5/29/20

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Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Today’s selection is a piece written by the famous (or infamous, depending on your opinion of atonal music) Arnold Schoenberg. This particular piece, like a few of my previous posts, is a work which I was not familiar with until it showed up in the curriculum of one of my courses. A Survivor from Warsaw, written in 1947, is scored for full orchestra, narrator, and men’s chorus, and serves as Schoenberg’s tribute to the survivors of the Holocaust. Arnold Schoenberg, who was Jewish himself, fled Europe to live in the United States in 1933 and began to teach at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. Around this time, the Nazi Party had denounced modernist (and thus, atonal and serialist) music which had begun to develop in Europe at this time, in large part due to Schoenberg’s work. It is for this reason that Arnold Schoenberg often is given the title “father of the twelve tone method,” as this development in classical music would serve as most significant advancement in the entirety of the 20th century.

Following the devastation of World War II, it was not an uncommon theme for composers that lived through it to write a piece to memorialize the war or honor the survivors. These pieces took on a vast number of styles - a rather famous example of one of these pieces would be Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, which was completed in 1962. A Survivor from Warsaw takes on a much different tone, and aims to give audiences a view into the mind of someone who personally lived through the horrors of the Holocaust. The text, which was written by Arnold Schoenberg, outlines the story of someone who was in the Warsaw ghetto. This also brings us to one of the more interesting musical devices of the piece, the narration. The text goes between English, German, and eventually Hebrew, and is notated on a single-line staff with approximate ‘pitches’. According to Schoenberg, “never should there be a pitch” in the narration, meaning that despite the indication of some sort of pitch space, the narrator should never approach singing. While most of it is metered, there are some moments of “colla parte,” in which the text breaks away from the meter and is allowed to be spoken at a regular pace. The effect of all of this is very distinct, because even with some freedom, the narration often takes on a hauntingly dreary and droning quality. Additionally, the narration sharply contrasts the entrance of the men’s chorus, which enters in the last couple of minutes of the piece singing the prayer, the Shema Yisrael.

While the narration is undoubtedly crucial to the tone of the piece, I would also like to comment on the orchestration as a device as well. Much of A Survivor from Warsaw showcases an almost-pointillistic style of orchestration, with textures being defined by brief interjections from the winds or strings, sometimes accompanied by a melodic line. Even as the orchestration becomes thicker, the textures remain pointed, often by the use of quick rhythmic repetitions or sudden shifts in dynamics. Textural techniques aside, even the harmonic content contributes to the atmosphere - written only four years before his death, A Survivor from Warsaw showcases Arnold Schoenberg’s atonality at its most refined. The lack of a tonal center prevents the listener from ever feeling too settled (or settled at all for that matter), creating unrest in yet another aspect of the piece. This speaks to how brilliantly Arnold Schoenberg, as well as many other composers, weave specific ideas and emotions into the fabric of their pieces. Even in the span of only 7-8 minutes, A Survivor from Warsaw is able to tell the story of and convey the emotions of someone in the Warsaw ghetto by the complete integration of these musical elements into the composition of the piece. The aesthetic of the piece may be strange, but don’t let that fool you into missing how unabashedly true it is to its message.

A Survivor from Warsaw is probably not the piece to put on in the background of your next dinner party, but I believe that it is one of those pieces that most everybody should know about. After all, it is written by one of the most important composers of the 20th century as a reflection on one of the most jarring events in modern history. I’d also like to acknowledge that like many of the other pieces which I have written about in these posts, this piece may be hard to enjoy the first time you hear it. In this case, you may never find the piece ‘enjoyable,’ but I believe that may just mean that it warrants more attention from us as the listeners. However you decide to go about listening to the piece, just remember to consider the context and message. Below I have linked a video that includes the score of the piece - while the music may be hard to follow at all times, I’ve found it can be incredibly helpful to start by following only the narration.