Association copy inscribed by Berg to his student

Berg, Alban. Georg Büchners Wozzeck. Oper in 3 Akten (15 Szenen) [...] Op. 7. Klavierauszug von Fritz Heinrich Klein. Eigentum des Komponisten.

€ 15,000.00

First edition, first issue of the composer’s privately printed piano vocal score, produced at Berg’s expense and prepared by his pupil Fritz Heinrich Klein (1892-1977): a presentation copy inscribed by Berg to his student Josef Polnauer (1888-1969).

Issued in advance of Universal Edition’s adoption of the score, this reduction, funded with crucial support from Alma Mahler, circulated among conductors and houses to encourage performances; a facsimile dedication to Alma appears before the text. The volume preserves Berg’s performance apparatus (scenario, cast list, orchestral voices, and the celebrated note on the execution of the "Sprechstimme"), offering an early reading of details later fixed in print.

A landmark of 20th-century music theatre, "Wozzeck" crystallizes Berg’s atonal idiom at the service of Büchner’s dramatic fragment. The piano vocal score became the primary vehicle by which the opera’s structure and leit gestures first reached musicians before the full score entered circulation and before the Berlin premiere of 1925. Association copies of the 1922 private issue are rare; the inscription to Polnauer strengthens the document’s direct link to Berg’s teaching circle.