A survivor from Warsaw

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Arnold Schönberg (Los Angeles, 1948)

A Survivor from Warsaw (original title A Survivor from Warsaw for Narrator, Men's Chorus and Orchestra ), op. 46, is a melodrama by Arnold Schönberg for a speaker, male choir and orchestra from 1947. How many pieces by Schönberg has been since the 1920s the work is written in twelve-tone technique with sometimes almost punctual instrumentation that changes even within a bar . The theme of the approximately seven-minute work is the suppression of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto . A survivor from Warsawis considered to be one of Schönberg's most expressive works of shocking realism in text and music and represents one of the most important and most widely received musical debates on the Holocaust .

Content and historical context

The plant is located at the time of the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which began on April 19, 1943. The uprising was preceded by the “ great resettlement ” on June 23, 1942, when they were transported to the extermination camps , mostly to Treblinka .

The narrator, who was able to save himself half-dead, is an eyewitness to the events. The disenfranchised Jews are bludgeoned and murdered or, after the roll call, are deported to the extermination camps with orders to be counted. In the midst of all this brutality, the Jews return to their religious roots and begin to sing the Shema Yisrael , the Jewish creed , which ends the piece.

Emergence

Memorial to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (Sculptor: Natan Rappaport, Architect: Leon Marek Suzin)

Schönberg was appointed director of a master class for composition at the Prussian Academy in Berlin in 1925 . After this post was withdrawn from him for racist reasons in September 1933, he returned to the Jewish faith he had given up in his youth. He emigrated to the USA, where he received a professorship in composition and became an American citizen in 1940.

The inspiration for the survivor from Warsaw came from the Russian choreographer Corinne Chochem, who lives in America . In early 1947 Schönberg sent this melody and English translation of a partisan song, which was to be used in a commissioned composition by Schönberg either in the original Yiddish version or in a Hebrew translation . Schönberg sent Chochem fee claims "for a 6-9 minute composition for small orchestra and choir" and specified:

“I plan to realize the scene in the way you described. How the condemned Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began to sing before they died. "

Schönberg and Chochem did not come to an agreement due to differing fees (Schönberg's financial situation was critical at the time). The original plan to use the partisan song as the basis of the work had to be abandoned. But a composition commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in Boston finally gave Schönberg the opportunity to realize his plan in a different form. According to Willi Reich, the text finally chosen by Schönberg is based on an authentic testimony that Schönberg heard from a survivor of Warsaw. Beat Föllmi was able to show that Schönberg had made numerous revisions to the template, in particular making it more specific.

Schönberg began the composition of the survivor from Warsaw on August 11, 1947 and completed it on August 23, 1947. Because of his poor health, he only made the short score . René Leibowitz , a friend of Schönberg's, completed the score under his supervision. The work is dedicated to the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky.

A year before the composition, Schönberg had suffered a heart attack. It remains to be seen whether the closeness to death experienced here had any influence on the agony of death dealt with in op.

premiere

Jews and Occupiers in the Warsaw Ghetto (1943)

The premiere took place on November 4, 1948 in Albuquerque ( New Mexico ), conducted by Kurt Frederick with the Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra (one founded in 1932 amateur and student orchestras) instead, where Sherman Smith took over the spoken part, and was an overwhelming success . After a minute's silence, the entire piece had to be repeated, and only then was there frenetic applause. However, there were also more skeptical voices. This is how Time wrote after the premiere:

“Cruel dissonances. First, the audience was jolted by an ugly, brutal blow from the wind. […] The dissonance of the harmonies became cruel. The chorus swelled into a single terrible crescendo . Then, less than ten minutes from the first push, it was all over. While his audience was still pondering it, conductor Kurt Frederick played it again to give the piece another chance. This time the audience seemed to understand better, and thunderous applause filled the auditorium. "

The European premiere on November 15, 1949 in Paris by the conductor and Schönberg expert René Leibowitz was of greater importance for the dissemination of the work.

music

Like most atonal or twelve-tone works, the work appears dissonant , arrhythmic and difficult to access to the listener who is not familiar with this music . Longer melody lines can hardly be made out. Like most of Schönberg's works - which also applies to his tonal compositions, such as the late romantic Transfigured Night - it leaves a tortured and torn, sometimes hectic impression. Nevertheless, on closer listening or studying the score , the survivor from Warsaw reveals many musically structuring elements such as rows , intervals , motifs , rhythmic models, tonal allusions, features that take up conventional form principles and cross-movement features. With its hard, well thought-out reduction to a strict network of musical lines, it is a concentrate of the late Schönberg style. Despite all its construction, it is dramatic and expressive.

occupation

The line-up includes the usual string orchestra (10 first and second violins , 6 violas , cellos and double basses each ), a woodwind group made up of pairs (with piccolo , flute , oboe , clarinet , bassoon ), and a relatively strong brass group (with 4 horns , 3 Trumpets , 3 trombones and tuba ), an extensive arsenal of percussion ( kettledrum , various drums , cymbals , triangle , tambourine , tam-tam , xylophone , castanets , bells , bells ), as well as harp , the male choir and a speaker.

