Charley Berg to Frida Semler Seabury 20 January 1936 [Translated from German] [Letterhead:] CHARLEY BERG EXPORT – COMMISSION – IMPORT VI., Liniengasse 4, Vienna (Austria) Representing in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia: S. H. Kress & Co., New York Cables: Ceberg Vienna. Bankers: Österr. Credit-Anstalt — Wiener Bankverein, Vienna. Vienna, 20 January 1936. Mrs. Mortimer A. Seabury, 83 Chestnut St., Boston. Dear Frau Frieda, Your dear father sent me your letter, in which you mourn the death of my dear brother Alban in such heartfelt words. I have lost the dearest of my siblings, for Alban truly was a wonderful human being. I can say this calmly today, now that he is no longer among the living — even as his brother. His parting from this earth was very agonizing. He suffered briefly, but greatly, and he did not deserve this hard death. The obituaries all over the world prove that a great man has died. Unfortunately fate decreed that he could not leave this earth as one who had completed his work. The fragments of his new opera LULU that have meanwhile been performed in every country, in the form of a symphony — which I heard twice — are so extraordinarily beautiful and significant that one can only imagine what mankind has lost through his death. His great master Schoenberg, who is indeed residing in America, has undertaken to finish orchestrating the third act of Alban's opera, which was not yet orchestrated — and this without any compensation whatsoever. Because of this it will probably be possible for Alban's opera to reach performance before long in the various countries. It may interest you, dear Frau Frieda, to know what Alban's last words were. A short time ago, in the midst of his work on Lulu, he received a commission from an anonymous American for a violin concerto, with the particular wish that it include a chorale in the manner of a kind of requiem. Alban was reluctant to interrupt his work. But then, when Frau Mahler's daughter — a wonderfully lovely young girl of whom he was very fond — suddenly died, he took up the task and wove into the concerto a chorale on the words "IT IS ENOUGH, TAKE NOW MY SOUL." Shortly before his death, as he - 2 - was struggling for breath during a heart attack, he cried out, pushing with his arms, "It is enough, it is enough!" Then, when the attack had subsided, he said, "So — now we shall all go to sleep — you, Helene (his wife), my sister, and I — we shall all go to sleep now." Then only a few minutes passed, and he was gone. That, dear Frau Frieda, is what I wanted to tell you, for I can see from your letter how much you valued Alban. Kissing your hands, and — though unknown to you — commending myself to your husband and your children, I remain Your sincerely devoted Charley Berg [Library of Congress stamp] --- Translator's notes: - "Es ist genug, nimm du nun meine Seele" ("It is enough, Lord, take now my soul") is the closing line of the Bach chorale from Cantata BWV 60, "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort," which Berg incorporated into his Violin Concerto. - "Der Tochter der Frau Mahler" refers to Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, who died of polio in April 1935; Berg's Violin Concerto is dedicated "to the memory of an angel" in her honor. - The commission for the Violin Concerto actually came from the American violinist Louis Krasner, not an anonymous patron; Charley Berg's account reflects what he understood or had been told at the time. --- Translated by Claude Sonnet 5 on June 30, 2026 https://claude.ai/share/b3dba9da-1c07-4cae-b1d6-1894894e9dda