzeck], exploited and tormented <em>by all the world</em> ... touches me", praising the drama's "unheard-of intensity of mood".{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=20, quoting Berg's 19 August 1918 letter to Webern}} He planned to use traditional song forms and variations and to alternate thematic and more fluid (motivic), ''Erwartung''-inspired scenes. He gave the Captain and Doctor more {{lang|de|[[Sprechgesang|Sprechstimme]]}} (half-singing, half-speaking) roles, as in melodrama, later shifted to conventional singing ones.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=187–188, 474n41, quoting Berg's 19 August 1918 letter to Webern}}

[[File:Egon Schiele - Kauerndes Menschenpaar (Die Familie) - 4277 - Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.jpg|thumb|In [[The Family (Schiele)|''The Family'']] (1918), [[Egon Schiele]] envisions a family. That year, he died of Spanish flu. He had designed the poster for a 1912 concert featuring Berg's music.{{sfn|Brand|Hailey|Harris|1987|loc=vii, 93, 95–98}}]]That year, Schoenberg hired him at the [[Society for Private Musical Performances]] to help with administration, rehearsals, music arrangements, and writing.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=161–162}} The Bergs caught [[Spanish flu]] that fall, and the pandemic worsened [[Shortage#Labour shortage|labor shortage]]s and hunger,{{efn|This hunger led to the creation of the {{ill|Volksernährung|de}} and featured in the {{ill|Lebensfähigkeitsdebatte Österreichs|de}}.<ref name="Fritz n.d.">{{cite web |author-last=Fritz |author-first=Judith |title=Den Mangel verwalten |language=German |website=Die Welt der Habsburger – Der Erste Weltkrieg|date=8 June 2014 |url=https://ww1.habsburger.net/de/kapitel/den-mangel-verwalten |access-date=30 November 2025}}</ref>}} both of which were prevalent amid the war and [[aftermath of World War I|its aftermath]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=161–163}} His family's farm and country [[estate (land)|estate]] at [[Lake Ossiach]], the Berghof,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=12–13, 16, 108}} faced nearby [[food riot]]s (in [[Villach]]){{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=161, quoting Johanna's 5 August 1918 letter to Berg}} and business failure.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=164}} Writer [[Stefan Zweig]] recalled "starving and freezing millions crowd[ing Vienna]", where "revolution or ... catastrophe" seemed possible amid unfolding [[state collapse]], including the [[dissolution of Austria-Hungary]] and [[German revolution of 1918–1919]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=161, quoting Zweig's memoir ''[[The World of Yesterday]]''}} That November, Berg's military service ended with several armistices and [[History of Austria-Hungary during World War I#Analysis of defeat|Austro-Hungarian defeat]]. "I am again a person!", he told Buschbeck.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=5–9, 161}}

====1919–1922: Progress through war's aftermath====
In July 1919, Berg set the final, symmetrical order of ''Wozzeck'''s scenes, finishing act 1 in four weeks before pausing in August to copy parts for ''Three Pieces for Orchestra''. Composer and pianist [[Erwin Schulhoff]], a wounded veteran, played Berg's [[Piano Sonata (Berg)|Piano Sonata]] in Prague{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=95}} and hoped to premiere the orchestra pieces there and in Dresden through the [[Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden]].{{sfnm|Hall|2011|1loc=40–41, quoting Berg's and Schulhoff's letters|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=188–189}} In concert advertisements he sent to Berg for these "Progress Concerts", he tied the [[revolutions of 1917–1923]] to a spiritual "revolution in art".{{sfn|Hall|2011|loc=40–41, quoting Berg's and Schulhoff's letters}}

That fall, Berg and Helene were being drawn into what she called the "Berghof Catastrophe": having enabled his composing with an [[appanage]], his mother Johanna (née Braun) sought their help co-managing the Berghof, with its [[guest house]] and [[tavern]]. Wartime mismanagement was culminating in bitter disagreement and lasting feuds among the Bergs and their families gathered there partly for food.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=162–174, 429–430, quoting Helene Berg's name for the affair}} The government had instituted [[production quota]]s and resorted to confiscation for food [[rationing]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=108, 162–163}} "[D]espite ... freezing and having nothing to live on", Berg emphasized that he was <em>"happy"</em>, recalling war "years of suffering and humiliation at a low rank, not composing a single note" to Schulhoff in November 1919.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=161, 471n52, quoting Berg's 27 November 1919 letter to Schulhoff}}

Schulhoff had also circulated an artists' petition espousing [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalism]], and in this November 1919 letter, Berg sympathized while following Schoenberg in prioritizing [[Music of Austria|Austro]]-[[Music of Germany#Classical music of Germany|German art music]],{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=149–150: The petition was writer [[Romain Rolland]]'s "declaration of mind". Berg followed Kraus and Schoenberg in not signing. Schoenberg "sp[oke] out": "Even before the war [World War I], the greatest German composers were pushed aside and virtually every 'modernist' was proud to take his [[modernism]] from Debussy while wanting nothing to do with me or Mahler. ... Are we now to lose our [[hegemony]] in music too? Certainly art is a common inheritance of all nations, but if this common inheritance is to be spread equally everywhere, then we Germans will have to give our music away with nothing in return. The victors even before the war treated us differently [...]. I'm not for a politics of art but [... w]hen I think of music, I think only of German music!"}} writing Schulhoff that a nation like Germany{{efn|The [[First Austrian Republic]] had just been created from the [[Republic of German-Austria]].}} might "deserve" its defeat for how it "treats its greatest".<ref name="Ljubibratić 2024">{{cite journal |last=Ljubibratić |first=Vanja |date=2024 |title=Aesthetic Contrasts and Symbolic Correlations Between Alban Berg and Erwin Schulhoff in Their Letters and Opera Narratives |journal=Musicologica Slovaca |volume=15 |issue=41 |pages=9–11 |doi=10.31577/musicoslov.2024.1.1 |s2cid=270686359 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3693/5c162ecb4a850649117c1f62d0074d7774fe.pdf |language=English |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251114160008/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3693/5c162ecb4a850649117c1f62d0074d7774fe.pdf |archive-date=14 November 2025 |access-date=14 November 2025 |quote=Schulhoff [sent] Berg a large extract from Schoenberg's letter, where the latter attacks Schulhoff [...]. Schulhoff then continued that Schoenberg ... suffers from 'war psychosis' [...]. [O]n 27 November 1919, Berg partially responds: '[Y]ou are very much mistaken if you think of me as an imperialist or even a militarist. ... I asked myself whether a nation that treats its greatest [people] like the Germans did does not deserve to be defeated. ... I still believe in the German people ... who name Beethoven and all the greats up to Mahler and Schoenberg. For example, France (despite Debussy, Ravel, Satie) and other lesser countries, did not produce the people who finally had a Karl Kraus ... who was able to prove and show ... the depth of the most impotent government of a Franz Joseph, and the ... idiotic militarism and [[mercantilism]] etc. in [[Prussia]].'}}</ref>{{sfn|Hall|2011|loc=40–41, 195n10, quoting Berg's 27 November 1919 letter to Schulhoff: "whether a people [Volk] who treat their greatest the way the Germans did and do, don't deserve to be conquered"}}{{efn|Innovative classical music had long faced unreliable support despite successes, as with ''Wozzeck''. Amid widespread poverty, Schoenberg's Society was a [[subscription business model]] for sustaining {{lang|de|[[Neue Musik]]|italics=no}} (new music) by composers across Europe through performance. It grew out of open rehearsals. Schulhoff soon co-founded a Prague Society for Private Musical Performances.<ref name="Brand, Hailey, and Harris 1987">{{cite book |editor-last1=Brand |editor-first1=Juliane |editor-last2=Hailey |editor-first2=Christopher |editor-last3=Harris |editor-first3=Donald |title=The Berg–Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters [with Introduction, Translator's Preface, and Annotations] |url=https://archive.org/details/bergschoenbergco0000berg |language=English |others=Book design, Jacques Chazaud |edition=Softcover reprint |publication-place=London |publisher=The Macmillan Press Ltd |publication-date=1987 |pages=xiv–xvii, 263–264, 274n11, 275n1 |isbn=978-1-349-09831-6 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>}} He blamed the war and its aftermath on [[capitalism]], militarism, the press, and, uncharacteristically, [[Jews]],{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=149, quoting Berg's 27 November 1919 letter to Schulhoff}} calling himself an "[[Antimilitarism|antimilitarist]]" like Kraus,{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=20–21, quoting Berg's 27 November 1919 letter to Schulhoff: "fierce antimilitarist"; "somewhere Kraus says, 'It is still worse to be forced to salute!'"}} who polemically examined journalism and German–[[Jewish assimilation]].<ref name="Reitter 2008">{{cite book |author-last=Reitter |author-first=Paul |title=The Anti-Journalist: Karl Kraus and Jewish Self-Fashioning in Fin-de-siècle Europe |publication-place=Chicago |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |publication-date=2008 |pages=80–83: "Kraus sets up ''[[A Crown for Zion]]'' as his response to [[Zionism|Zionist]] soliciting. ... Zionists might celebrate Jewish particularities [but] in the idiom of [[German nationalism|<em>German</em> nationalism]][:] they have modeled their new Jewish culture after German ideology. In laying out the paradox of an assimilationist Zionism, Kraus enlists [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] stereotypes ... in ... a reflective polemic against a controversial movement in Jewish culture, and with quite a bit of irony. ... Kraus too lobbies for assimilation. He wants total integration, ... the utter 'dissolution' of [[Judaism]] will end the 'thoroughly [[corruption|corrupt]] Jewish society'[:] the liberal Viennese press. These Jews promote ... the interests of the '[[Antisemitic trope#Economic tropes|money Jews]]' ({{lang|de|Geldjuden}}) who [[Antisemitic trope#Controlling the media|finance their newspapers]] [...]. ... Kraus posits that Judaism is inimical to enlightened [[cosmopolitanism]]", ''et passim:'' 12, 18, 28–30, 85–86, 106, 195n106, 215n31  |isbn=978-0-226-70970-3 }}</ref> Replying to Schulhoff, Berg asked who among the [[Triple Entente|Entente]], "outside Russia", had the same "ring of idealism" to their names as [[Karl Liebknecht]] and [[Rosa Luxemburg]], recently [[Spartacist uprising#Murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht|murdered Spartacist uprising leaders]].{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=20–21, quoting Berg's 27 November 1919 letter to Schulhoff: "I don't think you will soon again find such an enraged antimilitarist as I am"; "What names does the Entente have (outside of Russia) that ring of idealism as these [Luxemburg and Liebknecht] do?"}}

[[File:Burg Landskron 4.jpg|thumb|A view of the village of St. Andrä, very near or perhaps including the Berghof, on [[Lake Ossiach]] outside [[Villach]]<ref name="Berg 1971">{{cite book |author-last=Berg |author-first=Alban |chapter=Part Two: 1911–1920 |title=Alban Berg: Letters to His Wife |language=English |others=Editor, translator, and annotator Bernard Grun with assistance from Helene Berg, Franz Willnauer et al |publication-place=New York |publisher=St Martin's Press |publication-date=1971 |page=168 }}</ref>{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=12–13, Fig. 3}}]]

Berg gradually resisted his family's demands at the Berghof, writing Webern in March 1920 that he would need to earn income instead by editing, teaching, and writing, including for ''{{ill|Musikblätter des Anbruch|de}}'', the [[music journalism|music journal]] of [[Universal Edition]], though he might have even less time to compose.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=167–174, quoting Berg's letter to Webern}} That April, Johanna sold the [[landed property]] as he wished and as another family member had advised.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=165–166, 167, 188, 295: Herman}} In July, he planned three scenes (likely 1, 3, and 5) of act 2 in the shape of four- or five-movement symphony, finishing them by August.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=188, 191, citing Berg's August letter to Kassowitz}}

In 1921, nearing the [[Hyperinflation#Austria|Austrian hyperinflation]], the Society closed,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=188–189}} and Johanna kept planning her family's future.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=15–16, 55–58, 162–167, 188, 370–371}} She had disparaged Helene's [[passive income]] from financial assets (in [[Austrian krone]]n) as miserly and unreliable{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=108, 163, 165–167, 188, quoting Johanna: "You have only <em>me</em> ... provid[ing] for you because we can't depend on <em>Helene</em>, who won't touch any of her money. That we—Charly and I—work all the time to bring in money and to maintain our assets, this you know [...]"}} and worried that Berg might "live in penury" by ''componiererei'' (fooling around composing).{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=163, quoting Johanna's 1918 letter to Berg}} With dollars from her late son Herman's Florida [[estate (law)|estate]], she funded New York trusts managed by {{ill|Geo. Borgfeldt & Co.|de}}, a firm long tied to the family,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=12–15, 30, 161, 188, 291, 474n42, quoting Johanna's 9 May 1922 letter to {{ill|Geo. Borgfeldt & Co.|de}} in English}} thereby re-enabling Berg's composing career. He finished act 2 in Vienna with Helene at [[Bad Hofgastein]], then act 3 in Trahütten by October.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=188}} While polishing and orchestrating ''Wozzeck'', Berg recalled that Schoenberg had "tried to take away all my pleasure in [the opera]".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=177, 188, 473n7, quoting Berg's May 1922 letter to Helene}} In June 1922, he wrote Schoenberg that it was done.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=189}}

==Composition==
===Scoring===
''Wozzeck'' is scored for voices, choirs (men's, women's, and children's), and large orchestra, including onstage musicians four times: a military band (act 1, scene 3), a chamber orchestra (act 2, scene 3), a tavern band (act 2, scene 4), and an out-of-tune, upright tavern piano (act 3, scene 3).<ref name=UE />