Musical material

The composition is based on a single twelve-tone row : f sharp - g - c - a flat - e - d flat - b - c sharp - a - d - f - b. Like most twelve-tone compositions by Schönberg, the row structure of the work is based on a specific organization of the two six-tone row halves ( hexachords ). For op. 46 this means in concrete terms the relationship between the tonal qualities of the series in its basic form and its inversion transposed into the lower fifth . The first half of the row of the original figure thus complements (but in a divergent tone sequence) with the transposed, reversed second half of the row to the total of all 12 octave tones, the chromatic total. In the series with an excessive triad (tone 3, 4 and 5), a minor triad (tone 9, 10 and 11) and a diminished triad (tone 10, 11 and 12) there are definitely tonal links. The excessive triad c - e - as , invariant to inversions, can be interpreted as a musical symbol of horror (e.g. from bars 38-41 in the xylophone), the small seconds can be interpreted as an expression of the victims' sighs.

Form and content

From a formal point of view, the work consists of three parts: 1. an instrumental introduction, 2. the narration performed by a speaker and accompanied by the orchestra, and 3. the final chorus with the Shma Yisrael, accompanied by a trumpet . In terms of content, however, the piece is divided into six sections: 1. Introduction, 2. Daily routine, 3. Brutalization, 4. Death, 5. Counting process, 6. Prayer and resurrection

Both Schönberg's text, which uses three languages, and the musical expression characterize different levels. The brutality of the Nazi occupiers is underlined by aggressive brass instruments, drums, sometimes rigid-motor rhythms and commands in German; empathy for those who suffer is reinforced with the sound of the strings from the ensemble to the solo violin, often in seconds or semitones. Also striking - as in Schönberg's earlier works - are the rhythmic changes, which sometimes even take place within a measure, and the successions or opposites between eighth notes (sixteenths, thirty-second notes) and triplets (e.g., in the same part or in different voices). in bars 13, 34 and 80-88). The erratic instrumentation also contributes to the impression of the torn.

text

The text written by Schönberg is in three languages. The narrator speaks English, but quotes the words of command of the sergeant (sergeant) in German. The text of the final chorus, the Shema Yisrael , is written in Hebrew . The textual statement of the work is supported by hectic rhythms and sometimes bright orchestral colors.

I cannot remember ev'rything. I must have been unconscious most of the time. I remember only the grandiose moment when they all started to sing, as if prearranged, the old prayer they had neglected for so many years - the forgotten creed! But I have no recollection how I got underground to live in the sewers of Warsaw for so long a time ... The day began as usual: Reveille when it still was dark. "Get out!" Whether you slept or whether worries kept you awake the whole night. You had been separated from your children, from your wife, from your parents. You don´t know what happened to them ... How could you sleep? The trumpets again - “Get out! The sergeant will be furious! ”They came out; some very slowly, the old ones, the sick ones; some with nervous agility. They fear the sergeant. The hurry as much as they can. In vain! Much too much noise, much too much commotion! And not fast enough! The Sergeant shouts: “Warning! Stand still! Well it will. or should I help with the Jewehr flask? Well; if you really want it! ”The sergeant and his subordinates hit (everyone): young or old, (strong or sick), quiet guilty or innocent ... It was painful to hear them groaning and moaning. I heard it though I had been hit very hard, so hard that I could not help falling down. We all on the (ground) who could not stand up were (then) beaten over the head ... I must have been unconscious. The next thing I heard was a soldier saying: "They are all dead!" Whereupon the sergeant ordered to do away with us. There I lay aside half conscious. I had become very still - fear and pain. Then I heard the sergeant shouting: “Counting!” They starts slowly and irregularly: one, two, three, four - “Attention!” The sergeant shouted again, “Rascher! Start all over again! In a minute I want to know how many I'm going to deliver to the gas chamber! Counting! "They began again, first slowly: one, two, three, four, became faster and faster, so fast that it finally sounded like a stampede of wild horses, and (all) of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began singing the Shema Yisroel.

Notes on the stylistic devices used in the text

  • Multilingualism: Assignment of three semantic levels: report in English, perpetrator in German, victim in Hebrew
  • Theologization: apostasy as the cause of the catastrophe (“forgotten creed”). The addition about life underground in the Warsaw sewer system corresponds to historical facts, but can also be paralleled with the psalms of repentance. “He drew me out of the dreadful pit, out of all filth and mud” (Ps. 40: 3).
  • Dramatizations: literal quotations from the sergeant in German, use of presence
  • Emotionalization: Sighing and sadness can be felt
  • Personalization: The daily routine is complemented by personal components: the elderly, the sick, women and children. “Laying down children and getting up” appear again later in the scheme. “And you should inculcate them on your children…. When you lie down or get up "
  • Mystification: Prayer takes place after the death of the victims (“They are all dead”). The question arises whether the prayer sounds in the transcendence of resurrection and survival through rebellion (resistance to death power).
  • Chaotic: The orderly counting process escalates into chaos ("gallop wild horses").
  • Transcending: The individual is freed from the compulsory mathematical order and transcended into the collective mysticism of prayer.
  • Reification: Victims are degraded to numbers (Nazi technique). The counting process is repeated.

