ABSTRACT
Alban Berg's orchestra songs op. 4 are based on short lyrics by one of his Viennese friends who, under the pen name of Peter Altenberg, took down fleeting thoughts on picture postcards. From the imposingly large collection of aphorisms which, in this most ephemeral form, still survive today, Berg chose five texts for his cycle. As a general theme, all of them can be said to deal with the mirror-like relationship between the human soul 1 —its dreams and lost hopes, its outbursts of temper and its yearning for peace—and nature as the epitome of self-restoration and equanimity.
