Berg, Strindberg, and D Minor¹

Berg's fusion of tonality and atonality is a notable feature of his musical language, and the key of D minor appears with surprising regularity. D minor can be found in various of his early unpublished piano sonatas, in two songs of Op. 2, the Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, the important final interlude in Wozzeck, and the concert aria Der Wein. In a letter to his wife Helene dated 16 July 1909, Berg spoke of this key in a context which gave it clear extramusical significance, referring to "the most glorious D-minor chords of your soul."² An understanding of the significance for Berg of D minor can open some fascinating interpretive possibilities for the works which use this key, and indirectly, for other works as well. D minor appears to have had strong symbolic and personal significance for him, and in order to shed light on what that may have been, it is instructive to consider a literary treatment of this key by a writer particularly admired by Berg. The writer in question is August Strindberg, and Berg regarded him, along with Schoenberg, Karl Kraus, and Goethe, as an ideal artistic model—indeed, as nothing short of a literary god. This enthusiasm was shared by Schoenberg and Webern, particularly in the years 1910-1915. All three had plans to set works of Strindberg to music, although only Webern actually followed through on this, using a fragment from the Ghost Sonata as the text for his song "Schein mir's, als ich sah die Sonne" (Op. 12, No.3). While the discussion of D minor is central to this essay, the purpose here is not to probe analytical issues such as the nature of tonal passages used by Berg. Rather, the focus is on a critical interpretation of Berg's music which can result from the comparison of the music with specific literary works or approaches.

The influence of Strindberg on writers and musicians in Vienna during the first two decades of the twentieth century should not be underestimated. Strindberg had a champion at this time in Karl Kraus, whose journal Die Fackel Berg read without fail, and whose lectures and musical evenings Berg attended whenever possible. An important factor setting Strindberg apart from the other writers admired by Berg was his use of music as the structural or aesthetic basis for some of his plays. While Strindberg drew his musical inspiration from a number of composers, the one who for him towered above all others was Beethoven, and a small number of works by Beethoven had a bearing on his plays. The three which stand out are the Piano Sonata, Op. 31, No.2 (first and third movements); the Trio, Op. 70, No.1 (second movement); and the Piano Sonata, Op. 10, No.3 (second movement). What all of these have in common is that they are in the key of D minor. Passages from the slow movement of Op. 10, No 3, are to be played between some of the scenes of To Damascus, Part I, a work in which the layout of the scenes as well as the contents of the central scene form a strict palindrome. Schoenberg at one time had planned to set this work to music, and in a letter to Berg encouraging the setting of a dramatic work, his one proviso was that Berg should avoid certain works of Strindberg, including this one, because of his own plans.³ The play Crimes and Crimes makes use of the third movement of Op. 31, No.2, and Strindberg went so far as to claim that the entire play is structured on this movement.⁴ While it is possible to see a parallel between the layout of the scenes and sonata form as it is used in this movement, there is a much more direct connection in that a passage from the beginning of the development is heard during the play. Berg was well aware of this quotation, informing Webern in 1912 that he had just read the play. After quoting Strindberg's directions for the use of measures 96-107, he writes:

I cannot, my dear friend, remember anything of this finale, and since I do not have it along, perhaps you would be so good as to tell me how the first measures and measure 96 go. This relationship of Strindberg to the music of Beethoven is of tremendous interest to me.⁵

Another play, the Ghost Sonata, is, according to Strindberg, based on Beethoven's "Ghost Trio" and "Ghost Sonata."⁶ By "Ghost Trio," he was referring to Op.70, No.1, which was called the "Gespenstertrio" during the nineteenth century because of its middle movement. The Beethoven sonata which he labels the "Ghost Sonata" is Op. 31, No.2, and here the designation is Strindberg's own. Once again, Berg was well aware of Strindberg's epithets. Strindberg had used them in a letter to his German translator, Emil Schering, and these remarks are prominently underscored with pencil markings in Berg's own copy of the correspondence. In 1925, Berg sent a copy of this volume of letters to Schoenberg as a birthday gift.⁷

