characteristic aspects of Mahler's style which play such an important role in the Three Pieces persistently reappear in Berg's work to the end of his life: in both Lulu and the Violin Concerto, his last compositions, there are episodes that still stand close to the Three Pieces. If the Three Pieces is, in a sense, retrogressive, coming as it does after Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, Erwartung, and Pierrot lunaire, and after Berg's own Altenberg Lieder and the clarinet and piano pieces, it was nevertheless essential preparation for the composition of Wozzeck.