The Cambridge Companion to Berg

If you have seen earlier volumes in this excellent series, or reviews of them in these pages, you will by now know that each one deals with either a musical instrument or a composer. The “life and works” formula is perfectly all right for a composer like Alban Berg whose music, though it can perfectly well stand by itself, uses a number of private references which, when decoded, help the careful listener to a closer understanding of his message. In this respect Berg resembles Schumann or Shostakovich, and one wonders what he would have made of Finnegan’s Wake.

The contributions...