====Roles====
:{| class="wikitable"
|+{{sronly|Roles, voice types, premiere cast}}
!Role
![[Voice type]]
!Premiere cast, 14 December 1925<br>Conductor: [[Erich Kleiber]]
|-
|Wozzeck
|[[baritone]]
|Leo Schützendorf
|-
|Marie, ''his common-law wife''
|[[soprano]]
|Sigrid Johanson
|-
|Marie's son
|[[Treble voice|treble]]
|Ruth Iris Witting
|-
|Captain
|buffo [[tenor]]
|Waldemar Henke
|-
|Doctor
|buffo [[bass (voice type)|bass]]
|[[Martin Abendroth]]
|-
|Drum Major
|[[heldentenor]]
|[[Fritz Soot]]
|-
|Andres, ''Wozzeck's friend''
|lyric tenor
|Gerhard Witting
|-
|Margret, ''Marie's neighbor''
|[[contralto]]
|Jessika Koettrik
|-
|First Apprentice
|deep bass
|Ernst Osterkamp
|-
|Second Apprentice
|high baritone
|Alfred Borchardt
|-
|Madman
|high tenor
|Marcel Noé
|-
|A Soldier
|baritone
|Leonhard Kern
|-
| colspan="3" |''Soldiers, apprentices, women, children''
|}

====Instrumentation====
[[File:Wozzeck (Alban Berg) - LABW - Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 57-3 Nr. 5716.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Townsfolk carousing with on-stage tavern musicians]]The [[pit orchestra]] is large. The [[woodwind section]] has 4 [[Western concert flute|flutes]] (all double [[piccolo]]), 4 [[oboe]]s (4th doubles [[cor anglais]]), 4 [[clarinet]]s in B{{music|flat}} (1st doubles clarinet in A, 3rd and 4th double [[E-flat clarinet|clarinet in E{{music|flat}}]]), [[bass clarinet]], 3 [[bassoon]]s, and [[contrabassoon]]. The [[brass section]] has 4 [[Horn (instrument)|horns]] in F, 4 [[trumpet]]s in F, 4 [[trombone]]s (1 alto, 2 tenor, 1 bass), and [[tuba]]. The [[percussion section]] has 4 [[timpani]], 2 [[bass drum]]s (1 with [[rute (music)|rute]]), several [[cymbal]]s (1 [[Suspended cymbal|suspended]], 1 attached to bass drum), [[snare drum]], 2 [[tam-tam]]s (1 small), [[triangle (musical instrument)|triangle]], and [[xylophone]]. There is a [[celesta]], a [[harp]], and a standard [[string section]].

The [[military band]] has three sections. Woodwinds include piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in E{{music|flat}}, and 2 bassoons. Brass includes 2 horns in F, 2 trumpets in F, 3 trombones, and tuba. Percussion includes bass drum with cymbals, snare drum, and triangle. Berg marks when these musicians may be taken from the pit in a footnote near the end of act 1, scene 2.

The [[Chamber music|chamber]] orchestra matches Schoenberg's [[Chamber Symphony No. 1 (Schoenberg)|Chamber Symphony No. 1]]. It has many [[wind instrument]]s: flute (doubles piccolo), oboe and cor anglais, 2 clarinets (in E{{music|flat}} and A) and bass clarinet, and bassoon and contrabassoon, plus 2 horns. It also has a [[string quintet]] plus [[double bass]].

The tavern band has a [[Clarinet family|clarinet in C]], a [[bombardon]] in F (or [[Mute (music)#Brass|muted]] tuba as substitute), an [[accordion]], a [[guitar]], and 2 [[fiddle]]s.

===Music===
[[File:LinienkreiseSchema.png|alt=|thumb|upright|In the music and its [[Musical notation|notation]], Berg shapes Wozzeck's visions ("Lines and circles, strange figures, would that one could read them!") as [[Cycle (music)|cyclic]] figures spun from melodic lines.{{sfnm|Headlam|1996|1loc=72|Perle|1980|2loc=127–128}}]]As in much of his work, Berg navigates [[dialectic]]s of convention and innovation, [[form and content]], and structure and function in ''Wozzeck'', often integrating and [[fragmentation (music)|dissolving]] musical material cyclically.<ref name="Ljubibratić 2025">{{cite journal |last=Ljubibratić |first=Vanja |date=2025 |title=Representations of Cultural Memory in Alban Berg's ''Lulu'' |journal=Musicologica Austriaca |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=314–315, quoting Berg's "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''" |doi=10.71045/musau.2025.1.35 |url=https://musau.publia.org/musau/article/view/35 |language=English |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251224020157/https://musau.publia.org/musau/article/view/35 |archive-date=24 December 2025 |access-date=24 December 2025 |quote="Berg built his entire career around his awareness of the past [...]. [His] approach to composition, ... in its most pervasive general interpretation, is viewed as this cultural mechanism that synthesizes musical aesthetics of different epochs into the composer's unique style of creating works of simultaneous novelty and familiarity. [I]nherent preoccupations ... harness the past to inform his present."}}</ref>{{sfnm|Headlam|1996|1loc=6–12, 47, 408n5: "Adorno refers to Berg as the 'master of the smallest link' ({{lang|de|der Meister des kleinsten Ubergängs}}), where form and content in Berg's music exist in a dialectic that encompasses two seemingly contradictory characteristics: motivic elements are in a constant state of [[becoming (philosophy)|becoming]] rather than being where individual identity is subsumed by continual variation ending in dissolution, yet every note, motive, gesture, phrase, and section has a clear function in highly structured, unambiguous forms"|Schmalfeldt|1983|2loc=26–30}}{{efn|The [[subject (music)|musical subject]] has long been likened to the topic of an oration, the idea from which all others grow. The {{lang|de|{{ill|Formenlehre (Musik)|lt=Formenlehre|de}}}} (form theory) of [[Adolf Bernhard Marx]] develops this notion in a Romantic spirit often via Beethoven's music (e.g., the {{lang|de|"Muss es ein?"|italics=no}} motif from [[String Quartet No. 16 (Beethoven)|Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16]]). Marx synthesizes historical–teleological (Hegelian, developmental) and genetic–biological (Goethean, morphological) conceptions, balancing inherited forms with unfolding of content through [[Organicism|organic]] thematic–motivic growth, in which students learn to expand units into complex designs as they internalize new possibilities. A [[dualism (disambiguation)|dualism]] between form as generative-and-unique or fixed-and-conformational emerged through pedagogical codification, often valorizing the former. Schoenberg arguably carried these notions forward with his own concepts of a {{lang|de|Grundgestalt}} (basic shape or idea) and [[developing variation]], and even viewed tonality as a kind of provisional inheritance in his ''Harmonielehre'' (harmony theory).<ref name="Schmalfeldt 2011">{{cite book |author-last=Schmalfeldt |author-first=Janet |chapter=The Beethoven–Hegelian Tradition and the 'Tempest' Sonata |title=In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music |series=Oxford Studies in Music Theory |publisher=Oxford University Press |others=Series editor, [[Richard Cohn]] |isbn=978-0-19-509366-7 |edition=Illustrated hardcover |publication-place=Berkeley |publication-date=2011 |pages=10–11, 23–37, 160–163, 270n28, 270n33, 270n38}}</ref> Berg stressed "moving harmony" and "richness of forms and shapes" to support ''Wozzeck''<nowiki/>'s innovative continuation of tradition.{{sfn|Ljubibratić|2025|loc=314–315, quoting Berg's "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''"}} Adorno saw such dualisms as co-constituting, historically dynamic, and socially grounded.<ref name="Schmalfeldt 2011"/> "Like heads and tails on a coin," he wrote, "Berg's music has two tendencies engraved one on each side: accurately to derive objective construction from subjective illusion, and: through construction to surpass the subjective essence."<ref name="Adorno 1991">{{cite book |author-last=Adorno |author-first=Theodor |author-link=Theodor W. Adorno |chapter=Clarinet Pieces |title=Alban Berg: Master of the Smallest Link |others=Translated with introduction and annotation by Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey |isbn=978-0-521-33016-9 |publication-place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |publication-date=1991 |pages=47–48}}</ref>}} Small,{{sfnm|Adorno|1991|1loc=47–48|Headlam|1996|2loc=408n5}} fluid, sometimes purely rhythmic motifs recur in new contexts and undergo intricate [[transformation (music)|transformation]]s, helping to shape organic unity.{{sfnm|Headlam|1996|1loc=1, 7–8, 10, 13, 47–50, 52, 125–126, 128–134, 408n3, 408n8, 408n9|Perle|1980|2loc=Ch. 4, "Representation and Symbol in the Music of Wozzeck"}} He not only makes symbolic allusions to [[tonality]], but also uses [[chord progression]]s freely amid an overall [[atonality]] typified by symmetrical [[interval cycle]]s and sometimes densely layered rhythmic schemes.{{sfn|Headlam|1996|loc=6–7, 46–47, 102, 114–124}} Frequent tempo gradations and contrasts accrue formal and dramatic significance.{{sfn|Headlam|1996|loc=23, 59–60, 101, 121, 125}}

Like earlier composers, Berg innovated on operatic tradition. Not wanting ''Wozzeck'' and his œuvre to seem Romantic or passé,{{sfnm|Hailey|2010|1loc=17|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=175, 192–193}} he said he preferred strict musical form to "the Wagnerian recipe of '[[Through-composed music|through-composing]]{{Single+double}},{{sfnm|Deathridge|2005|1loc=24|Schroeder|1999|2loc=227, quoting Berg's 1929 "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''"}}{{efn|Werfel, likely the Bergs' closest literary friend, had disparaged Wagner's "bloated excess" and "garrulous monotony" in favor of Verdi, perhaps shaping Berg's view of Wagner as "antiquated".{{sfn|Schroeder|1999|loc=194, quoting Berg in 1923: "this antiquated Wagner music"}}}} though the opera is Wagnerian in many respects (e.g., complexity, unmoored emotionality).{{sfnm|Deathridge|2005|1loc=24|Hailey|2010|2loc=20}} His hybrid approach is an integrated [[number opera]], where each act and scene has an old or abstract (absolute) musical form, yet often as a kind of [[program music]] or [[word painting]], like the serious [[passacaglia]] for the Doctor's exam, or the [[Prelude (music)|prelude]] and triple [[fugue]] as the Doctor and Captain hint at Marie's infidelity.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=176, 192–193}}

Büchner's text repeats phrases as motifs, like "{{lang|de|ein guter Mensch|italics=no}}" (a good person), "{{lang|de|wir arme Leut|italics=no}}" (we poor folk), and "{{lang|de|eins nach dem andern|italics=no}}" (one after the other). He develops some ideas into short, recurring sections, whether from Bible quotes or, as in Wozzeck's visions, from [[Apocrypha]]. Berg does something similar throughout the music:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=192–193}} for example, variation techniques dominate act 3, focusing on some pitch (B, scene 2), rhythm (scene 3), hexachord (scene 4), tonality (final interlude), or duration (a ''[[perpetuum mobile]]'' of [[quaver]]s, scene 5), while in act 1 they focus on a chord progression (scene 2) and a twelve-tone theme (scene 4).{{sfn|Headlam|1996|loc=52}} He knew few, if any, would hear all these structures, but he used their patterns plus the play's linked scenes and repeated lines to shape [[Repetition (music)|musicodramatic repetition]].{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=192–193}}

Berg adopted Franzos's overall dramatic structure (exposition, development, catastrophe),{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=179 quoting Franzos, 183–184}} which [[Fritz Mahler]] summarizes:{{sfn|Pople|1997|p=148}}

:{| class="wikitable" align="center" style="margin-right: 0;"
|-
! width="190" style="background: Silver" | Drama
! width="65" style="background: Silver"  |
! width="215" style="background: Silver" | Music
|-
! align="center" | Expositions
! align="center" | Act 1
! align="center" | Five character pieces
|-
| Wozzeck and the Captain
| align="center" | Scene 1
| align="center" | [[Baroque suite|Suite]]
|-
| Wozzeck and Andres
| align="center" | Scene 2
| align="center" | [[Rhapsody (music)|Rhapsody]]
|-
| Wozzeck and Marie
| align="center" | Scene 3
| align="center" | Military [[March (music)|march]] and [[Lullaby]]
|-
| Wozzeck and the Doctor
| align="center" | Scene 4
| align="center" | [[Passacaglia]]
|-
| Marie and the Drum Major
| align="center" | Scene 5
| align="center" | ''Andante affettuoso'' (quasi [[Rondo]])
|-
! align="center" | Dramatic development
! align="center" | Act 2
! align="center" | [[Symphony]] in five movements
|-
| Marie and her son, then Wozzeck
| align="center" | Scene 1
| align="center" | [[Sonata form|Sonata]] movement
|-
| The Captain and the Doctor, then Wozzeck
| align="center" | Scene 2
| align="center" | [[Fantasia (music)|Fantasia]] and [[Fugue]]
|-
| Marie and Wozzeck
| align="center" | Scene 3
| align="center" | [[Tempo#Basic tempo markings|Largo]]
|-
| Garden of a tavern
| align="center" | Scene 4
| align="center" | [[Scherzo]]
|-
| Guard room in the barracks
| align="center" | Scene 5
| align="center" | ''Rondo con introduzione''
|-
! align="center" | Catastrophe and epilogue
! align="center" | Act 3
! align="center" | Six inventions
|-
| Marie and her son
| align="center" | Scene 1
| align="center" | Invention on a [[Subject (music)|theme]]
|-
| Wozzeck kills Marie
| align="center" | Scene 2
| align="center" | Invention on a single note
|-
| Tavern
| align="center" | Scene 3
| align="center" | Invention on a rhythm
|-
| Wozzeck drowns
| align="center" | Scene 4
| align="center" | Invention on a [[hexachord]]
|-
|
| align="center" | Interlude
| align="center" | Invention on a tonality
|-
| Children playing
| align="center" | Scene 5
| align="center" | Invention on a regular [[quaver]] movement
|}