While Strindberg lacked finesse as a musician, he nevertheless played the piano well enough to be able to fumble his way through Beethoven's sonatas, and the evidence suggests that he spent much time doing this. He even organized regular Beethoven soirées in which skilled players such as his brother Axel could perform favorite works. In short, Strindberg's grasp of the works in question was fairly sophisticated, and to understand the significance of D minor for him, one must examine some of the details of these movements in relation to the plays with which they correspond. The key itself, of course, had its own history of association, and Strindberg undoubtedly had at least some inkling of this. In the view of one anonymous nineteenth-century writer, ghosts must surely speak in the key of D minor.⁸ In any event, various nineteenth-century writers agreed that this is a melancholy, gloomy, and lamenting key, and a favorite example was Beethoven's use of it in Egmont to represent the dying Clärchen.⁹ However, given Strindberg's fascination with certain movements by Beethoven, his perception of D minor went well beyond this type of extramusical association. A striking feature which all of these Beethoven movements have in common is that at some point C major emerges in an important way. In the first movement of Op. 31, No.2, C major stands out in the rolled, adagio chord at measures 7-8 (Example 1); it returns in the development at measures 112-14; and the chord of measures 7-8 returns at measures 152-53 as the launching point for the second recitative: In the finale, C major is heard at measure 35, and for the first time one feels here that the meter is indeed triple rather than the compound duple suggested earlier in the movement, at measures 9-13 and 17-21 in particular (Example 2).

 

Example 1.

 

Example 2.

 

The slow movement of Op. 10, No.3, is one of the most powerful movements of all Beethoven's early works, and the first modulation, at measures 12-13, is to C major. Furthermore, as the movement proceeds, there are other strong leanings toward C. But most striking of all is the second movement of the Trio, Op. 70, No.1, in which C major is not only the first new key but stands as a key of almost equal weight to the home key of D minor. In this movement Beethoven moves to C major at measure 23 and stays there for over twenty-five measures. Later in the movement, at measure 72, C major is again visited.

Concerning key associations, no two keys could be further apart; one is regarded as decidedly dark while the other seems festive and bright—associated literally with "light" as Haydn uses it in The Creation. But in spite of the polarity, D minor moves to C very easily, since D, as the supertonic of C, is a powerful dominant preparation in the key of C. Indeed, in the works mentioned, Beethoven makes the modulation as simple as this. As a pair, then, D minor and C major may both repel and attract each other.

The levels of musical treatment in the plays are many, involving form, rhythm, tempo, and tonality. The plays themselves are complex viewings of the human condition, seen very much through the autobiographical eye of the playwright. The parallels between his autobiographical writings such as Inferno, Legends, or The Blue Book and the plays are very close, as the plays—particularly after Inferno—arise directly from his own attempts to grapple with issues such as guilt, madness, faith, or suffering. Consistent throughout his plays is a sense of enormous struggle, even in the more subdued chamber plays of which the Ghost Sonata is one. The forces in conflict vary from work to work, and may include guilt and innocence, good and evil, reality and illusion, life and death, male and female, faith and skepticism, to mention but a few of the more potent ones. The antagonism which results from the interaction of these opposites is experienced constantly by Strindberg himself, and in fact is seen by him as a necessity. His deepest conviction was that the clash of antagonistic forces allowed a transcendence to a higher plane; indeed, this transcendence could not occur without the conflict. After the Inferno crisis, Strindberg was devoutly Christian, although he could not accept the notion of a savior carrying the burden of Strindberg's guilt. The mystical transcendence which he sought was possible only insofar as he experienced the full impact of his own guilt. Living and reliving such powerful conflicts at every moment left Strindberg perpetually at the brink of madness, and he exalted madness itself, raising it to a pinnacle. In To Damascus, Part II, the Stranger, who is Everyman seeking the answers to difficult questions, reads in a book he is carrying, "madmen are the only sane men; for they see, hear and feel what is invisible, inaudible and intangible."¹⁰ The central scene of the palindromic Part I, the only scene which does not recur, takes place in an asylum, and it is here that the Stranger most clearly sees his goal. Strindberg saw his own anguish progressively separating him more from his fellow men, and in this respect he was particularly sympathetic to the suffering of Beethoven. In The Blue Book, Strindberg wrote that Beethoven was "literally tormented out of life," and "thus, well prepared, he turned his back on life, and departed from all without missing anything."¹¹ Berg had especially high regard for this work, which he confirmed in a letter to Helene in 1909:

