Secret Programs with Twelve Tones, 1925–27

Abstract

Chapter 7 covers the years 1925–27, the period in which Berg first began composing with a version of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method. His first such work was the song “Schließe mir die Augen beide,” for which he reused the poetic text of an earlier song. Berg continued to apply and to refine his twelve-tone method in the Lyric Suite for string quartet and in all of his later works. The method ultimately became his alone, only remotely resembling that of Schoenberg. Berg also faced a midlife crisis during these years. In 1925 he fell in love with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a Prague industrialist and sister of the writer Franz Werfel. The “affair” was largely a fantasy on Berg’s part, although it inspired him to compose and to encode aspects of his encounter with Hanna Fuchs using ciphers and numbers. His Lyric Suite for string quartet made extensive use of such symbols.