Wozzeck

Despite its atonal and expressionistic sound, Berg strictly structured the opera around classical forms like baroque suites, passacaglias, and sonatas. The 1925 opera is widely recognized for blending dissonant modernism with rigorous structural logic.

The opera is based on the incomplete play 'Woyzeck' by German playwright Georg Büchner. Berg adapted the grim tale of a soldier driven to madness and murder into a 20th-century masterpiece.

The opera is tightly structured into three acts, each containing exactly five scenes. Between scenes, Berg wrote short orchestral interludes to smooth the transitions.

Toward the end of the opera, a single, massive orchestral chord plays as Wozzeck drowns himself in a pond. This cluster chord, made up of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, represents his ultimate demise.