Personally I think The Blue Book, though it may be the weakest of Strindberg's great works, is also the most interesting; it certainly has some flashes of genius in it. A man like Strindberg, who has written such wonderful autobiographical works, . . . such a man is obviously one of the most remarkable personalities of our time.¹²

Clearly defined polarities are very much evident in the plays already noted. In Crimes and Crimes a playwright, Maurice, encounters the full impact of guilt when he not only abandons his mistress for the mistress of his closest friend, but wishes, with his new lover, for the death of his former mistress's child. The child in fact dies and he is presumed guilty by persons around him and indeed by himself. When it is ultimately determined that the child died of natural causes, his sense of guilt is not diminished. In a final twist he finds religion, but no one in the audience imagines that he will find atonement. Like Strindberg, he will need to learn to carry his own burden. The music from the finale of Op. 31, No.2, is heard in Act 2, Scene 1, and both times it occurs it reinforces an aspect of polarity. Maurice and Henriette are together in a café, and someone is practicing the sonata in an adjoining room. The first time we hear it, Henriette makes the following observation about Maurice's recent stage success: "At this moment, when you're the most envied man in Paris, you just sit here brooding. Perhaps you have a bad conscience. . . ."¹³ Indeed he does, and his guilt is represented by the image of a ghost which he unsuccessfully attempts to dispel. The second time, Henriette makes the following observation about her former lover, Maurice's friend: "The purity of his nature attracted me like some beautiful forgotten memory of childhood, but there was a great deal about his person that offended my eye" (p. 78). Then, in one of Strindberg's most enduring themes, man and woman begin to enter into a hermaphroditic fusion, as Maurice says:

It's beautiful. It's as if I were inside your skin, as if my vigil-worn body were recast in your form. I can feel it being moulded. But I am getting a new soul too, new thoughts, and here, my own breast is filling the curve which yours has left (pp. 79-80).

The music, however, interrupts his thought, as he grumbles: "What a monster to sit there all night practicing the piano! I'm sick of it" (p. 80). This time, the music is like a ghost, bringing back guilt and preventing his hermaphroditic musing.

In the Ghost Sonata, the ghosts or reminders of guilt are once again major antagonists. Two dead characters, the Milkmaid and the Consul, are brought to life to torment the conscience of their murderer, the old man Hummel. While guilt is a catalytic force in this play, the primary polarity concerns reality and illusion. Hummel's distorted view of reality is designed to bolster his own vampire-like purposes, and his defrocking is accomplished by the Mummy, another character trapped somewhere between life and death. Hummel thrives on the destruction of the life around him, and when he is finally exposed, some retribution is gained when he is told to take—and obliges in taking—his own life. The other main character is a student who, at the beginning of the play, has just saved the life of an infant. In extreme contrast to Hummel, the student is young, honest, and life-affirming—an unlikely guest at the ghost supper in the center of the work in which the characters who have lost human or earthly qualities destroy each other. He is, indeed, like C major in a D-minor sonata.

The type of polarity which one finds in Strindberg's plays is placed in a formal or symmetrical context, as the works in question are all more or less palindromic in shape. Strindberg was by no means the originator of this type of approach, and his own apparent source was one which was particularly close to Berg. The origin of the influence was Goethe, whose treatment of polarity was directly related to his understanding of scientific phenomena. Goethe's most extended scientific work, the Farbenlehre (Theory of Color), gives the clearest outline of his notion of polarity, and he leaves no doubt as to the association of this theory with aesthetic issues. A number of Goethe's works in other areas of science develop a similar approach, and one of the most important of these concerns the morphology of plants. Strindberg had all of these works by Goethe in his personal library,¹⁴ and in fact wrote at length about the same issues. While some discussion appears in works such as The Blue Book, more extended essays can be found in his Natur-Trilogie which was published in German in 1921. Some of the pertinent essays here include "Die Farben der Blumen," "Sonne und Sonnenblume," "Pflanzenpsychologie," and "Goethes Chemie." A fundamental difference between the two writers concerning science was that Goethe wished to be taken seriously by the scientific community, while Strindberg was prepared to go much further in the direction of alchemy. Berg's interest in these matters can be confirmed in a number of ways. In 1929, he sent Webern a copy of Goethe's Farbenlehre, which Webern, writing back to Berg, regarded as "the most sublime book of all time." Berg had noted certain passages in the introduction, and Webern was delighted that Berg shared his own views on this work.¹⁵ Berg's own copy of the Farbenlehre, however, is completely without annotations, suggesting that he probably did not share Webern's passion for this book. Knowing the intensity of Webern's veneration for this work, Berg's comments appear to signify more about friendship than subscription. For Berg it was literature rather than science which sparked his imagination. He was well aware of the implications of the Farbenlehre for Goethe's literary works such as Die Wahlverwandschaften (Elective Affinities), and the balance of symmetry and polarity in a work such as this was of genuine interest to him.

