Berg was born in Vienna on February 9, 1885. He received no formal training in music until the age of 19, when he met the composer Arnold Schoenberg, who became his friend and teacher. Berg adopted Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition—in which every melody and harmony in a piece is drawn from a particular arrangement of twelve tones—for many of his later works.
Berg's early compositions included works for piano, string quartet, and orchestra. But his masterpiece is the opera Wozzeck, which had its premiere in Berlín in 1925. Based on an 1837 play by German dramatist Georg Büchner about a real-life criminal case, the opera was a worldwide success.
Berg died in Vienna on December 24, 1935, before completing his second opera, Lulu. The work, his only twelve-tone opera, was first performed in 1937. A completed version based on Berg's manuscripts had its premiere in Paris in 1979.
Of Berg's instrumental works, the most important is probably his last completed work, a concerto for violin and orchestra (1935). Also notable are Three Pieces for Orchestra (1914-15), Chamber Concerto (1925) for violin, piano, and 13 wind instruments, and Lyric Suite (1926) for string quartet.