analysis

1. Instrumental introduction (T. 1-12)

The work begins with a garish, repeated fanfare signal of the trumpets, divided into two six-tone groups , which introduces the twelve-tone row . The second group of six with the tone sequence B - B - F - A - C sharp - D is the reversal of the original series of notes 1 to 6 transposed to the lower fifth, which simultaneously (with slight changes in position) fulfills the requirement of Schönberg's twelve-tone technique, namely the sounding of all Row tones before the recurrence of a tone, is approximately fulfilled. These chords are followed by a torn part in terms of instrumentation - in the sense of the punctual instrumentation or timbre melody also pursued by Webern . One after the other, military drums , woodwinds and strings, piccolo flute, strings tremoli , again military drums , cellos , xylophone and string instruments treated in very high or low pizzicato briefly emerge from the instrumentation , which sometimes changes beats. The immediate succession of very high and very low tones contradicts conventional listening expectations. The mechanical appearance of the use of trills and tone repetitions disappoints conventional listeners of classical music to find a tangible theme. In contrast, the fanfare motif partly takes on a leitmotif function in the following section of speech .

2nd language section (T. 12-80)

From bar 12, the speaking voice recites a speaking melody in a manner typical of Schönberg . Schoenberg indicates, above and below a notation line, the relative height differences of the language, which, according to his instructions, must by no means turn into song, as he did in a similar way in Pierrot Lunaire of 1912, in Moses and Aron and in the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte had practiced from 1942. Compared to the Pierrot Lunaire, the instructions for the speaking voice are less differentiated, only fixed on a staff line, and allow the speaker more freedom of design. The speech rhythms, on the other hand, are recorded extremely precisely. Schönberg commented on this as follows:

“[…] You [the speaking voice] must never be performed as musically as my other strict compositions. Singing is never allowed, a real pitch must never be recognizable. This means that only the type of accentuation is meant. [...] This is very important, because motifs arise through singing and motifs have to be carried out. Motives create obligations that I do not fulfill "

Whether this technique used by Schönberg is to be understood as a focus on the central textual statements or just as a continuation of the means of expression he has used since Pierrot Lunaire cannot be decided due to the lack of self- statements .

The fanfare motif of the first bar has the function of a leitmotif in the speech section (see bars 25-28 as wake-up fanfare for the morning roll call and bars 31-35 for the roll call) . In the orchestral accompaniment, individual instruments or groups of instruments (strings, wind instruments, xylophone, solo violin) appear for a short time. Their use is usually more coloristic. Independent motifs or series are only partially presented or carried out. The instruments act - following the rising and falling excitement of the text presentation - often in positional and dynamic extremes for the respective instrument . The result is extremely high-contrast sound effects, which are intensified by sections in which the speaker can be heard all alone.

Notes on the structure of the language section

Due to the text passage “I must have been unconscious” ( “I must have been unconscious ”) that appears twice in bar 12 and bar 54, the speech part can be divided into two larger parts, both textually and musically. Both parts in turn consist of a quieter and a more excited section, so there are a total of four sections. The discontinuity of objectively chronological and subjectively felt time in the course of the narrative is reflected in the musical-motivic design.

In the first section, the narrator reports that he cannot remember everything because he was unconscious for a long time. The intonation of the Shema Yisrael is still clearly in his mind. After that, on a path that was unclear to him, he reached the sewer system in Warsaw, where he lived for a long time. The music in this section is sparse and interspersed with many pauses. During the report about the intonation of the Shema Yisrael, deep, rising strings can be heard.

In the next, more excited section, the narrator describes the morning roll call, the worries about relatives, the fear of the sergeant and the brutal treatment by the soldiers. The Sergeant's commands are in German, in Berlin jargon : “Attention! Stand still! Will it be? Or should I help out with the Jewehr flask? ” Towards the end of the section, the narrator is beaten up and loses consciousness. The music in this section is more hectic and encompasses a wider dynamic range. Concerns about relatives are expressed by a plaintive solo violin (after “how could you sleep” ). When describing the complaints and groans of the injured, the music reaches a dramatic climax with dense strings.

The music of the third section is similar to that of the first. The half-conscious narrator can only remember the words of the soldiers that all persons are dead and should be removed.

In the fourth section, the sergeant has the Jews line up for roll call to find out - in his own words - how many people he should deliver to the gas chambers . On the second count, the Jews begin to sing the Shema Yisrael . The music resembles that of the second section in its expressive conflict. Towards the end the sounds increase in density and dynamics to the following choir singing.

The speech section realizes a multi-level increase from the I to the you to the we .