Goethe's view of polarity is best summarized in his own essay on this subject:

Whatever appears in the world must divide if it is to appear at all. What has been divided seeks itself again, can return to itself and reunite. This happens in a lower sense when it merely intermingles with its opposite, combines with it; here the phenomenon is nullified or at least neutralized. However, the union may occur in a higher sense if what has been divided is first intensified; then in the union of the intensified halves it will produce a third thing, something new, higher, unexpected.¹⁶

In the Farbenlehre, colors are seen in relation to an interaction of extreme opposites. The extremes here are black and white, and most closely related to these are blue and yellow. At the lowest level of fusion one gets green from the combination of these, but if intensification has occurred, Goethe postulates that red will result. Red, then, originates from an interaction of opposites, and is the "third thing, something new, higher, unexpected."

In 1820, Goethe wrote a tract on "Entoptic Colors" which added an important refinement to his theory. Here he is concerned with mirror images, and outlines his position in the following way: "the entoptic opposition is also a physiological one. . . thus the object—without regard to its relative darkness or brightness—will, like a ghostly image, stand reversed in the eye."¹⁷ That this applied to life and literature, there was no question in Goethe's mind. For both Strindberg and Berg there were extraordinary aesthetic possibilities here. One can imagine Strindberg's delight in finding scientific and artistic models of opposition within a symmetrical shape where the mirror image is described as "ghostly."

What begins to emerge from these considerations is that symmetries or palindromes may be much more complex than they initially appear. Clearly the purpose of these is not a general, unifying one. They are conceived in opposition, and lead us in poetic terms to a higher level which is the intensified fusion of opposites. The magnificent arrival at the center of a palindrome should invoke awareness of much more than a sense of symmetry. Consistent with the literary treatment of these by Goethe and other writers, the possibility is also suggested for music that mirror images may encompass an interaction of conflicting forces.

In the plays of Strindberg, the most vivid application of this principle occurs in To Damascus, Part I. There are eight scenes leading to the central asylum scene, and the following scenes then proceed in reverse order. There are five acts, but the symmetry is broken by placing one less scene in Act 4 than Act 2, thereby placing the asylum not in the center of Act 3: Goethe's colors are a factor, as the asylum scene is framed by the rose room scenes. In the first rose room scene, the sun is shining brightly, while the next time it is pitch dark outside. In the asylum scene, ghostly reflections of all the characters of the play are present, dressed in either black or white, or other colors. The Abbess and Confessor are each dressed in black and white, and the Stranger remarks to the Abbess: "But I seem to know them all. I see them as though in a mirror."¹⁸ The main polarity in the work is that prior to the asylum, the Stranger is a skeptic, whereas in his return through the previous "stations," he acquires faith. While the symmetry in Crimes and Crimes and the Ghost Sonata is perhaps less vividly defined, it is nevertheless present, and is again derived from polarities: guilt and innocence in Crimes, and reality and illusion in the Ghost Sonata. The musical associations with Beethoven's D minor works here suggest that for Strindberg, this key represented an extraordinary state of being, one which could embody antagonism and enact elevation to a higher level.

