After finishing his grammar school, between 1946 and 1950 Josef Berg (who was born in Brno on March 8th 1927 and who also died in Brno on February 26th 1971) studied composition at the Conservatoire in a class led by Professor Vilem Petrzelka. At the same time he at tended lectures in musicology at the Faculty of Philoso phy given by Jan Racek and Bohumir Stedron. On graduating from the Conservatoire, Berg worked in the Czecho slovak Radio in Brno (1950-1953) and then devoted him self exclusively to creative work, while he continued his cooperation with the Radio, especially with the newly established Brno Radio Folk Instruments Orchestra. In the late 1950s Berg's greatest preoccupation was the theatre as he found a highly stimulating artistic back ground in Brno's State Mahen Theatre Company and as he identified his creative endeavours with the rise of epic drama.
In addition to music for the stage Berg pursued the task of developing a new type of chamber opera. In actual fact, his entire musical production is inextricably linked with the spoken word, with his own texts of those he himself selected, adapted or modified and set to music. To all intents and purposes, Josef Berg was a genuine musicus poeticus of his time.
Web: http://www.musica.cz/comp/berg.htm