A quasi-[[Cadence|cadential]] gesture closes each act, where it would be "distinctly evident", Berg said, that "the circle of harmony comes full close", realized in an oscillation of blurred sonorities derived from two structural chords. The combined eight-pitch [[Set (music)|set]] of these chords, when [[transposition (music)|transpose]]d or [[inversion (music)|invert]]ed, can span the [[Tone row#total chromatic|whole chromatic]]. Many scholars note that Berg seems to draw both harmony and melody from transformations of this set, often forming isomorphic [[figure (music)|figure]]s built from [[whole-tone scale|whole-tone]] segments varied by [[semitone]] placement.{{sfnm|Jarman|1979|1loc=20–21, 47 Ex. 49, quoting Berg's "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''"|Schmalfeldt|1983|2loc=42–43, 48–59|Simms and Erwin|2021|3loc=190–191, 339}}

{{Image frame|content=<score sound="1">

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>>
</score>|width=165|caption=Structural chords in ''Wozzeck''{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=47 Ex. 49, quoting Berg's "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''"}}}}

But in ''Wozzeck'', unlike in the [[Subject (music)#In different types of music|athematic]] (motivic) ''Clarinet Pieces'' (1913), Berg integrates harmony with thematic material to articulate larger structures and convey expression.{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=15–17, 21–27, 30–31, 46}}{{efn|Analysts use sets to describe compositions as coherent structures, but Schoenberg's atonal logic was motivic and preliminary. He emphasized its value as descriptive and creative rather than prescriptive and determinative, holding that no harmonic "laws" had been codified.<ref name="Dunsby and Whittall 1988">{{cite book |author-last1=Dunsby |author-first1=Jonathan |author-link1=Jonathan Dunsby |author-last2=Whittall |author-first2=Arnold |author-link2=Arnold Whittall |title=Music Theory: In Analysis and Practice |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-571-10065-1 |edition=Hardcover |publication-place=New Haven |publication-date=1988 |pages=120–121: "Schoenberg, ... in his belief in the inevitably evolving forces at work in music, is content to rely on the aural adaptability of the listener [...]. [B]ecause Schoenberg was never able to discover the harmonic 'laws' ... he was stimulated to develop the <em>motivic</em> laws [yielding] the twelve-note method as he ... practised it"; 152–153: "Apart from [[Allen Forte|[Allen] Forte]], ... other[s] have published pitch-class-set analyses of large-scale atonal compositions. Janet Schmalfeldt's study of ''Wozzeck'' ... argu[es] that 'the fundamental pitch-structural components ... share complex interrelationships that can be formally summarized [with sets]'"; 155: quoting Schoenberg, "One may sooner sacrifice logic and unity in the harmony than in the thematic substance, in the motives, in the thought-content"; 203: "abstractions and classifications of pitch-class-set analysis are likely to be more impressive ... the larger the work"; 204: "set analysis has focused on a vital principle, even if its actual analytical practices are open to question"; {{lang|lt|et passim:}} 16–19, 54–56, 81–82, 106, 119–125, 150–172, 191, 199–200, 206–207, 217}}</ref> Adorno contrasted Berg with Schoenberg and Webern, writing that Berg's harmony remained strongly expressive and "at all times dualistic, or if you will, historical", retaining "dissonance in music that [[emancipation of the dissonance|long since seems to have sacrificed consonance as well as dissonance]]." Berg's "dramatic quality", he added, was "in [[Microcosm (disambiguation)|microcosm]] in the [[cell (music)|cell]]s of his harmony", comparing the second of Berg's Clarinet Pieces to Marie's ostinato pedal murder scene.{{sfn|Adorno|1991|loc=70–71}}}} For example, he repeatedly uses the low-register fifth G–D as a stabilizing [[pedal point]] that links Marie and the Drum Major and imparts brief tonal grounding to otherwise nontonal passages.{{sfnm|Jarman|1979|1loc=47–48|Schmalfeldt|1983|2loc=54, 62–63, 208, 215, 251n15}} The tritone B–F fatefully recurs at the curtain and throughout to signify Wozzeck's torment, especially tension with Marie and, to a lesser extent, the Captain.{{sfnm|Jarman|1979|1loc=48–49|Schmalfeldt|1983|2loc=41, 60–62, 208, 251n12 quoting {{ill|Werner König (Musikwissenschaftler)|lt=Werner König|de}} and George Perle}}

At the same time, Berg uses such focal pitches and often [[register (music)|register]] for frame of reference{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=ix–x, 15–19, 47–59, 71–72, 93–94, 179, 189, 193, {{lang|lt|et passim}} also beyond ''Wozzeck'': "pitch levels", "referential elements"}} and added meaning.{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=100: "In Berg's operas a musical repetition always underlines some verbal or dramatic link"}} For example, the single pitch B symbolizes the murder{{sfn|Hall|2011|loc=107}} and dominates that scene.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=37–39}} Soft at the end of act 2, when Wozzeck, beaten, whispers "{{lang|de|einer nach dem andern|italics=no}}" (one after the other),{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=42, 93, 95}} B crescendos repeatedly{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=37–39}} and expands from unison B<sub>3</sub> into octaves:{{sfn|Hall|2011|loc=96}} Marie's last cry ("{{lang|de|Hilfe|italics=no}}!", or "Help!") spans two, from B<sub>5</sub> to B<sub>3</sub>.{{sfn|Beaumont|2010|loc=151, Ex. 10}} (As B is here, so is F a pedal in Wozzeck's death scene.){{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=48–49}}

Leitmotifs are assigned to the Captain, Doctor, and Drum Major, whose music recurs when Marie muses on him. Wozzeck has two: one as he hurriedly enters and exits, and one languidly expressing his misery and helplessness. Marie's motifs convey sensuality, as when she accepts a pair of earrings from the Drum Major. The "anguish" motif, sung by Wozzeck (act 1, scene 1), traces a minor chord with an added [[major seventh]]:

{{block indent|<score sound="1"> \new Staff \with { \remove "Time_signature_engraver" \remove "Bar_engraver" } \relative c' { \clef bass r8 dis-- b--[ e,--] g4-- } \addlyrics { Wir ar- me Leut! } </score>}}

Berg regularly combines all of these elements musicodramatically. For example, when Wozzeck confronts Marie in act 2, scene 1, fragments of the Drum Major's motifs sound over a repeated G–A bass figure adapted from Wozzeck's misery motif, and Marie's replies recall the rowdy march scene over a G–D–A pedal.{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=47–48, Ex. 50 and 54}}

====Altered idioms====
Altered idioms and [[Expressionist music]] convey Wozzeck's (and others') emotions and thought processes, especially his madness and alienation. Folk song and popular dance idioms appear in the field and tavern scenes. Berg transforms a [[polka]] into a {{lang|fr|[[danse macabre]]}} in the later tavern episode (act 3, scene 3). Its opening rhythm is a [[Retrograde (music)|retrograde]] of a [[tango]], alluding to Kraus's play ''Die letzten Tage der Menschheit'' (1915–1922; ''[[The Last Days of Mankind]]''), drafts of which appeared in ''{{ill|Die Fackel|de}}'' by 1916.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|p=231, 233, 237}} Marie's orphan plays among children singing {{lang|de|"Ringel, Ringel, Rosenkranz, Ringelreih'n"}} (like "[[Ring a Ring o' Roses]]") in the epilogue.

Berg's notes and sketches for ''Wozzeck'' (and for the march from ''Three Pieces for Orchestra'') mingled with fragments of military papers. Drafts include Austrian army [[bugle call]]s rendered atonal in the final score (act 1, scene 2). His war experience of sleeping in barracks informed his word painting of snoring soldiers (act 2, scene 5), which he called "polyphonic breathing, gasping, and groaning ... the most peculiar chorus I've ever heard ... like some primeval music that wells up from the abysses of the soul".<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Birth of an Opera: Fifteen Masterpieces from Poppea to Wozzeck|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5vxCOmhynP4C&pg=PA375|publisher = W. W. Norton|year= 2013|access-date = 2015-05-09|isbn = 978-0393060430|first = Michael|last = Rose|pages = 375}}</ref>

Berg adapted tonal juvenilia for ''Wozzeck''. In Marie's Bible scene, he reworked a sonata fragment in [[F minor]] that has been called [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]esque in its melancholy.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=14, paraphrasing Hailey}} The final interlude is perhaps from a 1909 piano piece for Helene or a planned 1912 symphony on [[Honoré de Balzac]]'s 1834 novel ''[[Séraphîta]]''.{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=18n1}}

===Musicodramatic synopsis===
The plot depicts the [[militarism]], callousness, social exploitation, and casual sadism of a small town. Transitions between day and night reflect cyclical wartime themes of life and death, as in Schoenberg's {{lang|de|Lied}} "{{lang|de|Der verlorene Haufen|italics=no}}" (referring to [[forlorn hope]]) or the popular soldiers' {{lang|de|[[Volkslied]]|italics=no}} "{{lang|de|Morgenrot|italics=no}}".{{sfn|Watkins|2003|p=217, 485n18}}{{efn|Webern explored such themes in, among other {{lang|de|Lieder}}, his 1915 setting of "{{lang|de|Der Tag ist vergangen|italics=no}} ("The day has ended"), a pious {{lang|de|Volkslied|italics=no}} from ''[[Des Knaben Wunderhorn]]''.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|p=229–231}}}}

Berg asserted a reciprocal relationship between the music and the drama. In a 1930 interview, Oskar Jancke asked whether "the text ... facilitates the understanding of your music", which he said "the public ... grappl[ing] with ... finds unfamiliar". Berg replied: "Yes, but also the reverse. The music also aids in understanding the poem. Basically I have done nothing more than to produce it on a higher level." The music, he added, "neutralize[s] the fragmentary character".{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=327 (quoting "A Conversation with Alban Berg", by Oskar Jancke)}}

==== Act 1 ====

There is no [[overture]], only a brief symbolic introduction (mm. 1–3). The opening D-minor [[tone cluster]] crescendos softly in the strings, collapsing in [[glissando|glissandi]] to a more [[Close and open harmony|compact]] A{{music|flat}}-minor cluster, the [[Unified field|verticalize]]d leitmotif associated with Wozzeck's hurried entrances and exits.{{efn|The [[melodic motion]], a [[major seventh]], is often used for [[ecphonesis]].{{sfn|Beaumont|2010|loc=150–153}}}} The whole chromatic is completed, with the eleventh pitch in the oboe and the twelfth in the bassoon.{{sfn|Beaumont|2010|loc=146–147, 150}}

[[File:Wozzeck (Alban Berg) - LABW - Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 57-3 Nr. 5717.jpg|thumb|right|upright|The Captain lectures Wozzeck as wind blows outside.{{sfnm|John|1990|1loc=61–62|Perle|1980|2loc=45}}]]<nowiki> </nowiki>''Scene 1 ([[Suite (music)|Suite]])'' unfolds in episodes of [[obbligato]] part-writing. A [[wind quintet]] melodically suggests shifting, ambiguous harmonies as the curtain rises (m. 4) and the prelude begins:{{sfnm|Beaumont|2010|1loc=146, 150, 159–160, 160, 161n20|Jarman|1989a|2loc=25|Perle|1980|3loc=46–49, 186|Schmalfeldt|1983|4loc=34–35, 45–46}} Wozzeck shaves the Captain, assenting in monotone to orders to go "slowly! One thing after the other!"{{sfnm|Jarman|1989a|1loc=25|Perle|1980|2loc=41, 46|Schmalfeldt|1983|3loc=34, 37–38, 250n10: Berg wrote Helene (7 August 1917 from Trahütten) that "a long-sought idea for one of Wozzeck's entrances" occurred to him as he had walked home and "went uphill very slowly", "rest[ing] frequently 'according to [[Standardization#Defense|regulations]]'"}} In the stately [[pavane]], the Captain ruminates on eternity in analogy to a mill wheel, painted with eight descending [[Perfect fourth|fourth]]s (or the [[circle of fifths]]).{{sfnm|Jarman|1989|1loc=25–26, 62, 64|Jarman|2010|2loc=202, 216–218|Perle|1980|3loc=128|Schmalfeldt|1983|4loc=148, 234: presented as eight descending fourths}} He begins to rhythmically mock Wozzeck's assents in the manner of a verbal taunt to the viola [[cadenza]].{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=26}}

Wozzeck is a "good man" but has "no sense of morality", the Captain sings to the contrabassoon cadenza.{{sfnm|Beaumont|2010|1loc=159–160|Schmalfeldt|1983|2loc=45–46}} As winds imitate a church pipe organ, he scorns Wozzeck's nonmarital son in [[falsetto]].{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=26}} Wozzeck quotes [[Teaching of Jesus about little children#New Testament|Mark 10:14]] in [[double variation]]s. In the [[air (music)|air]], he sings over [[Diminished seventh chord#Expressive potential|expressive diminished seventh chords]], which span the whole chromatic to underline his [[Universal (metaphysics)|universal]] claim: morality is hard for "we poor folk", who, like the Captain, are only "[[Flesh and Blood (disambiguation)|flesh and blood]]".{{sfnm|Jarman|1989a|1loc=26–27|Perle|1980|2loc=45–46|Schmalfeldt|1983|3loc=39–42, 86–87: Ex. 24, 90}}{{efn|That is, perhaps Wozzeck cannot afford to marry,{{sfn|John|1990|loc=27}} or, implicitly, that authorities circumscribed soldiers' familial and marital relations.<ref name="Winkler 1925">{{cite book |author-last=Winkler |author-first=Hans |chapter=Der Gehalt des ''Woyzeck'' |title=Georg Büchners ''Woyzeck'' |language=German |publication-place=Greifswald |publisher=Ratsbuchhandlung L. Bamberg |publication-date=1925 |pages=165–166}}</ref> In the 19th and early 20th century, many Austrian and German soldiers generally needed permission to marry. Low pay, barracks life, and military regulations made it practically unattainable.}} If they reached Heaven, he cries, "we'd all have to manufacture thunder!" to accented [[triad (music)|triad]]s that also span the whole chromatic.{{sfnm|Hall|2011|1loc=114–115, Fig. 7.9|Perle|1980|2loc=46–48, 174}}

