My DMA dissertation will explore the use of twelve-tone technique by Alban Berg (1885-1935) in the 1925 revised version of his art song Close My Eyes. Berg composed a solo art song with the same title in 1909 and 1925, Schliesse mir die Augen beide, based on Theodor Storm’s poem by the same name (see Appendix). Berg’s early compositions, as evidenced by the 1909 first version of Close My Eyes, clearly exhibit a Romantic inclination. However, as one of the key figures of the Second Viennese School, after studying with Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Berg began to explore and apply twelve-tone techniques to his music. Unlike Schoenberg and Anton Webern (1883-1945), he did not fully replicate their approach to serial music but instead retained his own individuality and style. I will start from this perspective and conduct an in-depth study of Berg’s initial exploration of twelve tones.
Zhang Han-ting (2025) studied this question.