Gurreleider

Schoenberg, Arnold

album cover

Not the Scary Schoenberg

Those charged with luring paying customers to orchestra concerts tremble at the mention of Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). The modernist composer is responsible for some of the frostiest, most impenetrable works in the canon—he's the pioneer of "twelve tone" or serial music, a compositional method in which each tone of the chromatic scale functions in a predetermined series governing the harmonic and melodic "form" of the piece. They're a little like math problems in sound—they unfold at sharp angles and have been known to send patrons fleeing concert halls.

Schoenberg experienced his twelve-tone brainstorm, which he once predicted would "ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years," in the early 1920s. Gurrelieder suggests that Schoenberg wasn't always so strident. In fact, before he became a dark prince, this imposing figure had quite the deft touch with smoldering romantic-era melodies: Sprinkled throughout this three-part composition, arguably his most important early work, are expansive and tuneful arias for five solo singers, accompanied by lush orchestrations reminiscent of Wagner.

When Schoenberg began the piece, in 1901, massive "event" compositions (like Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the "Symphony of a Thousand") were the rage. Schoenberg found a wild text—the poems of Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen, which tell of an illicit love affair between twelfth-century King Waldemar and a mistress, Tove, in the castle of Gurre—and concocted an unusual hybrid incorporating elements of song-cycle, oratorio, and opera. Schoenberg's vision required a massive ensemble: In addition to the five soloists, there's a three-part male chorus, an eight-part mixed chorus, and a huge orchestra.

Gurrelieder didn't actually premiere until 1913, and it offers a unique window into Schoenberg's evolution. The passages in the first two sections, like Tove's radiant "Sterne jubeln" (sung here by soprano Karita Mattila), are bathed in placid tones and radiant consonance, with faint portents stirring in the low brass and strings. The appearance of the eerie Wood Dove in the middle of the piece shatters the tranquil "love" music of the first section and ushers in the shadowy, more macabre late scenes. Things get downright stormy in the third section: By the last few passages for solo voice and narrator, the orchestra has grown fitful, dissonant, and unpredictable, emitting splashes of notes that have scant connection to the vocals. Serialism is in the air.

That gradual shift in temperament is one of the many challenges involved in performing Gurrelieder. Another is sheer mass. On this version, recorded shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, British conductor Sir Simon Rattle focuses on the ruminating vocal melodies—in the liner notes, he says he thinks of the piece as the world's largest string quartet, and until the thundering chords of the finale, his version is striking for its intimacy. Rattle guides the Berlin Philharmonic as though determined to rehabilitate Schoenberg's image, to remind the world that before he was bit by the serialism bug, this composer made some downright gorgeous music.

Genre: Classical
Released: 2002, EMI
Key Tracks: "Sterne jubeln," "Ein seltsamer Vogel ist so'n Aal," "Seht die Sonne!"
Another Interpretation: Deborah Voigt, Munich Philharmonic (James Levine, cond.)
Catalog Choice: Transfigured Night, Yo-Yo Ma and Walter Trampler, Juilliard String Quartet
Next Stop: Richard Wagner: Gotterdämmerung
After That: Alban Berg: Lulu Suite, Lyric Suite, New York Philharmonic (Pierre Boulez, cond.)
Book Pages: 676–677