Unnerved, the Captain again says Wozzeck is a "good man" who "think[s] too much!", dismissing him with another "go slowly", set to the prelude in reverse.{{sfnm|Beaumont|2010|1loc=150|Jarman|1989a|2loc=2–7|Jarman|2010|3loc=212, 217|Perle|1980|4loc=46|Schmalfeldt|1983|5loc=39–42, 45–47}} In a brief interlude, this material is transformed, building to climax as the curtain rises again.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=27}}

''Scene 2 ([[Rhapsody (music)|Rhapsody]] and [[Sporting song|Hunting Song]])''

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  }
>>
</score>|width=133|caption=Rhapsody chords gravitate to C.{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=138, Ex. 103}}}}In the rhapsody on three chords evoking tonic, dominant, and [[subdominant]],<ref name="Berg 2014b">{{cite book |author-last=Berg |author-first=Alban |chapter=Lecture on ''Wozzeck'': The 'Atonal Opera' |editor-last1=Simms |editor-first1=Bryan |title=Pro Mundo–Pro Domo: The Writings of Alban Berg, edited with commentaries by Bryan R. Simms |url=https://archive.org/details/promundoprodomow0000berg |language=English |publication-place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |publication-date=2014b |pages=235 |isbn=978-0-19-976406-8 |access-date=26 October 2025}}</ref> Wozzeck and fellow soldier Andres gather firewood at sunset.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=27–28}} "This place is accursed!" says Wozzeck repeatedly,{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=49, 143}} fearing its toadstools (poisonous [[mushroom]]s){{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=28}} and recounting a tale of someone who died three days and nights after finding a [[Decapitation|severed head]] there.{{sfn|Schmalfeldt|1983|loc=212}} As a [[Foil (narrative)|foil]],{{sfn|Schmalfeldt|1983|loc=85}} this alternates with [[strophe]]s of Andres's rustic {{ill|Jagdlied|de|italics=no}} (hunting song) in {{music|time|6|8}}, sung on the first two chords as if in [[G major]] (increasingly [[off-key]] as he becomes uneasy).{{sfnm|John|1990|1loc=27–28|Perle|1980|2loc=49, 143}}<ref name="Schmalfeldt 1983">{{cite book |author-last=Schmalfeldt |author-first=Janet |title=Berg's ''Wozzeck'': Harmonic Language and Dramatic Design |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-02710-5 |edition=First hardcover |publication-place=New Haven |publication-date=1983 |pages=63}}</ref> Wozzeck describes a [[hollow Earth]], a [[firestorm]], and a "crashing noise coming down, like trumpets".{{sfnm|Jarman|1989a|1loc=130|John|1990|2loc=42, 66|Perle|1980|3loc=39|Schmalfeldt|1983|4loc=77, 218, 220|Watkins|2003|5loc=227, 235–236}} "Are you mad?", Andres asks. All is still, as if the world were dead, Wozzeck murmurs as drums are heard and [[bugle]]s signal from town. Andres urges they leave before dark.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|loc=235–236}}

The music [[segue]]s as the scene changes: clarinets imitate distant bugles, the curtain falls,{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=28}} and a funeral march begins as they retreat,{{sfn|Watkins|2003|loc=235–236}} descending in a [[lament bass]] from C to F.{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=138}} This march is transformed when a military band nears as the curtain rises.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|loc=235–236}}

''Scene 3 ([[March (music)|March]] and [[Lullaby]])''

This rowdy band marches toward Marie's window,{{sfnm|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=217, quoting [[Olin Downes]]|Watkins|2003|1loc=235–236}} and she joins in song (an altered melody from [[Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Mahler)|Mahler's "Revelge"]]).{{sfnm|Jarman|1989b|1loc=189, citing Glen Watkins|John|1990|2loc=28}} Across the street, her neighbor Margret notices her wandering eye for the soldiers and teases her about it. Marie slams the window shut, quieting the march. Her music of [[Close and open harmony|open]] fourths and fifths begins: she sings a self-soothing lullaby to her son. She waits for Wozzeck, entranced, to an [[ostinato]] (her "waiting" music), which ends on B–F as he knocks on her window. He arrives and shares his visions of the heavens to sunset music (mm. 435–6 [[reprise]]s mm. 289–93 from scene 2).{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=28–30}} As he leaves in a hurry, Marie reminds him to look at their boy. She laments their poverty. He runs to the doctor.

The segue develops Marie's motif, the rhapsody chords, and a [[Leitmotif#Early instances in classical music|reminiscence motif]] from the rowdy military music into a twelve-tone figure.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=30}}

''Scene 4 ([[Passacaglia]])''

This figure is the passacaglia theme, with 21 variations in three sections. It is a golden afternoon.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=30}} Wozzeck calls the Doctor "Herr Coffin Nail",{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=200}} and the Doctor scolds him for breaking the paid experimental diet and urine-collection protocol (he cannot resist the urge to urinate). The Doctor is so angry that, to medically reassure himself, he takes his own pulse to music at ♩= 60. Midway, Wozzeck mentions Marie and shares his field visions with the doctor, including the toadstool constellations mirrored in music. In the last section, the Doctor, set to his motif and a waltz melody, is excited to publish a [[case report]]. His diagnosis of Wozzeck's mental illness ("{{lang|de|aberatio mentalis partialis zweite Spezies|italics=no}}") is set to the horn music from the Captain's ruminations on time, expanding in an ironic comment on the three's obsessions, with the verticalized [[Quartal and quintal harmony|quartal]] eternity motif marking the Doctor's exclamation about his own theories. Then he suddenly calms and demands to medically examine Wozzeck.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=30–32}}

As a brief interlude, the passacaglia theme fragments and yields to music from the rowdy march.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=32}}

''Scene 5 ([[Rondo]])''

It is evening outside Marie's house.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=32}} She admires the Drum Major from her doorway. The military music continues. He makes advances. She briefly struggles to resist him physically, then yields to his seduction and lets him in as the curtain falls with two oscillating chords.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=33}}

==== Act 2 ====
''Scene 1 ([[Sonata-allegro|Sonata-Allegro]])''

The curtain rises with two oscillating chords. In her room the next morning, Marie wears the Drum Major's gift of earrings to admire herself in a bit of broken mirror, set to a motif as the [[Sonata form#Exposition|exposition]]'s first subject. In the [[Transition (music)|transition]], her son stirs awake on her lap. She grimly transforms the lullaby as the second subject, singing of "gypsies" taking children who will not sleep. He hides his face in the [[coda (music)|coda]]. In the repeat, Marie returns to the mirror until he stirs again, and she uses [[Shadowgraphy (performing art)|shadowgraphy]] to threaten him with the [[Sandman]]. This time in the coda, Wozzeck enters unseen,{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=33}} startling Marie, who tries to hide her earrings in the [[Sonata form#Development|development]]. He doubts she found a matching pair, as she claims.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=30–34}} A plain C-[[major triad]] marks his affectionate gift of money,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=200: It also symbolizes this in ''[[Lulu (opera)|Lulu]]'', and in his ''Wozzeck'' Lecture, Berg joked, "How could the objectivity [{{lang|de|Sachlichkeit}}] of money ... be better represented?"}} and he leaves. In the [[Sonata form#Recapitulation|recapitulation]], she is wracked with guilt as she reconsiders the Drum Major and his gift.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=34}}[[File:Wozzeck (Alban Berg) - LABW - Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 57-3 Nr. 5719.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Wozzeck gives Marie money.]]

The curtain falls with a C-major glissando in the recapitulation, which, without voices, serves as this interlude.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=34}}

''Scene 2 ([[Fantasia (music)|Fantasia]] and [[Fugue]] on Three Themes)''

The curtain rises on a new day with a C-major [[scale (music)|scale]] on harp. On the street, the Captain tries to speak with the Doctor, who says he "must hurry" to the expanding obsession motif. "A good man takes his time", says the Captain as the opening oboe theme returns.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=25 Ex. 1, 34}} Breathlessly chasing, the Captain receives a medical assessment by turns mocking ("bloated, fat") and dire ([[Health risk assessment|risk]] of "[[apoplexy|apoplexia]] cerebria", or [[stroke]]) to the waltz. In the triple fugue, their leitmotifs (Captain, then Doctor) join a version of Wozzeck's coda music as it dawns on him that they are hinting at the [[love triangle]].{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=35}}

A slow [[Chamber music|chamber-orchestra]] interlude hints at the next scene's music.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=35}}

''Scene 3 ([[Tempo#Basic tempo markings|Largo]])''

It is overcast. Wozzeck arrives to confront Marie at her door to music scored like Schoenberg's [[Chamber Symphony No. 1 (Schoenberg)|Chamber Symphony No. 1]]. She halfheartedly denies it amid rowdy military music. Enraged, he nearly strikes her. "Don't touch me", she cries to music echoing her struggle with the Drum Major. "Better a knife in my heart", she moralizes to a [[Omnibus progression|chromatic wedge]] symbolizing the knife, "than dare to lay a hand on me". Struck by the suggestion, Wozzeck flees.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=35–36, Ex. 15}}[[File:Wozzeck (Alban Berg) - LABW - Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 57-3 Nr. 5718.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Wozzeck gazes at Marie and makes a fist.]]

The prior interlude's undulating music reverses into the next scene's slow {{lang|de|[[Ländler]]}}.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=36}}

''Scene 4 ([[Scherzo]] with two [[trio (music)|trio]]s)''

Two novices sing drunken solos for patrons at a {{lang|de|[[Heuriger]]}} (Viennese garden tavern). Rowdy seduction music recurs in her waltz with the Drum Major as Wozzeck watches. A hunter's chorus sung by soldiers, then another song from Andres, and finally a drunken sermon interrupt. The band resumes, but an Idiot walks into Wozzeck, slurring, "Everyone is happy, but it stinks of blood". Wozzeck dissociates.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=37}}

Erratic dance music accelerates past the curtain fall, halting as a men's chorus is heard in a faint [[Vocal warm-up#Vocalise|vocalise]] of the rhapsody chords.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=37}}

''Scene 5 (Introduction and rondo)''

This strange chorus, the curtain slowly reveals, is soldiers snoring in a [[guardhouse]] barracks. Wozzeck tosses and turns, haunted by thoughts of Marie and the Drum Major dancing. He seems to hear the tavern songs outside, set to music from the hollow Earth. After seeing the knife in a vision, he prays, set to the field scene music. But the drunken Drum Major comes boasting and fights him to music from Marie's struggle. Wozzeck falls as oscillating music fades to a final low B on harp.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=37}}

==== Act 3 ====
''Scene 1 (Invention on a theme)''

Wracked with guilt, Marie reads the Bible by candlelight, including the [[pericope]] of [[Jesus and the woman taken in adultery]]. Her son clings to her, so she tells him a [[fairy tale]] before turning to a passage on [[Mary Magdalene]].{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=38}}

This theme develops and fades to a chilling harp and celesta arpeggio reintroducing the fateful pitch B.{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=38}}

''Scene 2 (Invention on a single note (B))''

At a forest pond, Wozzeck stabs Marie as she tries to run, declaring that if he cannot have her, no one can. A blood-red moon rises.

[[File:Wozzeck (Alban Berg) - LABW - Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 57-3 Nr. 5712.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Wozzeck gazes at Marie's body.]]''Scene 3 (Invention on a rhythm)''

Wozzeck and Margret dance in the tavern among others as he celebrates doom and the Devil's arrival.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|p=237}} He pulls her onto his lap, insults her, and demands she sing. Others see blood on him, raising alarm. He runs.

''Scene 4 (Invention on a [[hexachord]])''

In a [[mad scene]], Wozzeck frantically searches the pond for his knife. Paranoid and psychotic, he speaks to Marie, imagining the blood-red moon exposing him to the world. He drowns (possibly by suicide) in the red, moonlit water, which he sees as blood. The Captain and Doctor, walking slowly nearby, are disturbed by the sound of it and return to town.

D minor has been [[preparation (music)|prepared]] at length: the [[altered chord]] closing the rhythmic invention (m. 219) yielded the hexachord (m. 220), transposed down (m. 302) before shifting into tonality.{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=17–18, Ex. 1}}

''Interlude (Invention on a tonality)''

The final interlude, a [[catharsis]], opens forcefully in D minor with whole tones (m. 320). It [[modulation (music)|modulates]] to F major, followed by a section amassing Wozzeck's motifs. At the climax (m. 364), a fully chromatic [[Dominant (music)|dominant]] sonority, built from three superimposed 3-cycles, crescendos into the "anguish" motif{{sfn|Headlam|1996|loc=158–159, Ex. 3.35c}} as the harmony resolves into tonal closure back in D minor (m. 370).{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=17–18, Ex. 1}}

<score sound="1">
\new PianoStaff <<
  \new Staff = "treble" {
    \relative c' {
      \clef treble \omit Staff.TimeSignature
      \override Stem.transparent = ##t
      <f a d e>1^\markup { \teeny "m. 219" }
      <cis e gis ees' f>1^\markup { \teeny "m. 220" }
      <ees f>1^\markup { \teeny "m. 302" }
      <d e>1^\markup { \teeny "m. 320" }
      <d e>1^\markup { \teeny "m. 370" }
    }
  }
  \new Staff = "bass" {
    \relative c' {
      \clef bass \omit Staff.TimeSignature
      \override Stem.transparent = ##t
      <b c>1
      <bes>1
      <bes, des fes aes>1
      <a d f a>1
      <d, a' f' a>1
    }
  }
>>
</score>

''Scene 5 (Invention on an eighth-note [[moto perpetuo]], ''quasi [[toccata]])'' ''

In the epilogue, children play and sing in the sunny street outside Marie's door the next morning. News of her death spreads. They run to see her corpse. Wozzeck and Marie's son appears unaffected, even when it is shouted at him. After some delay, he follows, oblivious and now an orphan.

