[2] Berg dedicated it "to my teacher and friend Arnold Schoenberg with immeasurable gratitude and love",[2] and sent it to Schönberg as a gift for his 40th birthday, on 13 September 1914.

In a letter he expanded: "I have truly striven to give my best, to follow all your incentives and suggestions, whereby the unforgettable, yea revolutionising experiences of the Amsterdam rehearsals and thorough study of your orchestra pieces served me boundlessly and sharpened my self-criticism more and more.

When the complete work was premiered, Berg compared the sequence of three movements to a symphony, Reigen taking the position of a Scherzo, and Marsch as a finale.

Derrick Puffett suggested that the title may allude to Arthur Schnitzler's play Reigen, of which Berg owned a copy.

With a ferocity burying all Johannine gentleness like an avalanche, he answered: "Right, then at last one could hear what an eight-note brass chord really sounds like," as if convinced no audience could survive such a sonority….