“The report is written in the first person. This I then relates to a you in the second stanza. This you - that is the person in total loneliness and isolation, in which the I experiences and recognizes itself at the same time. The consequence of this I-Thou relationship is then in the 4th section the we, which is finally canceled out in the solidarity song of the choir, in the scheme of Israel. The forlornness of humans in the brutal stranglehold of inhuman bestiality is banned in the common creed. "

3. Shema Yisrael (T. 80-99)

In contrast, as the narrator says in the speech section, there is the long-forgotten and neglected creed Schma Yisrael , which is sung in unison by a male choir and already hinted at in the first part (bars 18-21) with an instrumental excerpt. In this excerpt from the Creed ( Deuteronomy 6 : 4-9), the people of Israel are advised not to forget that their God is a unified and indivisible being who is to be loved and honored. The choir is loudly accompanied by strings and brass. At the end he reproduces the basic shape of the twelve-tone row for the first time. It is obtained from the original series by transposing from F sharp to B flat ( i.e. BHEC-As , etc.), changing the direction of some intervals and repeating the notes permitted in the twelve-tone technique. This basic shape shows striking similarities with features of traditional European-Jewish music . An example of this is the descending small seconds (G sharp - G) at the end of the first hexachord , which is also typical for the first step of the Jewish Freygian scale. The excessive triad As-CE, invariant to inversions, on the words Adonoy elohenoo Adonoy ehod (bars 2-5 of the musical example) can be seen as a musical symbol for the unity and immutability of God. Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt refers here to the parallel to Francis Poulenc's opera Dialogues des Carmélites from 1957, in which the Carmelites who were sentenced to death also sing a hymn .

Significance in Schönberg's oeuvre

The musical portrayal of human experience of suffering in Schönberg's work did not emerge after the Holocaust and the Nazi dictatorship, but was probably intensified as a result. His opera Moses and Aron , the subject of which has preoccupied him since the 1920s, depicts the collective suffering of the Israelite people. The following quote from 1909 suggests that Schoenberg understood art as an important way of expressing human suffering and the struggle against it even before 1933, despite a partly abstract and unworldly understanding of music:

“Art is the cry of emergency from those who experience the fate of humanity in themselves. Who do not come to terms with him, but deal with him. Who don't dull the engine of the 'dark forces', but plunge into the running wheel to understand the construction. "

As early as 1942, in his Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte (Op. 41), Schönberg dealt with the problem of inhuman tyranny and especially the person of Hitler . However, the musical and extra-musical engagement with Jewish and Old Testament topics goes back further. The oratorio The Jacob's Ladder was written in 1917, and the play The Biblical Way in 1927 . In 1930 he began composing the opera Moses und Aron , in 1938 he composed the Kol Nidre , and in 1944 the prelude to the biblical story of creation . Schönberg's vocal work in American exile is thus in the context of his commitment to human, political and / or religious issues. His last fragmentary work Modern Psalms from 1951 is also religiously motivated.

What is new in the context of his work for the survivor from Warsaw is the reference to the contemporary theme of the Holocaust. In a letter to Kurt List in 1948, Schönberg commented on his intentions as follows:

"Now; What the text of the survivor means to me: it is first of all a warning to all Jews never to forget what was done to us, never to forget that even people who were not perpetrators themselves consented to it and many of them for it felt necessary to treat us like that. We should never forget this, even if such things were not done exactly as described in the Survivor. It doesn't matter. The main point is that I saw it in my imagination. "

reception

René Leibowitz commented on the European premiere in Paris in 1949:

“… It would be a mistake to see it only as programmatic, descriptive music: the musical construction is entirely autonomous. ... It was the extraordinarily new thing about the work that struck my listeners. Some came to me with tears, others were so shaken that they couldn't speak at all and only spoke to me much later, shaken by their impressions. "

According to C. Gottwald, the portrayal of the rationality of a morally unleashed world in the work finds its parallel in the aesthetic construction using the twelve-tone technique. Luigi Nono described it as a masterpiece: it was "[...] the aesthetic musical manifesto of our epoch due to the creative necessity of the relationship between text-music and music-listener" .

In Germany in the 1950s, the survivor from Warsaw met with rejection from conservative music critics such as Hans Schnoor . In 1956 he tore the work down in the Westfalen-Blatt as “that disgusting piece that must appear to every decent German like a mockery” , as well as “Schoenberg's hate song” , thereby provoking a media scandal .

Theodor W. Adorno raised the question of whether the National Socialist crimes should be made the subject of a (transfiguring) work of art, and said no. In relation to Schönberg's work, he wrote in 1962:

“Something embarrassing joins Schönberg's composition, [...] as if the shame in front of the victims was hurt. Something is prepared from these, works of art, thrown to the world, which killed them. "

However, Adorno also acknowledged:

“Horror has never sounded so true in music, and when it becomes loud it finds its releasing power again through negation. The Jewish song with which the 'Survivor of Warsaw' closes is music as an objection to the myth. "

The conductor Ernest Ansermet , who vehemently rejected the twelve-tone music by Schönberg and Webern as unmusical, saw a tragic need for self-expression in relation to Schönberg's op.46:

“That is the reason why, in spite of everything, works like Moses and Aaron or The Survivor from Warsaw can move the listener: Through the incoherence and exuberance of the language, he feels a tragic need for expression that does not lead to the goal; and in this particular case this tragedy coincides with the tragedy of the musical reproach. "

The critical voices that were heard in the early years of the reception soon faded into the background. In 1979 the Süddeutsche Zeitung praised :

“The final prayer 'Scheme Yisroel', which the choir intones in response to the rage of the German 'Sergeant' in composed readiness to die, has a shocking effect after the shrill military signals that Gary Bertini, the conductor of the evening, let in with excessive brutality. "

The accusation that the survivor of Warsaw is purely political- functional music , as it is partially echoed in early reviews, has recently been vigorously contradicted. Nowadays, the survivor from Warsaw is considered one of the most haunting works by Schönberg, which the listener understands even without knowledge of the twelve-tone structures, which are difficult to understand musically.

