Alban Berg's achievement is based on an extraordinarily small musical output, but it includes towering masterpieces such as the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and his last work, the Violin Concerto. These and all Berg's other substantial works are discussed in this wide-ranging Companion, which contains essays written from a variety of historical and critical perspectives, outlining the place of the music in the cultural history of its time and within the broader interplay of twentieth-century fashions, aesthetics and ideas.