==Reception==
''Wozzeck'' is among the most renowned 20th-century [[modernist]] operas, holding a position like that of ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' in the 19th century.{{sfn|John|1990|loc=12–13}} [[John Deathridge]] called it "one of the undisputed masterpieces of modern opera".{{sfn|Deathridge|2005|loc=24}} Audiences have long responded to its emotional force and elements of [[post-romanticism]],{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=2}} and it has captivated musicians as a work that rewards musical analysis.{{sfn|John|1990|loc=12}}{{efn|''Lulu'' accrued less interest as its third act was initially unavailable.{{sfn|John|1990|loc=12}}}} Its dissonant, psychological idiom recalls Schoenberg's ''Erwartung'',{{sfn|Franklin|2024|loc=17}} and its tormented, outcast antihero{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=14}} has prompted comparisons to operas with similar male title roles, such as Giuseppe Verdi's ''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Macbeth]]'' and ''[[Nabucco]]'', Modest Mussorgsky's ''[[Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov]]'', and Benjamin Britten's ''[[Peter Grimes]]''.{{sfn|Fisher|2000|loc=26–27}}{{efn|''Wozzeck'' has also been described as more "[[highbrow]]" than ''Grimes'', sometimes polemically.{{sfn|Franklin|2024|loc=15, 37, 50}}}} Its hybrid form has been compared to that of Paul Hindemith's ''[[Cardillac]]'', Ferruccio Busoni's ''[[Doktor Faust]]'',{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17}} and Strauss's ''[[Ariadne auf Naxos]]''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=176}}

Berg's critical engagement with militarism and war receded as ''Wozzeck'' became a repertoire standard apart from its original context, not unlike Maurice Ravel's ''[[Le Tombeau de Couperin]]''.{{sfn|Watkins|2003|p=6, 233}} Publicly, he mostly focused on the music but backed Alexander Landau's 1926 socialist analysis (arguing that Wozzeck's suffering is collective and calls for action, not blame).{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=185, citing Alexander Landau's "Die Musik und das soziale Problem"}} However, the opera's social topicality may have always been somewhat contextual, allowing it function [[immanent critique|critically in a manner immanent]] to its reception.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=19–21}} Berg also backed {{ill|Otto Brües|de}}'s 1929 reading of Wozzeck as [[Job (biblical figure)|Job]]{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=185, citing Otto Brües's "Über Georg Büchner"}} and, influenced by Kraus, Strindberg, and [[Otto Weininger]], studied his dramatic figures as [[archetype]]s (as in ''Lulu''), even considering an unrealized operatic trilogy: ''Wozzeck'', the servant; ''Vincent'' ([[Vincent van Gogh|van Gogh]]), the friend (of [[Gauguin]]); and ''Wolfgang'' ([[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Amadeus Mozart]]), the master.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=20–21, citing and describing Berg's [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/10031245 undated sketch of a trilogy], which shows ''Vincent'' in [[Arch form|mirror form]], as in ''Lulu'', perhaps suggesting that Berg viewed these matters with a sense of [[historicism]]}}

===Performance history===
''Wozzeck'', through Berg's promotional and musicodramatic strategies, made him famous.{{sfnm|Hailey|2010|1loc=17|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=189, 211–213, 216}} After its 1925 premiere,<ref name="Jarman 1979">{{cite book |last=Jarman |first=Douglas |date=1979 |title=The Music of Alban Berg |place=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |page=1 |isbn=978-0-520-03485-3}}</ref> which took place within a year of ''Cardillac'', Kurt Weill's ''[[Der Protagonist|Protagonist]]'', and Ernst Krenek's ''Zwingburg'' and ''[[Der Sprung über den Schatten]]'',{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=65}} it was produced 27 times,<ref name="Jarman 1979"/> especially in Germany and Austria,<ref name="Walsh"/> until January 1933.<ref name="Jarman 1979"/> Then [[Nazi Germany]] suppressed "[[degenerate music]]".<ref name="Walsh"/>

====1921–1925: Promotion, publication, and premiere====
Schoenberg saw ''Wozzeck''<nowiki/>'s ''{{lang|de|Particell|italics=no}}'' (short score) in 1921 and urged Universal Edition's [[Emil Hertzka]] to publish the imminent piano–vocal score by Berg's pupils (mostly [[Fritz Heinrich Klein]] but also Gottfried Kassowitz): "This is an <em>opera!</em> Genuine <em>theater</em> music! Everything is flawlessly done, as though Berg had never composed anything but theater music!"{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=115, 154–155, 166, 177, 188–189, 474n43}} With funds from dedicatee [[Alma Mahler]] and a loan from May Keller, with whom his sister Smaragda then had a [[lesbian]] relationship,{{efn|Smaragda briefly married Adolf Freiherr von Eger, son of the [[Austrian Southern Railway]] director, in 1907. Her lesbianism became evident through affairs with {{lang|fr|diseuse|italics=no}} {{ill|Marya Delvard|de}}, actress {{ill|Erika Stiedry-Wagner|de}}, and her sister-in-law Alice Berg. She also competed with Berg for Helene. They accepted her. Helene wrote Berg, "Did I come out and say that same-sex love was degenerate? ... Let's call it a love of beauty." Still, when Berg sought the blessing of Helene's (legitimate) father, he wrote that Smaragda's sexuality was his family's "desperate sorrow".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=13, 46–47, 51, quoting Helene and Berg}} Berg altered the form and text of [[Frank Wedekind]]'s plays in ''Lulu'' to humanize the lesbian Countess Geschwitz, whose near-final music has two motifs linked to Marie in ''Wozzeck'': the "waiting" [[ostinato]] and an F{{music|#}}–G–B–C{{music|#}} chord.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=198–199, 324–327, 330–331, 475n61}}}} Berg paid Universal Edition to print private piano–vocal score copies in 1922. He sold few but sent many to critics, conductors, and theaters in early 1923.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=189, 211–212}}

That April, ''[[Die Musik]]'' published the lullaby with {{ill|Ernst Viebig (Komponist)|lt=Ernst Viebig|de}}'s rapt review: "It is in the <em>form</em> of the piece that the composer opens up new paths", "perhaps" to a "truly 'musical opera{{Single+double}}{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=193–194, 211–212}} (''Wozzeck'' was not a "conventional '[[Musikdrama|music drama]]{{Single+double}}, Klein wrote in ''Anbruch'', but had a "new kind of structure" with "all the forms of absolute music" and a "formal musical development".{{sfn|Jarman|1989a|loc=135, 138}}{{efn|In 1924, composer {{ill|Emil Petschnig|de}} countered that Berg "simply raise[d] the question [of form in opera] yet again."{{sfn|Headlam|1996|loc=411n29}}}}) Then, in exchange for ''Wozzeck'', Universal Edition published ''Three Pieces for Orchestra''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=146, 211–212}} Webern debuted two ({{lang|de|Präludium}} and {{lang|de|Reigen}}) at [[Heinrich Jalowetz]]'s and {{ill|Paul Pella|de}}'s "Austrian Music Week" that summer in Berlin, drawing more press.{{sfnm|Hailey|2010|1loc=17|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=145–146}}<ref name="Moldenhauer and Moldenahuer 1978">{{cite book |last=Moldenhauer |first=Hans |author-link=Hans Moldenhauer (musicologist) |date=1978 |title=Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work |publisher=Victor Gollancz Ltd |pages=253, 663n20 |isbn=978-0-394-47237-9}}</ref>

Also that summer, when [[Gustav Havemann]]'s Quartet played [[String Quartet (Berg)|Berg's String Quartet]] at the Salzburg [[International Society for Contemporary Music]] festival, [[Hermann Scherchen]] asked for a ''Wozzeck'' suite. Berg gave him the march, lullaby, and Bible scene as ''Three Fragments{{efn|German: {{lang|de|Bruchstücke}} ({{lit|broken pieces}})}} for Voice and Orchestra from the Opera "Wozzeck"''. In late 1923, Berg had pianist [[Ernst Bachrich]] play ''Wozzeck'' excerpts for conductor [[Erich Kleiber]], who was visiting Vienna. Kleiber agreed to stage it at the Berlin State Opera. Universal Edition deemed this the best premiere offer. Scherchen premiered the ''Fragments'', intended for Berlin, to acclaim at Frankfurt's 1924 {{lang|de|[[ADMV|Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein (ADMV)]]|italics=no}} festival,{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=212–213}} inspiring Adorno to study composition with Berg.<ref name="Allen 2020">{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Allen (musicologist) |editor-last=Youmans |editor-first=Charles |series=Composers in Context |date=2020 |chapter=Adorno |title=Mahler in Context |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=267–268 |isbn=978-1-108-42377-9 |doi=10.1017/9781108529365}}</ref>[[File:Wozzeck poster 1925 (1).jpg|alt=|thumb|upright|Premiere placard]]

Berg helped with staging and rehearsals in Berlin.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=213}} There were at least 137,{{sfn|Moldenhauer|1978|loc=665n16}} and Berlin State Opera manager [[Max von Schillings]] quit over a funding clash.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=213}} ''Wozzeck'' was regarded as the first full-scale atonal opera.{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=19}} Many music writers, including Vienna's [[Paul Stefan]] and Prague's {{ill|Erich Steinhard|de}}, and composers, including [[Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt]], Adorno, and [[Stefan Wolpe]], attended the dress rehearsal.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=213}} The 14 December 1925 premiere was a ''[[succès de scandale]]'' with some disruptions.<ref name="Walsh">{{harvnb|Walsh|2001|pp=61–63}}</ref>

''Wozzeck'' achieved sustained expressive coherence despite a post-tonal musical language{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17}} and was covered internationally and at length.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=214}} In January 1927, Oslo's Berlin-based ''[[Dagbladet]]'' critic (and Francophile composer) [[Pauline Hall (composer)|Pauline Hall]] hailed it as "a new stage in German musical development, ... for the first time since Wagner". It showed independence from Schoenberg and was equal to Debussy's ''Pelléas'', she added.<ref name="Calico 2014">{{cite book |last=Calico |first=Joy |author-link=Joy H. Calico |series=California Studies in 20th-century Music |others=General editor, [[Richard Taruskin]] |date=2014 |chapter=Norway: Performing Remembrance |title=Arnold Schoenberg's ''A Survivor from Warsaw'' in Postwar Europe |publisher=University of California Press |place=Berkeley |pages=71–72, 188n22 |isbn=978-0-520-28186-8}}</ref>

=====Gurlitt's ''Wozzeck''=====
The Vienna premiere of Büchner's play also inspired [[Manfred Gurlitt]].{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=20}} Premiered four months after Berg's opera<ref name="Gurlitt"/> and also published by Universal Edition, [[Wozzeck (Gurlitt)|Gurlitt's opera ''Wozzeck'']] discomfited Berg.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=20}} They worked without any knowledge of each other.<ref name="Gurlitt">{{cite web|url=http://www.classical-music.com/review/gurlitt-0|title=Gurlitt: ''Wozzeck'' (Roland Hermann, Celina Lindsley, Anton...) – review|website=Classical-music.com |date=20 January 2012 }}</ref> Examining Gurlitt's [[piano–vocal score]], Berg found it "not bad or unoriginal" but a weak "broth ... even for {{lang|de|arme Leut}} [poor folks]".{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=20, quoting Berg's 1926 letter to Kleiber}} Gurlitt's leaner [[texture (music)|musical texture]]s and [[polystylism]] align with Hindemith and Weill, with frequent, socially oriented use of the chorus. His opera may be closer to Büchner's original conception.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=20}} It has remained in the shadow of Berg's.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=168}}{{efn|Gurlitt's ''Wozzeck'' was not revived until the 1986–87 season at its [[Bremen]] premiere house, where he had served as conductor and music director.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=168}}}}

====1926: ''Vojcek''====
Writer {{ill|Jiří Mařánek|cs}} translated Berg's ''Wozzeck'',{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=333}} and in 1926 conductor [[Otakar Ostrčil]] led its Czech-language premiere as ''Vojcek'' at [[National Theatre (Prague)|Prague's National Theatre]],{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=214}} staged by dramatist {{ill|Ferdinand Pujman|cs}}.{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=333}} In the "Chat with Alban Berg" published in the German-language ''[[Prager Presse]]'' on the day of the first performance (12 November), music and theater critic [[Oskar Baum]] wrote that criticism of the Schoenberg circle's work as abstract or "'dogmatic' ... evaporates [upon] contact with the music". Berg, reportedly in "high spirits" at the dress rehearsal, was quoted at length:{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=321–322 (from Bryan R. Simms's English translation of Baum's "Unterhaltung mit Alban Berg"), 332–333}}
{{blockquote|[T]he translation ... comes so close to the original; it is more the ... spirited presentation ... as though the work in this language has found a more natural ... expression. In ... the soul of the folk, the essential sameness of the human soul in all its national varieties becomes most apparent. [T]he living archetype that Büchner's play evokes ... was most likely a Slavic type. More important ... is the ... musical conduct of this performance, ... which I ... admir[e].}}

