Born in Vienna, Austria on February 9, 1885;
died in Vienna, Austria on December 24, 1935

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was born in Vienna on Feb. 9, 1885. His father was a salesman in the export business and his mother was the daughter of a Viennese citizen.

Initially inclined to become a writer, Berg began to teach himself music as a teenager and completed his first compositions at age fifteen. After completing his studies in 1904 he entered the Viennese government office, headed for a career as a civil servant. 

At this time Arnold Schoenberg was living in Vienna and teaching theory and composition. Having seen an advertisement for Schoenberg's services, Berg’s brother urged the musically talented Alban to study with him. Schoenberg accepted Berg as a student and taught him the principles of traditional music: harmony and counterpoint. Berg soon gave up his bookkeeping job and dedicated himself full-time to composition.

Between 1915-1918, Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian Army, beginning work on the opera that would become Wozzeck during a period of leave in 1917. The opera was first performed in 1925, after which Berg began work on his second great opera, Lulu.

Despite increasing difficulties imposed by Nazi cultural ideology, which denounced modernist works as well as Jewish associations (such as Berg’s friendship with Arnold Schoenberg), Berg continued to develop the orchestration for Lulu until his death by blood poisoning in 1935. In time, Berg’s works, along with those of Schoenberg and Webern, would come to be known as belonging to the Second Viennese School—Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven having made up the First.