Oh. We are in 20th Century.

Duh.

After the Anschluss, Alban Berg, whose music was considered "decadent" and "degenerate" by the Nazi's, left for Great-Britain. He became a British subject in 1946. By that time, he had completed the score of his opera Lulu. In the early 1950s his opera 1984 (based on the novel by George Orwell) was premiered and received considerable critical and public acclaim but this moderate success was overshadowed by the British premiere and success of Gian Carlo Menotti's cold war opera The Consul. After Menotti's reputation declined, Berg's opera was re-discovered in the 1960s. Today, it is a modern classic and no one has ever dared to use Orwell's novel again for an opera. Although Alban Berg used serial techniques, he was very critical of the post-war generation of serial composers. His most important work after 1984 was the symphony that was commissioned by the BBC in 1971. Although the symphony is not a programmatic piece, the three movements were loosely based on poems by Thomas Lovell Beddoes. During his last years, his style became more and more economical. Alban Berg died in September 1974, just a week after completing his Piano Concertino dedicated to John Ogdon.

Berg's postwar English pupils included John Rutter (b.1945), whose startlingly innovative applications of Berg's twelve-tone technique to electronic composition put him in the forefront of the international avant-garde.

Towards the end of his life, Berg and Schonberg healed the rift that had developed between them in the 1960s and collaborated on a major religious work for the West End, 'Alban Berg and Schonberg's Missa Igon'.

Despite claims from a jealous rival, Andrea Loydia von Weber, that it was plagiarised from Madam Butterfly this was a huge success and ran for over 4,000 performances. Unfortunately it then had to be closed by the Lord Chamberlain after one critic pointed out in a ferocious denunciation 'Said Who?' in the fanzine 'Up Tempo!' that it appeared to contain elements of the worst form of orientalism. Stung by this criticism Berg fell into sad decline and barely wrote another twelve notes after that. He ended his years in the Variety Club Twilight Home for Distressed Entertainers in Godalming where one of his few solaces was sharing showbiz anecdotes with Danny La Rue and Winifred Attwell.

hh, it's a very fine box: Abbado's Wozzeck and Boulez's Lulu are certainly things you should have. And the Abbado orchestral pieces (including of course the Orchestral Pieces) with the Wieners are fantastic.

Other amazing recordings: the COE's Kammerkonzert on Teldec with Holliger is great (although I haven't heard the new EIC/Boulez).