During the third performance,{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=333}} as Berg wrote Adorno, some "[[National Fascist Community|Czech Nationalists]] (virtually Nazis)" and "[[KDU-ČSL|clerical lobbies]]" staged <em>"purely political!"</em> disruptions: "To them I am the Berlin Jew Alban (Aaron?) Berg. Ostrčil bribed by the Russian [[Bolsheviks]], the whole thing arranged by the '[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion|Elders of Zion]]' etc."{{sfn|Adorno and Berg|2005|loc=85}} Antonín Šilhan wrote as much in ''[[Národní listy]]'', and {{ill|Emanuel Žak|cs}} tied the opera's degeneracy to [[Jewish Bolshevism]] in ''{{ill|Čech (noviny)|lt=Čech|cs}}'', while [[Zdeněk Nejedlý]] mocked them, praising ''Wozzeck'' in ''[[Rudé právo]]''.<ref name="Locke 2008">{{cite journal |last1=Locke |first1=Brian S. |title=The "''Wozzeck'' Affair": Modernism and the Crisis of Audience in Prague |journal=The Journal of Musicological Research|date=2008 |volume=27 |pages=63–98 |doi=10.1080/01411890701804788}}</ref>{{sfnm|Adorno and Berg|2005|1loc=85|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=215}}{{efn|Brian S. Locke called the "''Wozzeck'' Affair" the "most important event at the Czechs' National Theater in the interwar period".<ref name="Locke 2008"/>}} The city government quickly banned it.{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=333}} Ostrčil connected the affair to "a reactionary movement that has been asserted in our life".{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=333, citing his 1926 letter to Berg from musicologist [[Ernst Hilmar]]'s ''Wozzeck von Alban Berg: Entstehung—erste Erfolge—Repressionen (1914–1935)'' (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1975), 54–55}}

In a 1927 interview, Berg attributed the protests to "political issues ... supposedly connected to my artistic outlook".{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=323, 333 (citing "Conversation with Alban Berg: Impressions of a ''Wozzeck'' Performance in Leningrad, by 'Iron'", published in the ''Neues Wiener Journal'' on 23 June 1927)}} In an interview printed in 1928, composer [[Leoš Janáček]] said that "wrong was seriously done to Berg", calling him a "dramatist of astonishing consequence, of deep truth".<ref name="Chew and Vilain 1999">{{cite book |author-last1=Chew |author-first1=Geoffrey |author-last2=Vilain |author-first2=Robert |chapter=Evasive realism: narrative construction in Dostoyevsky's and Janáċek's ''From the House of the Dead'' |title=Janáċek Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-02772-4 |edition=First hardcover |publication-place=Cambridge |publication-date=1999 |pages=64}}</ref> In the 1930 interview with Jancke, Berg remembered the deceased Janáček among those who backed him, saying that Prague's top circles and critics fought the ban. Czech nationalists, he recalled, had opposed him as an Austrian{{efn|Accounts of an "[[Austrians|Austrian people]]" often invoke two [[origin myth]]s: a typically provincial or [[Regionalism (politics)|regionalist]] one stressing German descent and a multicultural (traceably Habsburg, more centralist) one, wherein Austria is a German–Slavic–Hungarian–Italian composite with ethnic–linguistic–religious–[[cultural pluralism]].<ref name="Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, and Liebhart 2009">{{cite book |author-last1=Wodak |author-first1=Ruth |author-last2=de Cillia |author-first2=Rudolf |author-last3=Reisigl |author-first3=Martin |author-last4=Liebhart |author-first4=Karin |translator-last1=Hirsch |translator-first1=Angelika |translator-last2=Mitten |translator-first2=Richard |translator-last3=Unger |translator-first3=JW |chapter=On Austrian Identity: The Scholarly Literature |title=The Discursive Construction of National Identity |language=English |edition=Second, abbreviated |publication-place=Edinburgh |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |publication-date=2009 |pages=67n5–6 |isbn=978-0-7486-3726-3}}</ref> After the [[dissolution of Austria-Hungary]], Slavic peoples often lived in [[successor state]]s or neighboring countries that absorbed its [[empire|imperial]] lands.<ref name="Gerwath 2018">{{cite book |author-last1=Gerwath |author-first1=Robert |editor-last1=Thomas |editor-first1=Martin |editor-last2=Thompson |editor-first2=Andrew |chapter=1918 and the End of Europe's [[Tellurocracy|Land Empire]]s |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empires |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-871319-7 |edition=First hardcover |publication-place=Oxford |publication-date=2018 |pages=27–42}}</ref>}} and for his work's supposed defeatism.{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=326}}

====1927: Leningrad====
In 1927, the [[Association for Contemporary Music]], spearheaded by [[Nikolai Roslavets]], staged ''Wozzeck'' at Leningrad's [[Mariinsky Theatre]] with [[Boris Asafyev]]'s assistance,{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=199–201}} {{ill|Дранишников, Владимир Александрович|lt=Vladimir Dranishnikov|ru}} conducting. Berg rode trains for about three days to attend the first performances and wrote journalist [[Soma Morgenstern]] that he was "celebrated [as] never ... before".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=215}} Here ''Wozzeck'' was, he continued, "a sensation ... in purely artistic, not political, terms".{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=215}} He wired Helene "huge, tumultuous success", but reviews were mixed.{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=199}} [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] attended all eight or nine performances.<ref>{{cite news |last=Loomis |first=George |title=A Firmly Middle-Class ''Wozzeck'' |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1 December 2009 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/arts/02iht-loomis.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170307014909/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/arts/02iht-loomis.html |archive-date=7 March 2017 |access-date=19 October 2025}}</ref>{{sfn|Ho|2011|loc=117–118}}

====1929–1930: Arrangement and lectures for regional cities====
[[Oldenburgisches Staatstheater]] conductor [[Johannes Schüler]] proved that ''Wozzeck'' could succeed in a small-town theater with few rehearsals.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=215}} Berg and [[Erwin Stein]] cut sections from four to three musicians, yielding an orchestra of about 60.{{sfn|Simms|1996|p=36}}<ref>[http://www.universaledition.com/Alban-Berg/composers-and-works/composer/51/work/7265 "Alban Berg – ''Wozzeck'' – reduced version (Stein)"], [[Universal Edition]]. Retrieved 12 November 2013.</ref> Berg first gave his "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''" before this premiere, then in 11 more cities:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=215}} in the 1930 interview with Jancke, he said that after ten stagings here and eight in [[Essen]], about ten other theaters planned it, including [[Cologne]], Düsseldorf, [[Hagen]], Lübeck, [[Stuttgart]], Weimar, and Königsberg (now [[Kaliningrad]], as the ADMV festival opera). When interviewed, Berg was in [[Aachen]] for ''Wozzeck'' rehearsals, following a performance of [[Lyric Suite (Berg)|his ''Lyric Suite'']] (alongside Schoenberg's music) there. Composer [[Béla Bartók]], Jancke noted, had said ''Wozzeck'' showed contemporary art music's potential in regional cities.{{sfn|Berg|2014a|loc=326–328}}

====1930: Viennese premiere and polemic====
For ''Wozzeck'''s 1930 Austrian premiere, led by Vienna's [[Clemens Krauss]], Berg gave tickets to friends, family, and his illegitimate daughter, Albine Wittula. While on better terms with Kleiber, Berg was pleased with Krauss's performance and touched by his opera's hometown success.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=216}} Webern said he was "shaken to his depths", though he criticized the production as "insufficient". Some called it "[[art for art's sake]]" and "unsocial".{{sfn|Moldenhauer|1978|loc=346}} ''Neue Freie Presse'' critic [[Julius Korngold]] wrote a polemical review:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=216}}{{blockquote|If there is ... "atonal" music, it is ... a music that cannot be ... deduced given its fanatic attachment to [[chromaticism]]—in both vertical [harmonic] and horizontal [melodic] dimensions. ... [W]e have here "negative composing" ... with its conscious dethronement of the evolving tonal system and rejection of tonal relationships and a tonal center.}} In reply, Berg framed atonality as tradition-based harmonic innovation in a revised "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''" ("The 'Atonal Opera{{Single+double}}) he delivered at the {{lang|de|Kulturbund}} (cultural association) and in a scripted [[Radio Wien]] talk "What Is Atonal?" with critic Julius Bistron.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=216}} Following Schoenberg, he argued that music predating the [[common practice period]] entailed post-tonal possibilities, rejecting the label "atonal" as denoting loss rather than innovation. He saw his and Schoenberg's music as historically grounded in a long line of chromaticism, from [[Max Reger]] and [[Johannes Brahms]] to [[Franz Schubert]] and Mozart, preserving continuity with old forms, motivic development, loosely triadic elements, and the centrality of melody.<ref name="Jost-Rösch 2023">{{cite book |author-last=Jost-Rösch |author-first=Nicole |chapter=Voraussetzungen eines 'erzählenden Komponisten' |title=Alban Berg – erzählender Komponist, komponierender Erzähler: Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel der Lyrischen Suite und ihrer Narrative |publication-place=München |publisher=edition text+kritik |publication-date=2023 |pages=70–72 |isbn=978-3-96707-835-0 |language=German}}</ref>

====1930–1931: Philadelphia and New York====
[[File:Emil Stumpp Erich Kleiber Staatsoper 1930.jpg|alt=|thumb|upright=0.7|Conductor [[Erich Kleiber]] repeatedly championed Berg's music, including in the United States, and was lauded.{{sfnm|Jarman|1989a|1loc=82|Simms and Erwin|2021|2loc=213–214, 274–275, 303–304, 316, 360–362}}]]Kleiber gave the ''Wozzeck'' Fragments their 1930 U.S. premiere at the [[New York Philharmonic]], priming opera-goers. "Like Debussy in his ''Pelléas'', Berg sought ... to probe the depths of consciousness", wrote [[Lawrence Gilman]] in the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=216}}

In 1931, the [[Philadelphia Grand Opera Company]], working with the [[Curtis Institute of Music]] and [[Philadelphia Orchestra]], staged the U.S. premiere of ''Wozzeck'' at [[Metropolitan Opera House (Philadelphia)|Philadelphia's Metropolitan Opera House]] under [[Leopold Stokowski]]. Composer [[George Gershwin]] rode a special ''Wozzeck'' train from New York: he had met Berg in 1928 via pianist Josefa Rosanska (Josephine Rosensweet, [[Rudolf Kolisch]]'s soon-to-be wife) when they went to Berg's home to hear the [[Kolisch Quartet]] play Berg's ''Lyric Suite''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=216–217, 274, 481n50}}

Calling the audience "brilliant", ''[[The New York Times]]''<nowiki/>'s conservative critic [[Olin Downes]] wrote of an "astonishing" success and hailed Berg's word painting:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=217}}{{blockquote|You may hear the military band approaching, the crackling and cutting of the wood for the captain's fire, feel the approach of darkness and find reflected in the instruments the sulphurous sky of the field scene, and the setting of the sun. Or you will feel the blinding, insane thought of murder in Wozzeck's brain, and may be conscious, with weird distinctness and psychology of effect, of bubbles rising into the pool into which Wozzeck's body has sunk. All ... synthesized and reflected as in a transparent mirror [...]. ... [T]his score ... is beautiful.}}

Gilman agreed:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=217}}{{blockquote|The layman, if he can accustom himself ... will find ... bitter and piercing loveliness, ... intensity, a compassionate wisdom [and] suffusing tenderness ... reveal[ing] Berg [as a] poet ... a pitiful humanitarian, even (let us whisper it!) a shameless romanticist—a social and spiritual rebel, no less than an aesthetic one.}}

Later that year, Stokowski's Philadelphia team staged ''Wozzeck'''s second U.S. premiere at New York's [[Metropolitan Opera]], prompting another Downes review:{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=217}}{{blockquote|[Berg] is Wozzeck himself, and we ... know Wozzeck's terrors of the strange things ... his premonitions which he cannot explain, of the evil that dogs him, his hallucinations, his murderous revolt. This is the psychological and emotional quality of the music.}}

====1932–1934: British broadcasts====
In 1932, [[Henry Wood]] led the [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]] in a studio performance of the ''Wozzeck'' Fragments broadcast by Schoenberg pupil [[Edward Clark (conductor)|Edward Clark]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1985articles/pdf/article3.pdf|author=Nicholas Chadwick|title=Alban Berg and the BBC|website=Bl.uk|access-date=27 January 2018}}</ref> In 1934, [[Adrian Boult]] conducted ''Wozzeck'' in a [[Queen's Hall]] concert performance also broadcast by Clark.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trevor-bray-music-research.co.uk/Bridge+LinB/ch6_62.html|title=Frank Bridge: A Life in Brief ~ Isolation: 62|first=Trevor|last=Bray|website=Trevor-bray-music-research.co.uk}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/apivor/warlock_circle.htm|title=Memories of 'The Warlock Circle' |author=Denis Apivor|website=Musicweb-international.com}}</ref>

====Effect on Berg====
[[File:Alban Berg en Maurice Corneil de Thoran (1932).jpg|thumb|Berg and Brussels conductor [[Maurice Corneil de Thoran]] examine ''Wozzeck'''s score in 1932.]]Unlike Schoenberg or Webern, Berg was able to live on [[royalty payment]]s for his music,{{sfn|Jarman|1979|loc=1}} mostly from ''Wozzeck'' performances in Central Europe.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17, 21}} He traveled not only to Germany, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Russia, and England, but also to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France, and Italy for performances of and talks about the opera.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17, 21}} Busy attending to his success and enjoying independence, he declined vacations with Schoenberg and Schreker's offers of a [[Berlin University of the Arts|Berlin Musikhochschule]] appointment.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17}} He benefited from new relationships with Kleiber, [[Karl Böhm]], and [[Gian Francesco Malipiero]], and was appointed to the ADMV jury.{{sfn|Hailey|2010|loc=17–18}}

