Austria Schoenberg and Zemlinsky: Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Vienna Symphony Orchestra / Patrick Hahn (conductor). Musikverein, Vienna, 5.6.2024. (MB)
Schoenberg – Erwartung, Op.17
Zemlinsky – Die Seejungfrau
What’s Schoenberg’s single biggest work? It’s a foolish query, a minimum of as foolish as asking the identical of Mahler, of Webern, or of Boulez. Generally we ask ourselves foolish questions, although; I believe that Erwartung would come fairly near the highest of any mixture checklist for Schoenbergians. Written over an awfully quick time frame – Schoenberg was typically, although not all the time, like that – the monodrama comes from his Wunderjahr of 1909. Nevertheless, it needed to wait till 1924 for its first efficiency, in Prague on 6 June, performed by the composer’s nice good friend, advocate, and brother-in-law (I feel we will nonetheless rely him as such, although Mathilde Schönberg had died the earlier 12 months) Alexander von Zemlinsky. This Musikverein efficiency, by Dorothea Röschmann, the Vienna Symphony, and Patrick Hahn, should absolutely subsequently have been the final of its first century-in-performance, coming because it did on 5 June 2024. Aptly sufficient for thus prophetic but traditionally rooted a piece, its successor the next night would inaugurate a brand new performing century.
This, at any fee, made for an excellent finale that might additionally look ahead, absolutely the equal of any efficiency I’ve heard and the superior of many, whether or not dwell or on report. In his one hundred and fiftieth 12 months, Schoenberg’s place as the one most essential – not essentially ‘biggest’, no matter which will imply, although actually a critical contender for that too – composer of the 20th century is assured. It all the time was: nonetheless, it has nonetheless not translated into broader acceptance from a frankly doltish public. (That his rejection is usually, even normally, laced with antisemitism, unconscious as a lot as acutely aware, makes it worse; however allow us to go away that apart for now.)
First and much from least, it was superbly sung by Röschmann: magnificence, music, and great thing about singing all being concerned there. It was astonishingly correct too, and never solely within the vocal half, although one might have taken dictation from it had, in some way, one not been swept away by the expertise. Hahn’s knowledgeable balancing of the traces – all the time a tough, in one other sense unsung, enterprise within the music of the Second Viennese College – was such that one virtually didn’t realise he was doing it. That was additionally, naturally, the accomplishment of the golden-toned VSO, right here furthermore sounding each bit as ‘Viennese’ as their Philharmonic cousins (to whom I’m positive they’re rightly fed up with being in contrast). Construction, furthermore, was as a minimum of clear as I can recall, Schoenberg’s scenic division of the work, the fourth and closing scene far longer than the others, uncommonly obvious and dramatically significant, with out making the efficiency appear something however a convincing entire. Climaxes have been, effectively, as climactic as one might hope, after which some; but all the time one thing was shifting, conclusion or, as we’d now say, ‘closure’, by no means on the horizon.
Music arose from drama, and vice versa. Schoenberg by no means factors in merely one route; nor did he right here. The whirlwind third scene particularly appeared however a stone’s throw, if that, from the later Schoenberg of, say, the almost-never-performed Op.22 4 Orchestral Songs, but there was all the time a lot of earlier writing too: as an example, the Op.8 Six Orchestral Songs and, certainly, Gurrelieder. As we entered the ultimate scene, Röschmann edged nearer at instances to Sprechgesang, but solely at instances. Later, the opera – for allow us to always remember it’s one – appeared to return near Wozzeck’s Marie, a minimum of within the voice, for the orchestral writing rightly sounded very totally different. The nippiness of the strings following ‘Ich will das nicht … nein, ich will nicht …’ supplied aftershock that was horrible, even terrifying, certainly, initiating sure intimations, so it appeared, of Pierrot lunaire. There was nice tenderness too; how might one not sympathise with this protagonist? One really felt, furthermore, the transformation of the ‘Dämmerung’ to which she referred towards the top, in a musical breeze that testified to Schoenberg’s mastery of orchestration in addition to masterly orchestral taking part in. And the musical upward spiral with which the rating got here to an in depth, if not closure, was simply the factor: tantalisingly temporary, but saying all that could possibly be mentioned or performed.
What, then, is Zemlinsky’s single biggest work? I’m not positive it’s fairly so foolish a query; the Lyric Symphony would in all probability don’t have any critical rival in any survey, although it’d nonetheless beg the query, ‘why are you asking?’ One doable reply could be to assist perceive why different works by the composer have by no means fairly lived as much as its renown, although the operas once more appear to be experiencing a few of a revival. The symphonic poem – his just one – Die Seejungfrau can be faring higher now, although its chequered genesis will in all probability all the time rely in opposition to it. Zemlinsky withdrew the rating after solely three performances and suppressed it.
The unpublished rating was divided, the primary motion given to Zemlinsky’s good friend Marie Pappenheim, additionally Schoenberg’s librettist for Erwartung. Zemlinsky retained the second and third actions, taking them with him when leaving Europe for the USA in 1938. Solely within the early Eighties did students come to understand that the three actions belonged collectively. Die Seejungfrau was lastly printed, receiving its first ‘trendy’ efficiency, performed by a kind of students, Peter Gülke, solely in 1984. It might not be a masterpiece – it will probably, to be brutally trustworthy, be just a little repetitive at instances and would, unsurprisingly, have benefited from revision – however it’s nonetheless very effectively price listening to, particularly in a efficiency corresponding to this.
Zemlinsky’s methodology of motivic transformation got here very a lot to the fore, Hahn exhibiting himself as completed a Zemlinskian as a Schoenbergian, constructing pressure right here, particularly within the first motion, as expertly as he had in Erwartung. In some respects, the work got here to resemble a wordless, unvoiced opera. Its sepulchral (subaquatic) opening right here had one thing in frequent with Richard Strauss, with out ever lowering itself to imitation or ‘likeness’; any similarities, all through the rating, have been simply that, no extra. Maybe the closest kinship – this has struck me earlier than – was with Mahler’s Das klagende Lied. Perhaps there’s some affect there – its first efficiency got here in 1901 – however it was really the primary, lengthy unperformed a part of Mahler’s rating that extra typically got here to thoughts, so allow us to banish any considered derivation and have a good time commonality. Pacing and stability have been equally spectacular right here, and the way the orchestra shimmered, glowed, and glistened, as if the waters have been first awaiting after which celebrating the arrival of the mermaid and her subjectivity. Opposing and complementary materials have been deftly formed, once more with a eager ear for drama, within the second motion. The dual return to darkness and progress to one thing approaching transfiguration of the third each supplied an intriguing echo of Tannhäuser and constructed to a grand climax and additional shadows of its personal. For each Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, it was not a case of both/or.
Mark Berry