In the meantime, the treatment of the work has also found its way into school curricula .

Integration into other music

In 1978, the conductor Michael Gielen built the survivor from Warsaw into the beginning of the fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony . Beethoven's optimistic hymn of joy, which was no longer believable after the war and the Holocaust in the 20th century, was re-examined from the perspective of a dialectic of the Enlightenment . Gielen wrote:

Hearing the really horrific clears the way to understand how brotherhood, more than freedom or equality, should have been so that this horror did not occur. Through the survivor, the fanfare is heard again for what it is.

The composer and conductor Hans Zender performed the work on March 31, 1972 in Kiel between the two parts of Bach's St. Matthew Passion . This performance caused a scandal among part of the audience.

In some performances op. 46 was played in place of the missing third act of the opera Moses und Aron .

Further works on the Holocaust

In contrast to the musical works of earlier epochs, in which death often functioned as a metaphor and was given a mystical or romantic interpretation, music after 1945, such as Op. 46, is often about a disaffected examination of personal death (such as also in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto from 1935) or about mass extermination through violent external influences.

As a successor to Schönberg, various compositions were created that deal with the Holocaust. However, unlike in literature, the musical confrontation with the Holocaust has remained quantitatively a marginal phenomenon and was mostly carried out by victims and descendants. Most of these works, like Schönberg's Survivor from Warsaw, are documentary and text-bound. As an example, Karlheinz Stockhausen's electronic (though not directly related to the Holocaust) composition Gesang der Jünglinge im Feuerofen from 1956 is mentioned. The joint German-German composition Jüdische Chronik by Boris Blacher , Karl Amadeus Hartmann , Hans Werner Henze and Rudolf Wagner-Régeny, based on a text by Jens Gerlach and inspired by Paul Dessau, was composed in 1961 and, like the survivor from Warsaw, addresses the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. Luigi Nono wrote the tape composition Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz in 1965 (Remember what was done to you in Auschwitz) . Nono's composition Il canto sospeso from 1956 is also demonstrably influenced by Schönberg's work. In 1967 Krzysztof Penderecki wrote Dies Irae - Oratorio in memory of the victims of Auschwitz , which was premiered there. The deportation of the Jewish victims by train also inspired Steve Reich to compose his work Different Trains in 1988 . Recently, Aribert Reimann's Kumi Ori and Peter Ruzickas (- inside) were created , which were premiered together in 2000.

swell

The custom built by René Leibowitz score clean copy, the series table and sketches to the work are in the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna. By contrast, is short score clean copy of Schoenberg in the Library of Congress held in Washington.

Recordings (selection)

literature

  • Schalom Ben-Chorin : I put my hand on my mouth - meditation on Johannes Brahms “A German Requiem” and Arnold Schönberg “A Survivor from Warsaw”. Theological Publishing House, Zurich, 1992, ISBN 3-290-10876-7 .
  • Beat Follmi: A narratological analysis of Arnold Schönberg's cantata A survivor from Warsaw, op.46 . In: Archives for Musicology . 55, 1998, ISSN  0003-9292 , pp. 28-56.
  • Wilfried Gruhn: Quote and series in Schönberg's “A Survivor from Warsaw” . In: Journal of Music Theory. 5, 1, 1974, ISSN  0342-3395 , pp. 29-33.
  • Ludmilla Leibman: Teaching the Holocaust through music . UMI, Ann Arbor MI 1999 (Also: Boston MA, Boston Univ., Diss., 1999).
  • Christian Meyer (Ed.): Arnold Schönberg and his God. Report on the symposium, 26. – 29. June 2002. University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-902012-05-6 ( Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 5).
  • Therese Muxeneder (Ed.): Arnold Schönberg. A Survivor from Warsaw op.46.Facsimile of the autograph particel. With selected documents and sketches by Schönberg's hand. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2014, ISBN 978-3-89007-778-9 .
  • Christian Schmidt : Schönberg's cantata a survivor from Warsaw, op.46 . In: Archives for Musicology . 33, 1976, ISSN  0003-9292 , pp. 174-188, 261-277.
  • Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt : Arnold Schönberg. Fayard, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-213-02796-X .
  • Gerd Zacher : Marginal notes on counting in Schönberg's “A Survivor from Warsaw”. In: Heinz-Klaus Metzger , Rainer Riehn (ed.): Arnold Schönberg. Edition Text and Criticism, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-88377-019-1 , pp. 146–150 ( music concepts special volume).

