BERG: LULU

MS 5561
MS Short Title BERG: LULU
Text Alban Berg: Lulu, act 2, scene 1: Ich bin jung!
Description MS in German on paper, Wien, February 1935, 1 p 29x20 cm, 9 bars noted on two systems of four staves each, dedication to Dr. Alfred Kalmus, signed.
Provenance 1. Dr. Alfred Kalmus, publisher in Wien (1935-); 2. Hans Redlich, musicologist (-1968); 3. George Perle, Berg scholar and theorist of 12-tone music (1968-2009); 4.Sotheby's 7.12.2015:144.
Commentary Alban Berg (1885-1935), Second Viennese School composer who combined late romanticism with Schönberg's 12-tone technique. Lulu was his second great opera after Wozzeck, composed 1929-1935 and left unfinished after his death on Christmas Eve 1935, with most of the 3rd act in short score only. Lulu's act one and two were premiered in Zürich 1937. His widow, Helene Berg, asked Schönberg to orchestrate act 3, who however thought it too cumbersome, and Helen Berg forbade anyone else to do it in the following 40 years. Upon her death in 1976 Lulu was completed by Friedrich Certha, and the complete opera was published and first performed in 1979. Dr. Alfred Kalmus (1889-1972) was the owner of Universal-Edition in Wien, which published Lulu in two acts in 1937.
Place of origin Vienna, Austria
Dates February 1935 AD