It is possible to go through Berg's various works which use D minor and see a similar type of fusion at work. The D-minor arrival in the final interlude of Wozzeck is clearly such an event, as we have just heard a musical summation of the torment Wozzeck has been through. But at the same time, this interlude offers a level of meaning which Wozzeck himself was unable to find, and hence gives some reason for optimism. It must, of course, be understood that in this and other cases in Berg's works, D minor is not heard as a key in the sense of Beethoven, but rather is suggested in a complex adaptation of tonality. A work in which D minor is unusually prominent, and therefore lends itself to close scrutiny, is Der Wein (Wine). The text is taken from Baudelaire's Le Vin which is part of the larger work Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil). There are five poems in Baudelaire's set, although Stefan George's translation, which was Berg's source for the text, omits one of the poems, "Le vin de l'assassin." Berg selected three of the four given by George, omitting "Le vin des chiffonniers" ("Der Wein der Bettler"). Berg then rearranged the order of the final two, so his order is "Die Seele des Weines," "Der Wein der Liebenden," and "Der Wein des Einsamen."

In keeping with the theme of Strindberg and Goethe, these poems by Baudelaire are notable representations of polarity within symmetry. In the first and last poems (in Berg's order), wine claims to bring hope to the disinherited or lonely man. Darkness and light are invoked, as well as colors, the most significant of which is red, the color of wine and vehicle for possible transcendence. Baudelaire knew Goethe's works well and was fascinated with the symbolic value of red, as we discover from his own writing such as Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris.¹⁹ Berg's thorough reading of Baudelaire in German translation assured his own knowledge of this interconnection and awareness of the potency of this image of polarity.²⁰ "Der Wein der Liebenden" is strategically placed by Berg at the center of his work for both formal and metaphorical reasons. This sonnet is deceptively optimistic, but the goal of transcendence projected by each quatrain or tercet is illusory, evidenced by the key words "feenhimmel," "leuchtende all," or "traume land." Along with hope, then, there is also a sense of impossibility, unreality, and disappointment. The seeker is here inexorably driven, and knows full well that any fulfillment will be countered by emptiness, hope will be met with despair, and communion, as we realize in "Der Wein des Einsamen," will not dispel loneliness.²¹

In the central poem of the aria, the rationale for the structure of Berg's work is given. The middle lines of "Der Wein der Liebenden," "Durch des morgens blauen kristall/ Fort in das leuchtende all" [through the blue crystal of morning, let us follow the mirage], define the search as illusory and therefore subject to despair as well as hope, and place it in a twilight state, between darkness and light. The fundamental polarity here is placed in a striking context in the following tercet, the final line of which is "Beide voll gleicher lust." The last two words, translated from the French "délire parallèle," suggest a symmetry or balance, even though the lover is referred to as "sister," adding yet another level of polarity since the relationship is couched in incestuous terms. An image of reflection is present in the word "Kristall," which was also a favorite word for Goethe when referring to mirror images. For Berg, the nature of the text left no question as to how the music should be shaped. The idea of symmetry in the text gives rise to a strict musical palindrome which has its center at measure 141, just after the completion of the text of "Der Wein der Liebenden." That polarity is a factor in this palindrome is evident in the tonal treatment of measures 112-70.

In order to recognize the musical polarity, it is necessary to return to the beginning of the work and consider the instrumental introduction as well as the tone row upon which the aria is based. At the beginning of the work the ostinato bass pattern in the contrabassoon suggests D minor (Example 3a), and this sense of tonality is strengthened by the ascending D-minor scale passages at measures 8 and 9 (Example 3b).

 

Example 3a.

 

Example 3b.

Berg DER WIEN
Copyright 1966 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission of European American Music
Distributors Corporation. sole U.S. and Canadian Agent
for Universal Edition Vienna

 

This scale reveals itself as the opening of the row, and thus gives extra structural strength to the key of D minor. Aside from D minor at measures 8 and 9, however, another tonal force is also beginning to emerge at this point, in the clarinets as well as by way of rhythmic emphasis of E and G in the ascending D-minor scale. This other force is C major, and while it is still obscure here, that changes at measure 11 where the harp gives a rapid C- major scale of an octave and a third (Example 4). Just as D minor is contained within the row, C major, as Douglas Jarman has noted, arises from a fusion of RI-5 and P-7.²²

 

Example 4.

Berg DER WIEN
Copyright 1966 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission of European American Music
Distributors Corporation. sole U.S. and Canadian Agent
for Universal Edition Vienna

 

With the return to D minor just before the entry of the voice (Example 5), we have the completion in the instrumental introduction of an apparent D minor-C major-D minor tonal plan.

 

Example 5.

