His compositions from the mid to late 1930s displayed his interest in emulating the work Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and other modernist composers from Central Europe.
[3] Berg continued to his education privately by studying music theory with Hilding Rosenberg and piano with Herman David Koppel from 1938 to 1943.
In Paris he found acceptance in the avant-garde music scene and was finally able to find a community which shared musical point of view; a circle which included Honegger, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.Serialism began to make its mark already in the newcomer's Pièce for trumpet, violin and piano from 1949, and henceforth Berg uncompromisingly yet in his very own fashion would remain faithful to the complex expressive mode of musical modernism, from now on always composing within the theoretical and aesthetic framework of serialism.
Musicologist Jens Rossel stated that "Berg was a respected but isolated figure in Danish musical life with neither position nor pupil.
Still, in 1965 Denmark's Ministry of Culture awarded Berg a lifelong artist grant and made his a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog.
In 2009 the centennial of Gunnar Berg's birth was celebrated with concerts, radio programmes, CD-releases, writings, printed scores, and exhibitions in Denmark, Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, United States, Ukraine and China.
These activities has caused a significant change in the understanding of and respect for his artistic oeuvre - being far from a cold speculative, mathematic game.