Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder (1910)
The audiences at the premiere were clenching their teeth. A new work by Schoenberg. The madman, writing “music” without keys. His second string quartet had a soprano, his song cycle Pierrot Lunaire was “absurd”. Many brought noise makers to this premiere, ready to jeer and cat call. But, everyone was taken aback when the music started. A traditional piece, not just that but also a masterpiece. With one concert, Schoenberg managed to turn the hostile audiences of Vienna a full 180 degrees. They even chanted his name during the standing ovation. But when he came onto the stage, he turned his back to the cheering crowd, instead bowing to the musicians and thanking them, then walking off. A bizarre gesture, done out of spiteful annoyance for the public who loved music that he had moved on from and had grown tired of. Schoenberg’s early stile followed the trail of post-Wagnerian German Romanticism. He had started writing the Gurre-Lieder in 1900, first as a song cycle of 9 songs for two singers and piano, which he had intended to submit to a contest held by the Vienna Composers Association. Unfortunately he didn’t finish it by the deadline. He decided to keep working on it, and what was a song cycle grew into the skeleton of a gargantuan symphonic cantata. Daunted by the idea of orchestrating it, he set the score aside. And so, part one is written in a lush, Post-Romantic style. In the next few years, he became acquainted with Mahler, and the chamber-like sonorities of his late symphonies. He also started working on early atonal works, the ones radical enough for him to lose public favor. Then by 1910 he decided to come back to the project and finish its orchestration. And so, part 3 is written with more “Modern” orchestration.
The cantata is huge, and a bit exhausting to listen to, but it is rich with melodies and is a great musical portrait of the artist in transition. It could also help listeners catch the same expressivity that he writes in his later works that are thought of as inaccessible to the average person. The cantata is scored for five soloists, a narrator, a choir, and orchestra. The songs are poems by Jens Peter Jacobsen about the legend of King Waldemar and his mistress, Tove, along with the supernatural aftermath. Two historic kings of Denmark bear the name Valdemar. One is said to roam the castle grounds with ghostly horsemen on moonlit nights, as punishment for defying an oath against God. The other king had a mistress named Tove, who was murdered by the jealous queen. Over time, the two stories got mixed up, and both Valdemars became one figure with their stories becoming the Gurre legend. Gurre is a lake in North Zealand. There is an island in the middle holding a medieval castle where Danish kings of yore lived. Today, the lake is nearly dried up, and the castle is in ruins. It opens with an orchestral prelude, snippets of motifs come and go here, plenty of bird-song in the flutes. It is so serene and soul-lifting, I cannot listen to it without thinking of how the sunlight glows between tree leaves, or how the wind plays with the grass. Part one consists of the nine songs, Waldemar and Tove taking turns singing about love, but also dread, fate, and a sense of impending doom. The songs here are full of orchestral build ups and climaxes and powerful singing. A dramatic orchestral interlude takes us to the last song of the first part; the wood dove’s song, the trauma of Tove’s death. A constant drum beat with long pauses is almost like her dying heart. The bleakness of the music emphasizes finality.
The second part is brief, like an intermezzo, but the orchestral drama here is as operatic as it gets. It opens with the same motif of the Wood Dove’s song, and Waldemar cries out in pain over a heartbreaking melody. Then, the story gets weird. The “other” side of the Gurre legend enters, where in rage, Waldemar summons ghosts to ride through the castle grounds at night, and a choir of men sing out the hunting song over heavy and epich orchestral storms. Then we get two contrasting soloists; first a peasant singing about his fear of the spectral wilde jagd, and second the ghost of a court jester singing a lighthearded macabre song about how annoyed he is to be summoned to ride when he’d rather stay resting in his grave. The end of the cantata shows Schoenberg thinking away from literal interpretation, to more abstract and expressive writing. Instead of “ending” the story “stops”, and the last portion [The Summer Wind’s Wild Hunt] acts as a coda, focusing on the theme of redemption, love, and how life moves on after tragedy. First we get another orchestral interlude, this time with chamber sonorities. Then, a melodrama starts, a narrator speaking in rhythm over the music, a “sprechgesang” technique that Schoenberg uses in full with Pierrot Lunaire. Here, the poem is about the morning wind. That eventually leads into the final chorus, the sun rises, the darkness of envy, death, revenge, and rage are forgotten. It relishes in the glory of sunlight and the passage of time.
Part I
Orchestral Prelude
Nun dämpft die Dämm'rung (tenor = Waldemar)
O, wenn des Mondes Strahlen (soprano = Tove)
Ross! Mein Ross! (Waldemar)
Sterne jubeln (Tove)
So tanzen die Engel vor Gottes Thron nicht (Waldemar)
Nun sag ich dir zum ersten Mal (Tove)
Es ist Mitternachtszeit (Waldemar)
Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick (Tove)
Du wunderliche Tove! (Waldemar)
Orchestral Interlude
Tauben von Gurre! (mezzo-soprano = Wood Dove)
Part II
Herrgott, weißt du, was du tatest (Waldemar)
Part III
Erwacht, König Waldemars Mannen wert! (Waldemar)
Deckel des Sarges klappert (bass-baritone = Peasant, men's chorus)
Gegrüsst, o König (men's chorus = Waldemar's men)
Mit Toves Stimme flüstert der Wald (Waldemar)
Ein seltsamer Vogel ist so'n Aal (Klaus the Jester)
Du strenger Richter droben (Waldemar)
Der Hahn erhebt den Kopf zur Kraht (men's chorus)
Des Sommerwindes wilde Jagd / The Summer Wind's Wild Hunt
Orchestral Prelude
Herr Gänsefuss, Frau Gänsekraut (speaker)
Seht die Sonne! (mixed chorus)