Berg DER WIEN
Copyright 1966 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission of European American Music
Distributors Corporation. sole U.S. and Canadian Agent
for Universal Edition Vienna

 

This small-scale plan appears to have consequences for the work as a whole. C is once again the predominant force in the palindrome at measures 112-70, which begins and ends with a C-major chord, contains a dominant preparation for C at measure 125, and proceeds to a C pedal at measure 130. Following measure 141, of course, the process is reversed. In measure 141 (Example 6), which Berg requested that his publisher place as the central measure of the page, C again is a factor as it provides a bass voice in the brass.

 

Example 6.

Berg DER WIEN
Copyright 1966 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission of European American Music
Distributors Corporation. sole U.S. and Canadian Agent
for Universal Edition Vienna

 

With the focus on C in the palindrome, a scheme of D minor-C major-D minor is given to the entire work.

As with the Beethoven passages noted earlier, Berg's treatment of D minor involves an excursion to C. For Berg, however, C major is not a key (or tonicization) in its own right; instead, it appears to be a launching point for a force antagonistic to D minor. While this can be accomplished with C chords, scales, or pedals, there are also other possibilities of opposition in this work. H. F. Redlich draws a distinction between passages which suggest keys and figures such as tritones used in a way to undermine tonality.²³ Douglas Jarman discusses a particular tritone, -, heard at various points including measures 15-17, at the beginning of the second poem (measure 88), in the chord at measure 141, and in the final chord of the work. In Jarman's words, "these two opposing elements—the D-minor 'tonality' and the - tritone dyad—are brought together at the beginning of the work. . . and again at the very end. . . ."²⁴ This interval was of special significance for Strindberg, who was not alone in regarding it as an unnatural force, the diabolus in musica.²⁵ It is noteworthy that the passage from the finale of Beethoven's Op. 31, No. 2, quoted by Strindberg in Crimes and Crimes (measures 96-107), is dominated by the diminished seventh chord, which, of course, contains two tritones. Similarly, the second chord of the D-minor movement of the "Ghost Trio" is a diminished seventh. Further, in the slow movement of Op. 10, No.3, the modulation to C major is achieved with a dominant seventh of G (measures 13 and 15), which, of course, is a chord containing and C. In Berg's own diagram of the row of Der Wein, special emphasis is given to tritones as well as major and minor tonality.²⁶

 

Example 7.

 

There has been a tendency to regard Der Wein as an experiment toward the development of the musical language of Lulu,²⁷ rather than to give it the respect it deserves as an independent and self-contained work. When seen in the context of his knowledge of and enthusiasm for writers such as Strindberg, Baudelaire, and Goethe, a more complete picture of Berg necessarily emerges. As such, it is not difficult to see the personal significance this work may have held for Berg. Like Strindberg, he could use tonality—specifically the key of D minor—to embody conflict and provide a means of transcendence.

 

Selected Bibliography of Related Studies

Bischof, Rainer. "Versuch über die philosophischen Grundlagen von Alban Berg." In Alban Berg Studien, vol. 2, ed. Rudolf Klein, 209-15. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1981.

Goehr, Alexander. "Schoenberg and Karl Kraus: The Idea behind the Music." Music Analysis 4 (1985): 59-71.

Grew, Eva Mary. "Strindberg and Music." Musical Quarterly 19 (1933): 59-73.

Grim, William. "Das Ewig-weibliche zieht uns zurück: Berg's Lulu as Anti-Faust." Opera Journal 22/1 (1989): 21-28.

Jarvi, Raymond. "Ett drömspel: A Symphony for the Stage." Scandinavian Studies 44 (1972): 28-42.

________. "Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata and Sonata Form." Mosaic 5/4 (1972): 69-84.

Lindström, Goran. "Drama i D-moll [Strindberg's use of d minor]." Studiekamraten 44/1 (1962): 1-4.

Rode, Susanne. Alban Berg und Karl Kraus. Zur geistigen Biographie des Komponisten der "Lulu". Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988.

Schroeder, David. "Berg's Wozzeck and Strindberg's Musical Models." Opera Journal 21/1 (1988): 2-12.

Smith, Joan Allen. Schoenberg and His Circle: A Viennese Portrait. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986.

Sondrup, Steven. "Aspects of Musical Logic in Strindberg's Spöksonaten." Scandinavian Studies 53 (1981): 154-64.