grades

  • First printing: Bomart Music Publications, Long Island / NY, September 1949, International Contemporary Series I / 1, 100 copies of which are in a luxury edition with a signed portrait of the composer.
  • Complete edition: Arnold Schönberg, Complete Works, Department V: Choral Works, Series A, Volume 19, Choral Works II, ed. by Josef Rufer and Christian Martin Schmidt, Mainz-Vienna, 1975, pages 91-120; Department V: Choral Works. Series B, Volume 19, Choral Works II, ed. by Christian Martin Schmidt, Mainz-Vienna 1977, pages 60–81 (critical commentary, sketches, fragments)
  • Belmont Music Publishers (USA, Canada, Mexico): Bel 1030 score, Bel 1046 piano reduction
  • Jacques Louis Monod: Study / Pocket Score , Universal Edition , 1979, ISMN M-008-02318-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the concept of punctual instrumentation, especially in Webern, but also in Schönberg see: Hermann Erpf : Textbook of Instrumentation and Instrumentation , Schott, Mainz, 1959, pages 296-301.
  2. ↑ “Schoenberg had already occupied himself with the technique of melodrama in his earlier works; it is masterfully continued here and intensified to a shocking drama. [...] The cantata quickly became known everywhere. " ; from Karl Schumann and Gerhart von Westerman: Knaurs Konzertführer, 1969, page 376; see. also Friedrich Geiger in the booklet of the CD under Sinopoli, Elatus: “Two years after the end of the war, Schönberg composed a short, nevertheless monumental vocal piece that is still considered the epitome of anti-fascist music: A Survivor from Warsaw [...], an extremely compromised oratorio, whose Text, written by Schönberg himself, based on authentic reports. [...] So the brutality of the Nazi henchmen is reflected in the aggressive fanfare of the brass. [...] The harrowing documentary effect that such creative elements produced overwhelmed the audience at the premiere in Albuquerque (New Mexico) in 1948, [...] The audience understood Schönberg. "
  3. ↑ dtv-Atlas zur Musik, Volume 2, dtv, Munich, 1985, page 525
  4. ^ Mathias Lehmann: Music about the Holocaust. On a secondary topic in German music history after 1945. In: Villigster Research Forum on National Socialism, Racism and Anti-Semitism (Ed.): The Uneasiness in the “Third Generation” - Reflections on the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism , page 46
  5. ↑ Note: In a letter to Alban Berg from 1932 he wrote: “Of course I know where I belong, even without the national hints that have been received in recent years. It was hammered into my ears so loudly and for so long that I should have been deaf ... [...] Today I proudly call myself a Jew; but I know the difficulties of really being it. "; from: Schönberg: Briefe , page 182. To von Webern he wrote in 1933: “For fourteen years I have been prepared for what has now come. […] Now, a week ago I officially returned to the Jewish religious community, although my religion does not separate me from it (as my Moses and Aaron will show), but my opinion about the necessity of adapting the church to the demands the modern way of life. "; quoted from: Stuckenschmidt, page 334
  6. ↑ Own translation from: “I plan to make it this scene - which you described - in the Warsaw Ghetto, how the doomed jews started singing, before gooing [sic] to die.” ; to www.schoenberg.at, see web links
  7. ↑ www.schoenberg.at .
  8. ↑ Willi Reich cites a “German newspaper” article interview with Leibowitz from November 15, 1949 as the basis for the idea that Schoenberg heard the story for the piece from a real survivor from the Warsaw Ghetto. Reich cites the story as follows: “I cannot remember everything, I must have been unconscious most of the time; I remember only the grandiose moment when they all started to sing the old prayer. The day began as usual. Reveille when it still was dark - we were assembled and brutally treated. People got killed. The sergeant shouted that the dead should be counted, so that he knew how many he had to deliver to the gas chamber. The counting started slowly, irregularly. Then it began again: one, two, three, faster and faster, so that it sounded like a stampede of wild horses, and - all of a sudden - they began singing the Shema Yisroel. " Schoenberg's text closely follows this story, except that he elaborates on “old prayer,” instead writing “the old prayer they had neglected for so many years - the forgotten creed!” The added emphasis supports Schoenberg's dramatic purpose in the work. ; on Mark Feezell: The Lord Our God Is One: Form, Technique, And Spirituality in Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw , Op. 46 , page 1 (PDF file; 229 kB)
  9. ↑ Schönberg had written: “This text is based partly upon reports which i have received directly or indirectly.” Cf. on this and on the arrangement Beat A. Föllmi: A narratological analysis of Arnold Schönberg's cantata “A Survivor from Warsaw” op. 46 , in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft , 55th year, 1998, page 30 ff.
  10. ↑ Michael Strasser: A Survivor from Warsaw as Personal Parable , 1995, Music & Letters, 76, pp. 52-63.
  11. ↑ Note: He suffered the heart attack on August 2, 1946; according to Dieter Kerner and Hans Schadewaldt: About great musicians, Volume II, (partial edition of the book Dieter Kerner: Great musicians, Schattauer Verlagsgesellschaft, 5th edition, 1998), Robugen GmbH Pharmazeutische Fabrik, Esslingen, 2000, page 288
