Friends and connections
[Schoenberg,] I implore you, just once compose a ‘peaceful work’! Something practical, more abridged, if also entirely Schoenberg.
“The third friend is the one to whom I owe most of my knowledge of the technique and the problems of composing:Alexander von Zemlinsky.”
(My Evolution, 1949)
Some facts: Alexander Zemlinsky
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Schoenberg taught me from 1895, and he put me in contact with Mahler.
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He is four years older than me, but I considered him to be my only real teacher but also friend.
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I played cello in his chamber symphony called Polyhymnia (and I was the only one)--and supposedly I was more worried about paper-money than music-paper at the time.
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I became Schoenberg’s neighbor and family member, spending vacations together and working together.
Erwartung - Expectation
“The intention in Erwartung is to present that which takes place in one second of intense emotional agitation in slow motion, extending it to half an hour.”
‘Write me an opera text, miss,’ Schoenberg asked poet Marie Pappenheim while his family spent vacation together with Alexander von Zemlinsky, Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Max Oppenheimer. Schoenberg completed half an hour of music within 17 days. Anton Webern saw in the score an “unprecedented event: it is broken in it with all traditional architectonics; there is always something new about a sudden change in expression.” Zemlinsky directed its performance. Theodor Adorno and Pierre Boulez saw its relation to Freud’s psychoanalysis.
“I wrote lying in the grass, with pencil, on large sheets of paper, had no copy, scarcely read through what I had written.”
What kind of story matches this piece? What type of scenery, characters, colors, or emotions do you imagine?
Schoenberg loved numbers.
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He had chosen the opus number 17 for Erwartung because it took seventeen days to compose it.
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He feared the number 13. When he was 76 years old (7 + 6 = 13), he died on Friday, the 13th of July 1951.
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He has many “secrets” regarding numbers and his music.
Musicians - role models and friends
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Bach: Bach’s motifs were used in Variations for Orchestra. Schoenberg represented past styles (zeitgeist) through polyphony and use of themes and variations.
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Brahms: Thematic and motivic works shaped many of Schoenberg’s earlier works.
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Adler: Schoenberg’s violin, viola, harmony, philosophy, and astrology teacher.
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Strauss: Strauss was a mentor who helped him get on his feet--and some of Schoenberg’s work may sound like Strauss (e.g. Strauss’ Taillefer vs. Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande and Gurre-lieder).
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Mahler: Mahler adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and continued to support me, even after my style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler's Third Symphony made me "[speak] of Mahler as a saint" (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 103; Schoenberg 1975, 136).
Artists - Painting the inner
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Gustav Klimt
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Egon Schiele
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Oskar Kokoschka
Other scholars
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Kraus
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Loos
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Dehmel
“Brief, incredibly delicate and expressive creations.” (Anton Webern, 1912)
Musical influences
“Schoenberg is definitely one of those fiery people who arouse opposition, but just as certainly provoke stimulation and movement, and who have always had an inspiring and beneficial influence on people’s minds.”(Gustav Mahler, 1910)
Gustav Mahler
In 1911, Schoenberg dedicated his important treatise on harmony to the memory of Gustav Mahler.
“And thus art can only be created for its own sake. An idea is born; it must be molded, formulated, developed, elaborated, carried through and pursued to its very end. Because there is only ‘l’art pour l’art,’ art for the sake of art alone.”