====1934–1950: Decline and suppression====
Performances of ''Wozzeck'' declined and were suppressed under [[fascism]], and inflation further harmed Berg's finances. Webern's engagement to conduct the ''Fragments'' in [[Florence]] was canceled in 1934.{{sfnm|Jarman|1979|1loc=1|Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=414, 451}} Soon after immigrating to the United States that year, Schoenberg helped Berg obtain funds to complete ''Lulu'' by persuading the [[Library of Congress]] to buy the [[Autograph (manuscript)|holograph]] score of ''Wozzeck''.{{sfn|Moldenhauer|1978|loc=413}} As a tribute following Berg's 1935 death, Webern intended to conduct the ''Fragments'' in Barcelona, where he was overwhelmed by the 1936 world premiere of [[Violin Concerto (Berg)|Berg's Violin Concerto]].{{sfn|Moldenhauer|1978|loc=454–457}} Conductor [[Tullio Serafin]] led the 1942 Italian premiere before leaving the [[Teatro dell'Opera di Roma]],<ref name="Zietz 1999">{{cite book |last=Zietz |first=Karyl Lynn |date=1999 |title=Opera Companies and Houses of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand |place=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland & Co |pages=356–358 |isbn=978-0-7864-0611-1}}</ref> and Naples' [[Teatro di San Carlo]] staged it in 1949–50.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=312–313}}

====1952–2008: Revivals and further premieres====
In 1952, the [[Royal Opera House]] gave ''Wozzeck'' its first British staging.<ref name="Walsh" /> The [[Vienna State Opera]] first revived it in the 1955–56 season, their first after [[World War II]], led by [[Karl Böhm]].{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=38–40}} The Berlin State Opera reinstated ''Wozzeck'',{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=159–161}} and it gradually appeared across Germany: at the [[Staatstheater Augsburg]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=150}} the [[Staatstheater Braunschweig]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=166–167}} the [[Theater Dortmund]] (managed by {{ill|P. Walter Jacob|de}}),{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=176–177}} the [[Theater Gießen]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=194}} the [[Staatsoper Hannover]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=198–200}} the [[Staatstheater Mainz]] (with László Anderkó as Wozzeck),{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=211}} the [[Staatstheater Nürnberg]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=221–223}} the [[Theater Regensburg]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=225–226}} the [[Mainfranken Theater Würzburg]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=235–236}} and at Munich's [[Prinzregententheater]] led by [[Ferenc Fricsay]].{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=219}} The [[Finnish National Opera and Ballet]] staged it after its 1956 reorganization.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=91}}

In 1962, Paris's [[Théâtre des Champs-Élysées]] gave ''Wozzeck'' its first French staging.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=132, 138–139}} The [[Dutch National Opera|De Nederlandse Operastichting]] mounted it in its first season (1965–66), stage directed by [[Maurice Huisman]].{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=395, 397}} In his debut that year, [[Herbert Graf]] stage directed ''Wozzeck'''s local premiere at the [[Grand Théâtre de Genève]].{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=440}} In Italy, [[Gian Carlo Menotti]] hired {{ill|Günter Krämer (Regisseur)|lt=Günter Krämer|de}} to stage it at Spoleto's [[Festival dei Due Mondi]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=364–365}} and Parma's {{ill|Teatro di Verdura|it}} staged it in 1965,{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=330–331}} followed by the [[Teatro Comunale di Bologna]] in 1969{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=254–259}} and Genoa's [[Teatro Carlo Felice]] in 1970 (after fascist suppression there).{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=279}} The [[Nederlandse Reisopera]] added it to their repertoire in the 1970s,{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=398–399}} as did [[Opera Australia]] after the [[Sydney Opera House]] opened.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=19}}

In the 1980s, [[Gerard Mortier]] stage directed both revivals at Brussels' [[La Monnaie]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=51}} and [[Teatro Regio (Parma)|Parma's Teatro Regio]] mounted it in 1989.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=333–337}} In the 1990s, Paris's [[Théâtre du Châtelet]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=133–134}} the [[Opéra national de Montpellier]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=111–112}} the [[Maggio Musicale Fiorentino]],{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=275}} and Trieste's [[Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi]]{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=374}} presented ''Wozzeck'', and [[Pierre Audi]] mounted it twice through the Dutch National Opera.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=394–397}} Menotti revived it at Spoleto's [[Teatro Caio Melisso]] in 1994,{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=366–367}} Bologna revived it to poor attendance in 1995,{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=251–254}} and [[Theater Saarbrücken]] produced it for [[Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg]]'s 1995–96 season.{{sfn|Zietz|1999|loc=389–391}} ''Wozzeck'' was restaged in Russia only in 2008{{sfn|Loomis|2009}} after decades of [[Stalinism]] and turbulent [[Germany–Russia relations]].{{sfn|Perle|1980|loc=199–201}}

===Influence===

====Krenek====
[[File:Alma Mahler.jpg|alt=|thumb|upright=0.7|[[Alma Mahler]] hosted the Bergs and [[Ernst Krenek]] at {{lang|fr|[[salon (gathering)|salons]]|italics=no}}.{{sfnm|Simms and Erwin|2021|1loc=35, 52, 153–154|Stewart|1991|2loc=79}}]]Berg and Krenek were acquainted at the {{lang|fr|[[salon (gathering)|salons]]|italics=no}} of Alma Mahler,{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=79}} who was a close friend of the Bergs{{sfn|Schroeder|1999|loc=194}} (and the wife or lover of [[Gustav Mahler]], Kokoschka, and Werfel). Krenek studied ''Wozzeck'''s piano–vocal score and wrote Berg with praise and questions about vocal writing while working with Kokoschka on ''[[Orpheus und Eurydike]]'' in 1923.{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=79}} Berg replied with examples from Wagner, Mozart, and Bach, stressing music adapted to singers' limits and his varied use of voice ("the supreme instrument") for dramatic effect.{{sfn|Schroeder|1999|loc=79, 227}} Krenek denied modeling ''Orpheus'' on ''Wozzeck'', but Berg likely influenced him. [[Hans Hartleb (director)|Hans Hartleb]] saw parallels in the operas' violence and music of "fatalism, melancholy, and sensuality" for Eurydike and Marie{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=79}} (whose role, he wrote, such music elevated).{{sfn|Stewart|1991|loc=337}}

====Shostakovich====
The second scene of Shostakovich's opera ''[[The Nose (opera)|The Nose]]'' (1927) likely parodies ''Wozzeck''. Shaken to find a nose he fears he severed, Shostakovich's barber [[galop]]s through friendly townsfolk by a river, set to melodic [[Motif (music)|motif]]s recalling Berg's tavern polka, during which Wozzeck feigns friendliness with townsfolk after murdering Marie. The barber tosses the nose into the water, as Wozzeck does his knife into a pond. Rising and falling lines evoke its sinking, as they depict Wozzeck's drowning. A policeman sees. He interrogates in hysterical falsetto, with a high climax, laughter, and final deflation, as the Captain does in ''Wozzeck'''s first scene. The barber replies in a clipped, spoken manner, echoing Wozzeck's monotonous assents.<ref name="Sheinberg 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Sheinberg |author-first=Esti |others=Music engraving: Ofer Sheinberg; guidance: Robert Hatten, [[Raymond Monelle]], [[Eero Tarasti]], et al.; translations, Stuart Campbell |chapter=Parody |title=Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities |language=English |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-7546-0226-2 |publication-place=London |publication-date=2016 |pages=163–167, 223–225, 332n16}}</ref>

====Others====
''Wozzeck'' was among Gershwin's influences and perhaps his model in writing the opera ''[[Porgy and Bess]]'', which he reportedly "wanted to write like ... an American ''Wozzeck''".<ref name="Reynolds 2022">{{cite book |author-last=Reynolds |author-first=Christopher |editor-last=Notley |editor-first=Margaret |chapter=''Porgy and Bess'': "An American ''Wozeck'' |title=Opera after 1900 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-7546-2898-9 |publication-place=Oxford |publication-date=2010 |pages=360–375}}</ref> It also influenced [[Luigi Dallapiccola]],{{sfn|John|1990|loc=14}} who used the same [[tetrachord]] as ''Wozzeck'''s "wir arme Leut" motif in the climactic betrayal scene of the opera ''[[Il prigioniero]]'' (1944–1948).{{sfn|Alegant|2010|loc=87, 138, 301n25}} The one-act opera ''[[C'est la guerre (disambiguation)|C'est la guerre]]'' (1960–1961) by {{ill|Emil Petrovics|hu}} shows ''Wozzeck''<nowiki/>'s influence in its taut Expressionism and ironic use of popular tunes.<ref name="Walsh 1969">{{cite journal |last=Walsh |first=Stephen |date=Spring 1969 |title=An Outsider's View |journal=Tempo |volume=88 |issue=88 |pages=44–45 |jstor=943376 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/943376 }}</ref>{{sfn|Walsh|2001|loc=669}}

In later German opera, ''Wozzeck'' influenced the style of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's ''[[Die Soldaten]]'' and Wolfgang Rihm's ''[[Jakob Lenz (opera)|Jakob Lenz]]''.{{sfn|Simms and Erwin|2021|loc=450}}

In concert music, [[Luciano Berio]] quotes the rising orchestral chords Berg uses in the word painting of Wozzeck's drowning alongside other musical depictions of water in [[Sinfonia (Berio)|''Sinfonia'']] (1968–1969).<ref name="Perchard, Graham, Rutherford-Johnson, and Rogers 2022">{{cite book |author-last1=Perchard |author-first1=Tom |author-last2=Graham |author-first2=Stephen |author-last3=Rutherford-Johnson |author-first3=Tim |author-last4=Rogers |author-first4=Holly |title=Twentieth-Century Music in the West: An Introduction |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-63889-0 |publication-place=Cambridge |publication-date=2022 |pages=92}}</ref> [[Luigi Nono]]'s concert fragments from his opera ''[[Al gran sole carico d'amore]]'' may follow the model of Berg's ''Wozzeck'' Fragments (and ''Lulu'' Symphony).<ref name="Zenck 1999">{{cite book |author-last=Zenck |author-first=Martin |editor-last=Schäfer |editor-first=Thomas |chapter=Luigi Nono, Alban Berg: Die musikalische Dramaturgie der konzertanten Fassungen der 'Opern' ''Al gran sole carico d'amore'', ''Wozzeck'' und ''Lulu'' |title=Luigi Nono: Aufbruch in Grenzbereiche |language=German |publisher=Pfau |isbn=978-3-89727-079-4 |publication-place=Saarbrücken |publication-date=1999 |pages=44–52}}</ref>

Composer and lyricist [[Stephen Sondheim]], in creating the 1979 musical ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'', drew on Berg's portrayal of an antihero and tightly structured integration of music and drama.<ref name="Lawson-Peebles 2023">{{cite book |author-last=Lawson-Peebles |author-first=Robert |editor-last1=Gordon |editor-first1=Robert |editor-last2=Jubin |editor-first2=Olaf |chapter=From Fleet Street to Broadway and Back: Stages in the Career of ''Sweeney Todd'' |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-090974-1 |publication-place=Oxford |publication-date=2023 |pages=677}}</ref>

==Other arrangements==
Besides Stein's arrangement,{{sfn|Simms|1996|p=36}} [[John Rea (composer)|John Rea]]'s arrangement is for 22 singers and 21 instrumental parts.<ref name=UE>{{cite web|url=http://www.universaledition.com/Alban-Berg/komponisten-und-werke/komponist/51/werk/6746|title=Alban Berg – ''Wozzeck'' – Reduzierte Fassung (21 instrumente) – John Rea|publisher=[[Universal Edition]]|access-date=9 December 2010}}</ref>