  12. ^ Bernhard Hartmann: Culture - The terrible becomes sound
  13. ↑ Own translation; Original article in Time , issue of November 15, 1948, under [1]
  14. ^ Bernhard Hartmann: Culture - The terrible becomes sound. Arnold Schönberg's "The Survivor from Warsaw"
  15. ↑ Note: The expression "dissonant" is actually meaningless in terms of music theory in relation to twelve-tone music. But the individual listening experience of the listener used to tonal music can still amount to "dissonance". The same applies to Schönberg's rhythmic and metrical structures, which are not arrhythmic per se, but only contradict familiar habits.
  16. ↑ See also Alban Berg's essay “Why is Schönberg's music so difficult to understand?” In Willi Reich: Alban Berg - Leben und Werk , Piper, 1985, pp. 179–193
  17. ^ Karl Schumann and Gerhart von Westerman: Knaurs Konzertführer , 1969, page 376.
  18. ↑ Information based on Philharmonia pocket score PH 478. Universal Edition
  19. ↑ The twelve-tone row, example of a score in the Musik-Kolleg, Austria-Forum, where A sharp instead of B is given in deviation from the score .
  20. ↑ Christian Schmidt: Schönberg's cantata A Survivor from Warsaw, op. 46, Archive for Musicology 33 , 1976, page 426.
  21. ↑ www.schoenberg.at
  22. ↑ Christian Schmidt: Schönberg's cantata A Survivor from Warsaw, op.46 , Archive for Musicology 33, 1976, page 178.
  23. ↑ The Great Music Guide - Music History in Works - Music of the 20th Century, Kiesel Verlag 1985, page 151.
  24. ^ Hans Stuckenschmidt: Schönberg - Life - Environment - Work , page 291.
  25. ↑ The great music guide - music history in work presentations - music of the 20th century , Kiesel Verlag, 1985, page 151.
  26. ↑ Christoph Hahn and Siegmar Hohl: Bertelsmann Concert Guide - Composers and their Works , page 454.
  27. ↑ The term timbre melody goes back to Schönberg's 1911 book Harmonielehre .
  28. ↑ Benedikt Stegemann: Arnold Schönberg's musical thoughts - analyzes of their tonal and tonal structure , 2003, page 110.
  29. ↑ Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn: Schönberg and the spoken song , Edition Text and Criticism, Munich, 2001, page 57 ff.
  30. ↑ Dirk Buhrmann: Discordances - Studies on Modern Music History, Volume 11: Arnold Schönberg's "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" op. 41 (1942) , page 124
  31. ↑ Schönberg to Leibowitz on November 12, 1948; in letters, page 268 ff.
  32. ↑ AEIOU - Musikkolleg
  33. ↑ Christoph Hahn and Siegmar Hohl: Bertelsmann Concert Guide - Composers and their Works , page 454.
  34. ↑ aeiou
  35. ^ Beat Föllmi: A narratological analysis of Arnold Schönberg's cantata A survivor from Warsaw, op. 46 , Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 55, 1998, pp. 34–37.
  36. ↑ Dieter Rexroth in the program of the Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft eV, 1978/79 for the concerts on September 24th and 25th, 1978, page 8
  37. ^ Charles Heller: Traditional Jewish material in Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, op. 46 , in: Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute III, 1979, page 69 ff.
  38. ↑ Mark Feezell: The Lord Our God Is One - Form, Technique, And Spirituality in Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor From Warsaw, Op. 46 (PDF file; 229 kB)
  39. ↑ Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt: Creator of New Music, dtv, Munich, 1962, chapter: Style and aesthetics of Schönberg, page 126
  40. ↑ dtv-Atlas zur Musik, Volume 2, dtv, Munich, 1985, page 525
  41. ^ Christian Martin Schmidt: Schönberg's opera Moses and Aron. Analysis of the diastematic, formal and music-dramatic composition . B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1796-5 , p. 127, letter to Anton Webern of March 29, 1926.
  42. ↑ Schoenberg expresses this in the following words, for example, in addition to his work. “The artist never has a relationship to the world, but always one to it; he turns his back on her she deserves. "; quoted from Bodil von Thülen: Arnold Schönberg - Eine Kunstanschauung der Moderne, K&N, 1996, page 62
  43. ↑ Note: Although Schönberg often emphasizes the emotional and social significance of music, the understanding of music as an abstract, unworldly art form plays an equally important role in his works and writings. This is shown by expressions in style and aesthetics , which give the purely musical craft great importance, as well as his non-programmatic works with purely internal musical titles such as suite in the old style , variations for orchestra op.31 , as well as his arrangements of works by JS Bach.
  44. ^ Arnold Schönberg: Aphorismen In: Die Musik , IX, 4th quarter, 1909, page 159
  45. ↑ "According to Stein, Schönberg was looking in Campbell's bookstore for a text on the subject of tyranny that was also intended to express his contempt for Hitler. [...] In a letter to Hermann Greissle he wrote that the composition would be understood as 'a satire on Mussolini and Hitler.' "According to Dirk Buhrmann: Discordanzen - Studien zur neueer Musikgeschichte, Volume 11: Arnold Schönberg's" Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte " op. 41 (1942) , page 27.