________. "Strindberg's Use of Sonata Form in The Ghost Sonata: Associative-Affective Dimensions." Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Conference on Foreign Languages 30 (1979): 127-30.

Sprinchorn, Evert. Strindberg the Dramatist. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982.

Sundin, Nils-Goran. Strindberg och musiken: Brott och brott, Spöksonaten och Beethovens op. 31:2 [Strindberg and Music: Crimes and Crimes, The Ghost Sonata and Beethoven's Op. 31, No. 2]. Stockholm: Mirage, 1983.

Treitler, Leo. "The Lulu Character and the Character of Lulu." In Music and the Historical Imagination, 264-303. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

________. "Wozzeck and the Apocalypse: An Essay in Historical Criticism." Critical Inquiry (1976): 251-70.

Vincentie, M. "Wagnerism in Strindberg's The Road to Damascus." Modern Drama 5 (1962): 335-43.

Vowler, Richard. "Strindberg and Beethoven." In Växelverkan mellan skönlitteraturen och andra konstarter: Sixth International Study Conference on Scandinavian Literature, 163-82. Uppsala: Student Service, 1966.

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¹A version of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Baltimore, November 1988. Helpful comments and assistance were provided by Bruce Archibald, Dennis Farrell, Rosemary Moravec, Severine Neff, and European American Music.

²Alban Berg: Letters to His Wife, ed. Bernard Grun (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), 62.

³The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence, eds. Juliane Brand, Christopher Hailey, and Donald Harris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 117.

⁴See Evert Spinchorn, Strindberg as Dramatist (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 240.

⁵Letter, dated 29 July [1912], Handschriftensammlung, Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek MS. I.N. 185.570. My translation.

⁶See August Strindberg, Briefe an Emil Schering (Munich: Georg Müller, 1924), 203.

⁷The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence, 338. I would like to thank the Alban Berg Stiftung for placing Berg's entire personal library at my disposal.

⁸See Rita Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983), 243.

⁹Ibid., 243-44.

¹⁰The Plays of Strindberg, ed. Michael Meyer, 2 (New York: Vintage Books, 1976): 132.

¹¹Strindberg, Zones of the Spirit: A Book of Thoughts, trans. Claud Field, [En blå bok] (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913), 259.

¹²Alban Berg: Letters to His Wife, 72.

¹³Five Plays of Strindberg, trans. Elizabeth Sprigge (Garden City, N. J.: Doubleday and Company, 1960), 74.

¹⁴Hans Lindström, Strindberg och böcherna (Uppsala: TEXTgrupen, 1977), 136, 182.

¹⁵See Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of his Life and Work (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 328.

¹⁶Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Polarity," in Scientific Studies, ed. and trans. Douglas Miller (New York: Suhrkamp, 1988), 156.

¹⁷Quoted in Peter Salm, The Poem as Plant: A Biological View of Goethe's Faust (Cleveland and London: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1971), 121.

¹⁸The Plays of Strindberg, 2: 81.

¹⁹Baudelaire Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), 1206, 1222, 1224.

²⁰Berg's five volumes of Baudelaires Werke (Minden in Westf.: J. C. C. Bruns, n.d.) are among the most heavily annotated of all the books in his library.

²¹See Enid Peschel, "Love, the Intoxicating Mirage: Baudelaire's Quest for Communion in 'Le Vin des Amants,' 'La Chevelure,' and 'Harmonie du soir'," in Pre-Text, Text, Context: Essays on Nineteenth-Century French Literature (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980), 121-22.

²²Jarman, The Music of Alban Berg (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), 103.

²³H. F. Redlich, "Berg's Konzertarie 'Der Wein'," Österreichische Musik Zeitschrift 21 (1966): 290.

²⁴See Jarman, "Some Row Techniques in Alban Berg's Der Wein," Soundings 2 (1971-72): 48.

²⁵See Sprinchorn, Strindberg as Dramatist, 224.

²⁶A facsimile in Berg's hand appears in Willi Reich, Alban Berg, trans. Cornelius Cardew (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), 154.

²⁷See H. F. Redlich, Alban Berg (London: John Calder, 1957), 156, and Jarman, "Some Row Techniques in Alban Berg's Der Wein," 56.