==Recordings==

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Year !! Wozzeck !! Marie !! Doktor !! Hauptmann !! Andres !! Margret !! Tambourmajor !! Chorus and Orchestra !! Conductor !! Label / Notes
|-
| 1949 || Heinrich Nillius || [[Suzanne Danco]] || [[Otakar Kraus]] || [[Gwynn Parry Jones|Parry Jones]] || Frank Vroons || [[Mary Jarred]] || [[Walter Widdop]] || [[BBC Chorus]] and [[BBC Symphony Orchestra|Symphony Orchestra]] || [[Adrian Boult]] || SOMM Ariadne (radio broadcast, [[Royal Albert Hall]], issued 2023)
|-
| 1951 || [[Mack Harrell]] || [[Eileen Farrell]] || Ralph Herbert || Joseph Mordino (Soldat, Idiot) || [[David Lloyd (tenor)|David Lloyd]] || [[Edwina Eustis Dick|Edwina Eustis]] || [[Frederick Jagel]] || [[New York Philharmonic]] || [[Dimitri Mitropoulos]] || Columbia (FCX 157–158)
|-
| 1955 || [[Tito Gobbi]] || [[Dorothy Dow]] || [[Italo Tajo]] || [[Hugues Cuénod]] || [[Petre Munteanu]] || Maria Teresa Mandalari || [[Mirto Picchi]] || RAI Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Rome || [[Nino Sanzogno]] || RAI / Myto (sung in Italian)
|-
| 1965 || [[Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau]] || [[Evelyn Lear]] || [[Karl-Christian Kohn]] || [[Gerhard Stolze]] || [[Fritz Wunderlich]] || Alice Oelke || Helmut Melchert || Chorus and Orchestra of the [[Deutsche Oper Berlin]] || [[Karl Böhm]] || Deutsche Grammophon – [[8th Annual Grammy Awards|1966]] [[Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording]]
|-
| 1966 || [[Walter Berry (bass-baritone)|Walter Berry]] || [[Isabel Strauss]] || Karl Dönch || Albert Weikenmeier || Richard van Vrooman || Ingeborg Lasser || [[Fritz Uhl]] || Chorus and Orchestra of the [[Paris Opera]] || [[Pierre Boulez]] || Columbia – [[10th Annual Grammy Awards|1968]] Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording{{efn|The set included a bonus LP of Berg's "Lecture on ''Wozzeck''", read in English by [[Noël Goodwin]], with music examples conducted by Boulez.}}
|-
| 1970 || [[Toni Blankenheim]] || [[Sena Jurinac]] || [[Hans Sotin]] || [[Gerhard Unger]] || Peter Haage || Elisabeth Steiner || [[Richard Cassilly]] || Chorus of the [[Hamburg State Opera]]; [[Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg|Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra]] || [[Bruno Maderna]] || Arthaus Musik (directed by [[Rolf Liebermann]])
|-
| 1979 || [[Eberhard Waechter]] || [[Anja Silja]] || [[Alexander Malta]] || [[Heinz Zednik]] || [[Horst Laubenthal]] || Gertrude Jahn || [[Hermann Winkler (tenor)|Hermann Winkler]] || Wiener Staatsopernchor; [[Vienna Philharmonic]] || [[Christoph von Dohnányi]] || Decca
|-
| 1987 || [[Franz Grundheber]] || [[Hildegard Behrens]] || [[Aage Haugland]] || [[Heinz Zednik]] || [[Philip Langridge]] || Anna Gonda || {{ill|Walter Raffeiner|de}} || Wiener Staatsopernchor; [[Vienna Philharmonic]] || [[Claudio Abbado]] || Deutsche Grammophon
|-
| 1994 || [[Franz Grundheber]] || [[Waltraud Meier]] || Günter von Kannen || [[Graham Clark (tenor)|Graham Clark]] || [[Endrik Wottrich]] || Dalia Schaechter || Mark Baker || Chorus and Children's Choir of the [[Deutsche Oper Berlin]]; [[Staatskapelle Berlin]] || [[Daniel Barenboim]] || [[Teldec]]
|-
| 2003 || [[Andrew Shore]] || [[Josephine Barstow]] || Clive Bayley || Stuart Kale || Peter Bronder || [[Jean Rigby]] || [[Alan Woodrow]] || [[Philharmonia Orchestra]] || [[Paul Daniel]] || Chandos (Chan 3094; sung in English)
|-
| 2006 || Franz Hawlata || [[Angela Denoke]] || Johann Tilli || Hubert Delamboye || Robert McPherson || [[Vivian Tierney]] || [[Reiner Goldberg]] || Vivaldi Chorus; IPSI; Petits Cantors de Catalunya; Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del [[Liceu]] || [[Sebastian Weigle]] || Opus Arte (directed by [[Calixto Bieito]])
|-
| 2017 || [[Roman Trekel]] || [[Anne Schwanewilms]] || [[Nathan Berg]] || Marc Molomot || Robert McPherson || [[Katherine Ciesinski]] || Gordon Gietz || [[Houston Grand Opera]] Children's Chorus; [[Shepherd School of Music]]; [[Houston Symphony]] || [[Hans Graf]] || Naxos
|}

==Film adaptation==
The [[Hamburg State Opera]]'s 1970 production was filmed at a deserted castle for director {{ill|Joachim Hess (director)|de|3=Joachim Hess (Schauspieler)|lt=Joachim Hess}}'s 1972 TV film ''Wozzeck'', broadcast on [[Norddeutscher Rundfunk]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Berg: Wozzeck, 1970/Hamburg DVD |url=https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-13849/ |first=Robert |last=Levine |work=Classics Today}}</ref>

==See also==
* The [[Austria-Hungary|Hungarian-Austrian]] writer [[Andreas Latzko]]'s 1917 novella ''{{lang|de|Heimkehr}}'' (''Homecoming'') from ''{{ill|Menschen im Krieg|de}}'' (''People in War'') depicts a humiliated veteran, unable to marry and driven to murder.<ref name="Šmidrkal, Cole, Leidinger, Kučera, Walleczek-Fritz, and Šustrová 2024">{{cite book |author-last1=Šmidrkal |author-first1=Václav |author-last2=Cole |author-first2=Laurence |author-last3=Leidinger |author-first3=Hannes |author-last4=Kučera |author-first4=Rudolf |author-last5=Walleczek-Fritz |author-first5=Julia |author-last6=Šustrová |author-first6=Radka  |chapter=Introduction |series=Austrian and Habsburg Studies |volume=25 |title=Vanquished and Victorious: World War I Veterans in Austria and Czechoslovakia, 1918–1938 |url=https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/SmidrkalVanquished |language=English |others=General editor, Howard Louthan; sponsor, Austrian Science Fund |edition=Open access |publication-place=New York |publisher=Berghahn Books |publication-date=2024 |pages=1–2 |isbn=978-1-80539-638-3 |doi=10.3167/9781805397748 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250901005450/https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/SmidrkalVanquished |doi-access=free |archive-date=1 September 2025 |access-date=29 December 2025}}</ref>

==References==
===Notes===
{{notelist|45em}}

===Citations===
{{reflist|20em}}

===Bibliography===
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Adorno and Berg|2005}}|reference=[[Theodor W. Adorno|Adorno, Theodor W.]] and Alban Berg. 2005. ''Correspondence 1925–1935'', ed. Henri Lonitz, trans. Wieland Hoban. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press. {{ISBN|978-0-7456-2336-8}}. (Trans. of ''Briefwechsel 1925–1935''. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997.)}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Alegant|2010}}|reference=Alegant, Brian. 2010. ''The Twelve-tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola''. Vol. 76, Eastman Studies in Music, sen. ed. [[Ralph P. Locke]]. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. {{ISBN|978-1-58046-325-6}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Barnouw|1999}}|reference=[[Dagmar Barnouw|Barnouw, Dagmar]]. 1999. "''Wiener Moderne'' and the Tensions of Modernism". ''Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School'', ed. Bryan R. Simms, 73–128. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29604-8}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Beaumont|2010}}|reference=[[Antony Beaumont|Beaumont, Antony]]. 2010. "Berg and the Orchestra". ''Alban Berg and His World'', ed. Christopher Hailey, 133–162. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-691-14855-7}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-0-691-14856-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Busch|2010}}|reference=Busch, Regina. 2010. "A Descriptive Overview of Berg's ''Night/Nocturne''". ''Alban Berg and His World'', intro. Regina Busch, ed., trans, and cmt. Christopher Hailey, 91–132. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-691-14855-7}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-0-691-14856-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Deathridge|2005}}|reference=[[John Deathridge|Deathridge, John]]. 2005. "Wagner and beyond". ''The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera'', ed. Mervyn Cooke, 14–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-78009-4}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-0-521-78393-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Fisher|2000}}|reference=Fisher, Burton D. 2000. ''Macbeth''. Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series. Miami: Opera Journeys Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1-930841-10-9}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Franklin|2024}}|reference=Franklin, Peter. 2024. ''Britten Experienced: Modernism, Musicology, and Sentiment''. London and New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-1-032-66660-0}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-1-032-66663-1}} (ebk). {{ISBN|978-1-032-66664-8}} (pbk). {{doi|10.4324/9781032666631}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Görner|2020}}|reference={{ill|Rüdiger Görner|lt=Görner, Rüdiger|de|Rüdiger Görner|display=1}}. 2020. ''Kokoschka: The Untimely Modernist'', trans. Debra S. Marmor and Herbert A. Danner. London: Haus Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1-912208-82-1}} (ebk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Griffel|2018}}|reference=[[Margaret Ross Griffel|Griffel, Margaret Ross]]. 2018. "A Brief History of Operas in German". Vol. 1, ''Operas in German: A Dictionary'', ed. Margaret Ross Griffel, xv–xxvi. London: Rowman & Littlefield. {{ISBN|978-1-44-224797-0}} (ebk). {{ISBN|978-1-44-224796-3}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Hailey|2010}}|reference=Hailey, Christopher. 2010. "Berg's Worlds". ''Alban Berg and His World'', ed. Christopher Hailey, 3–32. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-691-14855-7}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-0-691-14856-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{cite book|last=Hall|first=Patricia|year=2011|title=Berg's Wozzeck|series=Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure, and Interpretation|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-534261-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ccgGgFN-F8C}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Headlam|1996}}|reference=Headlam, David J. 1996. ''The Music of Alban Berg''. Composers of the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-300-06400-1}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Ho|2011}}|reference=Ho, Allan B. and Dmitry Feofanov. 2011, rev 2014. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20230315221907/https://www.siue.edu/~aho/ShostakovichWars/SW.pdf The Shostakovich Wars]''.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Jarman|1989a}}|reference=Jarman, Douglas. 1989. ''Alban Berg:'' Wozzeck. Cambridge Opera Handbook Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-24151-9}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Jarman|1989b}}|reference=Jarman, Douglas (ed.). 1989. ''The Berg Companion''. New York: Macmillan. {{ISBN|978-0-333-42718-7}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Jarman|2010}}|reference=Jarman, Douglas. 2010. "'Remembrance of things that are to come': Some Reflections on Berg's Palindromes". ''Alban Berg and His World'', ed. Christopher Hailey, 195–222. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-691-14855-7}} (hbk). {{ISBN|978-0-691-14856-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|John|1990}}|reference=John, Nicholas (ed.). 1990. Wozzeck'' – Alban Berg''. [[English National Opera]] Guide Series, Vol. 42. London and New York: John Calder and Riverrun. {{ISBN|978-0-7145-4201-0}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Perle|1980}}|reference=[[George Perle|Perle, George]]. 1980. ''The Operas of Alban Berg, Vol. I: Wozzeck.'' Berkeley: University of California Press. {{ISBN|978-0-520-06617-5}}.}}
*{{cite book|last=Pople|first=Anthony|author-link=Anthony Pople|title=The Cambridge Companion to Berg|series=[[Cambridge Companions to Music]]|date=24 April 1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0521563747|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani0000unse_o7e7}}
* {{cite book|last=Ross|first=Alex|author-link=Alex Ross (music critic)|title=[[The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century]]|year=2008|publisher=Picador|location=New York|isbn=978-0-312-42771-9|edition=1st Picador}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Shreffler|1999}}|reference=Shreffler, Anne C. 1999. "Anton Webern". ''Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School'', ed. Bryan R. Simms, 251–314. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29604-8}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Schroeder|1999}}|reference=Schroeder, David. 1999. "Alban Berg". ''Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School'', ed. Bryan R. Simms, 185–250. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29604-8}}.}}
* {{cite book|last=Simms|first=Bryan R.|year=1996|title=Alban Berg: A Guide to Research|publisher=Routledge}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Simms|1999a}}|reference=Simms, Bryan R. 1999. "Introduction". ''Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School'', ed. Bryan R. Simms, xi–xiv. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29604-8}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Simms|1999b}}|reference=Simms, Bryan R. 1999. "Arnold Schoenberg". ''Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School'', ed. Bryan R. Simms, 129–184. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29604-8}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Simms and Erwin|2021}}|reference=Simms, Bryan R. and Charlotte Erwin. 2021. ''Berg''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-093144-5}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Stewart|1991}}|reference=Stewart, John Lincoln. 1991. ''Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. {{ISBN|978-0-520-07014-1}} (hbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Walsh|2001}}|reference=[[Stephen Walsh (writer)|Walsh, Stephen]]. 2001. "Alban Berg" and "Emil Petrovics". In ''The New Penguin Opera Guide'', ed. [[Amanda Holden (writer)|Amanda Holden]]. New York: Penguin Putnam. {{ISBN|0-14-029312-4}}.}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* Bailey Puffett, Kathryn. 1997. "Berg's aphoristic pieces". ''[[Cambridge Companions to Music|The Cambridge Companion to Berg]]'', ed. [[Anthony Pople]], 83–110. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-1-139-82807-9}}.
* Bonds, Mark Edward (June 2020). {{"'}}''Wozzeck''{{'}}s Worst Hours': Alban Berg's Presentation Copy of ''Wozzeck'' to [[Eduard Steuermann]]". ''[[Notes (journal)|Notes]]'', 76(4), 527–534. {{JSTOR|27079692}}
* [[István Deák|Deák, István]]. 1992. ''Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-504506-2}}.
* [[Pieter Judson|Judson, Pieter M]]. 1996. ''Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914''. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. {{ISBN|978-0-472-10740-7}}.
* Mulej, Oskar. 2024. ''Liberalism after the Habsburg Monarchy, 1918–1935: National Liberal Heirs in the Czech Lands, Austria, and Slovenia''. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan. {{ISBN|978-3-031-64478-8}}.
* [https://www.nytimes.com/1920/01/22/archives/no-wives-for-soldiers-marriage-forbidden-under-proposed-austrian.html|"No Wives for Soldiers: Marriage Forbidden Under Proposed Austrian Law."] ''The New York Times'', 22 January, 1920.

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Wozzeck|''Wozzeck''}}
* {{IMSLP|work=Wozzeck, Op.7 (Berg, Alban)|cname=''Wozzeck''}}
* {{YouTube|kXBVu1s-5E0|How does Berg use Sprechgesang in ''Wozzeck''? (The Royal Opera)}}
* [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/1187F7E1/2 Photos of the Berg family, including at the Berghof]
* [https://opera-inside.com/wozzeck-by-alban-berg-the-opera-guide-and-synopsis/ Portrait of the opera in the online opera guide opera-inside.com]

{{Alban Berg}}
{{Woyzeck}}
{{Second Viennese School}}
{{OlivierAward OperaProduction}}

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