Gunnar Berg (composer)

Gunnar Berg (11 January 1909 – 25 August 1989) was a Swiss-born Danish composer. A leading exponent of serialism in Denmark, he is considered to have written the first Danish serial piece, his Cosmogonie for two pianos, in 1952. Biography Early life and education in Switzerland The son of a Swedish mother and a Danish father, Gunnar Berg was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on January 11, 1909. His father died when he was five years old. He lived in Copenhagen from the years 1921 to 1924 during which time he battled severe illness and spent most of his time in sanatoriums. Berg began studying the piano at the age of 14. He spent a short time in Paris before settling again in Copenhagen again in 1928. In 1931 he made the decision to devote his life to music and he managed to earn a place studying music at the Salzburg Festival in the summer of 1932. He later returned to that program for further studies in 1935. He studied privately with Knud Jeppesen who aided him in matriculating to the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1936. There the composition program mirrored Danish tastes for the style of Carl Nielsen for which Berg had no interest. His compositions from the mid to late 1930s d