The lucky hand

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Work data
Title: The lucky hand
Original language: German
Music: Arnold Schoenberg
Libretto : Arnold Schoenberg
Premiere: October 24, 1924
Place of premiere: Vienna ( Volksoper )
Playing time: about 20 minutes
people
  • A man ( baritone )
  • A woman; a gentleman (mimes)
  • ( Choir ): 6 women and 6 men (speaking roles)
Stage design by Oskar Schlemmer for the Kroll Opera in 1930

The happy hand is a drama with music by Arnold Schönberg , op. 18, in one act with four pictures. It was composed from 1910 to 1913. The libretto comes from the composer. The first performance of the drama took place on October 24, 1924 in Vienna in the Volksoper .

Emergence

The content of the drama is strongly linked to personal experiences. His wife Mathilde had traveled to her vacation spot beforehand. When Arnold Schönberg followed, he caught his wife with their mutual painting teacher and friend Richard Gerstl in flagrante. Mathilde returned to him ruefully, Richard Gerstl, on the other hand, chose suicide. Arnold Schönberg dealt with this trauma in "The Happy Hand".

action

The plot of the lucky hand is very complex because of the scenic effects combined with the use of the colored light plays. The drama represents the cycle about the hopeless urge of a man. In the first and fourth act the man is alone on stage, only the "monsters" in the background (subconscious) fight with him. The man sings of his love for a young woman (mime), but despite this love she leaves him for a well-styled man (mime). She returns and asks the man for forgiveness. His bliss returns. "Now I own you forever!" The man storms up a mountain landscape, watches workers doing complicated jobs. With a single blow of the hammer, he smashes a lump of gold "This is how you create jewelry". This triggers a “crescendo of light and storm” which scares the man. He tries to reach the grotto of the woman who has given herself to the master there. The man is unable to climb any further and falls. Then he's back on the ground like in the first picture. The inner voices come back. "Did you have to experience what you have already experienced so often?"

The libretto of the happy hand contains more stage directions from Schönberg than sung text. Even the sung passages are limited to very short exclamations like “Oh you beautiful” - “the blooming” - “the longing”. In addition to his singing, the singer also needs good acting skills in order to be able to credibly portray the inner conflict in his mind on stage can. Atonal music completes this psychogram.

Performances

In the premiere in 1924, the bass-baritone Alfred Jerger and the mimic Hedy Pfundmayr appeared under the direction of Josef Turnau and the conductor Fritz Stiedry . Due to the complexity of the piece, it is performed very rarely. Mostly in connection with other works by Schönberg. So in 1963 in Hanover and 1965 in Vienna with expectation and from one day to the next . In 2012 it was performed in Stuttgart together with Leoš Janáček's Osud / Schicksal .

expenditure

The first print of an early version of the text appeared in Der Merker , Volume 2, No. 17, 1911, pp. 718–721. A final version in 1926. The score was published in 1917 in the Universal Edition in Vienna (UE No. 5670). In 1923 a piano reduction appeared in the Universal Edition , edited by Eduard Steuermann . A text-critical edition appeared in 2005.

Sound carrier

literature

  • Arnold Schönberg: The happy hand, op. 18. Critical report, sketches, text genesis and text comparison, genesis and work history, documents. Schott, Mainz; Universal Edition, Vienna 2005.
  • Siegfried Mauser : The Expressionist Music Theater of the Vienna School. Stylistic and developmental studies on Arnold Schönberg's “Expectation” op. 17, “The Happy Hand” op. 18 and Alban Berg's “Wozzeck” op. 7. Bosse, Regensburg 1982, ISBN 3-7649-2264-8 .
  • Ralph Paland: "The happy hand" by Arnold Schönberg. Formal conception in early atonality. Libreria Musicale Italiana, Lucca 2001, ISBN 88-7096-293-8 .
  • Barbara Kienscherf: The eye listens. The idea of ​​colored light music and its problems. Illustrated as an example using works by Alexander Scriabin and Arnold Schönberg. Lang, Frankfurt / Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-631-30288-6 (Zugl .: Münster (Westphalia), Univ., Diss., 1995)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oper Stuttgart 2013 ( Memento from February 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).