Paul Kammerer and Alban Berg: Rivals in Song

Between 1904 and 1911, two young Viennese composers—Alban Berg and Paul Kammerer—engaged in a competition for the attention of Helene Nahowska, a rising young singer. Kammerer, later famed as a biologist, composed songs for her beginning in 1904, and the two soon fell in love. Eight of Kammerer's songs were published by Simrock in Berlin in 1906, and the texts that he chose, including Helene's own poetry, refer obliquely to their relationship. In that same year Kammerer broke off their connection and married another woman. Shortly afterwards, Alban Berg vied for Helene's attention, and his songs from 1907 to 1909 increasingly used texts that were addressed to Helene, often expressing feelings of hopelessness and despair reminiscent of Tristan's passion for Isolde. Although Kammerer continued to have contact with Helene, Berg gradually won her over, and they were married in 1911.