  46. ^ Christian Martin Schmidt: Schönberg's opera Moses and Aron. Analysis of the diastematic, formal and music-dramatic composition . B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1988, p. 127.
  47. ^ Friedrich Stadler (Ed.): Displaced Reason II - Emigration and Exile of Austrian Science 1930–1940 , Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of Social Sciences - Austria Institute for Science and Art, Vienna, 2004, page 612
  48. ↑ Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt : Creator of New Music, dtv, Munich, 1962, chapter: Style and aesthetics of Schönberg, page 126
  49. ↑ Own translation of a letter quotation, source: Arnold Schönberg Center, (see web links): “Now, what the text of the Survivor means to me: it means at first a warning to all Jews, never to forget what has been done to us, never to forget that even people who did not do it themselves, agreed with them and many of them found it necessary to treat us this way. We should never forget this, even such things have not been done in the manner in which I describe in the Survivor. This does not matter. The main thing is that I saw it in my imagination. "
  50. ↑ Quoted from www.uni-oldenburg.de
  51. ↑ C. Gottwald, 1990, in the booklet to CD Schönberg - Das Chorwerk with Pierre Boulez .
  52. ↑ quoted from www.schoenberg.at
  53. ↑ Quoted from Monika Boll: Night Program - Intellectual Founding Debates in the Early Federal Republic , page 214, especially footnote 38 with a full quote, see also: Excerpts from Monika Boll: Night program, with a quote in the Google book search.
  54. ↑ Monika Boll: Night program, The Schnoor case, Lit-Verlag Münster 2004, pp. 213-221.
  55. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Engagement , 1962, page 423; quoted from Stephan Braese: Deutsche Nachkriegsliteratur und Der Holocaust , page 285.
  56. ^ Theodor W. Adorno, Prismen. Cultural criticism and society , 1955, page 176.
  57. ↑ Ernest Ansermet, The Basics of Music in Human Consciousness , 1965, 5th edition 1991, page 557.
  58. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 2, 1979 ( Memento of the original of February 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alternobis.de
  59. ↑ “Arnold Schönberg's survivor from Warsaw is subjectively engaged, but not politically functional music; and it is a mistake to refer to Schoenberg's work if one tries to show that political music of rank is possible. ”; to Raphael Günter Wolfgang: The score alone knows the fermata dimensions of a political theory of aesthetics based on the concept of action carried out by Hannah Arendt on the basis of the biographical reproach and compositional models by Karl Amadeus Hartmann
  60. ^ Quote from Wolfgang Fink in the SHMF concert program on August 19, 1997: “The survivor from Warsaw is the shortest and at the same time most haunting of those works in which Schoenberg undisguised expression of human suffering and fear of death. [...] is one of the most moving moments in art of this century. "
  61. ↑ The oratorio "A Survivor from Warsaw" by A. Schönberg (Banjo, grades 7-10; The Music Lesson 9/10; Resonanzen, Volume 2; Paths to Music, Upper School); quoted from Kristina Gödecke: The topic of death in music after 1945 - Analytical and music didactic basics , Flensburg, 2004, page 99.
  62. ↑ Wolfgang Schreiber: Great Conductors , 2005, page 387
  63. ↑ Back in history from Schönberg. The conductor and composer Michael Gielen, portrayed by Max Nyffeler
  64. ^ Bernhard Hartmann: Culture - The Horrible Becomes Sound - Arnold Schönberg's The Survivor from Warsaw ; in the general gazette
  65. ^ Municipal Choir Kiel eV 1919–1994. A chronicle (133 pages pdf; 632 kB), Kiel 1994, page 104
  66. ↑ Carla Henius : The ungrateful business with new music, Melos Volume 41, Issue II, 1974, pp. 77-83
  67. ^ Booklet of the recording by Claudio Abbado, page 8.
  68. ↑ Kristina Gödecke: Death Issues in Music after 1945 - Analytical and Music Didactic Basics , Flensburg, 2004, page 80, online at www.zhb-flensburg.de ( Memento of the original from June 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 2.41 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zhb-flensburg.de
  69. ^ Mathias Lehmann: Music about the Holocaust. On a secondary topic in German music history after 1945. In: Villigster Research Forum on National Socialism, Racism and Anti-Semitism (ed.): The Unease in the “Third Generation” - Reflections on the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism, page 44
  70. ^ Mathias Lehmann: Music about the Holocaust - On a secondary topic in German music history after 1945 ; in: Villigst Research Forum on National Socialism, Racism and Anti-Semitism: The Uneasiness in the “Third Generation” - Reflections on the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism , page 44 ff.
  71. ^ Mathias Lehmann: Music about the Holocaust. On a secondary topic in German music history after 1945. In: Villigster Research Forum on National Socialism, Racism and Anti-Semitism (Ed.): The Unease in the “Third Generation” - Reflections on the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism , page 49 ff.
  72. ^ Jeannie Guerrero, 2006. “Serial Intervention in Nono's Il canto sospeso ”. Music Theory Online 12, no.1 (February)
  73. ↑ www.schoenberg.at
  74. ↑ All three information from www.schoenberg.at
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on March 13, 2008 in this version .