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Composer Alban Berg (1885–1935) is best-known for his two operas, Wozzeck (premiered 1925) and Lulu (left unfinished but performed in incomplete form until the full premiere in 1979, as completed by Friedrich Cerha) and his Violin Concerto (premiered 1936). Berg’s oeuvre consists of his opi 1–7 and then, without opus numbers, pre-Opus 1 songs, incomplete pieces, and arrangements, added by archival and sketch study.

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George Perle (1915–2009) was an American composer and scholar, awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize (1986) for his Wind Quintet no. 4, and the Otto Kinkeldey Award (AMS) for his books on the operas of Alban Berg. Born in Bayonne, NJ, Perle discovered Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite when studying with Ernst Krenek in 1937 and went on to develop a compositional system called twelve-tone tonality from the implications of Berg’s score. Collaborative work with Paul Lansky expanded on the compositional possibilities of the system (1969) and led eventually to Perle’s mature style, exemplified by the two Piano Concerti (1990, 1992) and Transcendental Modulations for Orchestra (1993). Perle’s dual role as composer and scholar is reflected in his seventy-five compositions, ranging from solo to orchestral pieces, and seven books and numerous articles on analysis and theory issues related mostly to twentieth-century music.