On Arnold Schoenberg's birthday ~ Just a thought . . .

 "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." (Walter Benjamin)

Lied der Waldtaube from Gurrelieder

I will have more to say later about Gurrelieder and the circumstances and age in which it was conceived.  But for now, here is a performance of the famous "Lied der Waldtaube" in a performance by Michelle De Young during a performance conducted by Seiji Ozawa at the Saito Kinen Festival in 2005.  A portion in the middle was edited out, but I have nevertheless grown fond of this particular performance.  The rough translation reflecting the cut is mine (suggestions and corrections gladly accepted) and is provided in a format that can be used as sur- or sub-titles by linking to this post in another window and adjusting the split screen appropriately.

Tauben von Gurre! Sorge quält mich,

vom Weg über die Insel her!

Doves of Gurre! I am full of sorrow,

from making my way over the island!

Kommet! Lauschet!

Come! Listen!

Tot ist Tove! Nacht auf ihrem Auge,

das der Tag des Königs war!

Tove is dead! Night is in her eye,

which was the King's day!

Still ist ihr Herz,

doch des Königs Herz schlägt wild,

tot und doch wild!

Her heart is silent,

but the King's heart beats wild,

Dead, yet wild!

Seltsam gleichend einem Boot

auf der Woge,

Strangely like a boat

on the wave,

wenn der, zu dess' Empfang

die Planken huldigend

sich gekrümmt,

when, in greeting

the planks in homage
bent,

des Schiffes Steurer tot liegt,

verstrickt in der Tiefe Tang.

the ship's helmsman lies dead,

entangled in the weeds of the deep.

Keiner bringt ihnen Botschaft,

unwegsam der Weg.

There is no message,

the road is impassable.

Wie zwei Ströme

waren ihre Gedanken,

Ströme gleitend Seit' an Seite.

Like two  streams

were their thoughts, 

Streams flowing side by side.

Wo strömen nun Toves Gedanken?

Where do Tove's thoughts flow now?

Die des Königs winden sich

seltsam dahin,

Those of the King wind
strangely here,

suchen nach denen Toves,

finden sie nicht.

searching for those of Tove,

finding nothing.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Der König öffnet Toves Sarg,

starrt und lauscht

mit bebenden Lippen,

The King opens Tove's coffin,

Stares and listens

with quivering lips,

Tove ist stumm!

Tove is silent!

Weit flog ich, Klage sucht' ich,

fand gar viel!

 I flew far, sought grief,

and found it aplenty!

Wollt' ein Mönch am Seile ziehn,

Abendsegen läuten;

A monk went to pull the bell rope

for the evening's prayers;

doch er sah den Wagenlenker

und vernahm die Trauerbotschaft:

but then he saw the coachman

and heard the horrible news:

Sonne sank, indes die Glocke

Grabgeläute tönte.

The sun sank, while the bell

tolled the death knell.

Weit flog ich, Klage sucht' ich

und den Tod!

I flew far, sought grief

and death!

Helwigs Falke war's, der grausam

Gurres Taube zerriß.

Helwig's falcon it was, who cruelly

 tore apart Gurre's dove.

`

Gurrelieder ~ Backstory

This is a very brief outline sketching the backstory of the Danish legend of Valdemar and Tove ~ the basis for Jens Peter Jacobsen's poem, Gurre-Lieder, which Schoenberg used as his text in the German translation by Robert Franz Arnold.  A more detailed background can be found as part of the liner notes for Vox recording VBX 206.

• It is the 12th or 13th century.
• Valdemar is the king of Denmark.  The queen is Helvig.
• One day Valdemar travels to the island of Rügen in the Baltic to see his brother.
• On Rügen Valdemar discovers "Little Tove" in a castle all alone.  They fall in love.
• Valdemar returns to Zealand, bringing Tove and her brother Hening with him.  There Valdemar builds the castle Gurre for Tove.  Gurre "is to be the retreat, the isle of continuing."
• The queen, Helvig, is not happy with this arrangement but waits for an opportunity for revenge.
• When Valdemar is finally gone off on a journey, Helvig induces her own lover, Folkvard, to bolt the door to the bath chamber, trapping  Tove inside.  They force scalding hot steam into the chamber and Tove dies an agonizing death.
• Valdemar returns and takes his revenge on Folkvard by sealing him in a barrel with nails pounded in the sides and rolling it around until he dies his own agonizing death.
• Valdemar, driven inward by his grief, now goes on a "spiritual" search for Tove that takes him to the other side of the grave ~ an eternal hunt, striking fear across the countryside as he rides his steed wildly through woods and over plains.

"Legends like that of Valdemar Atterdag’s wild ride are extremely widespread in Europe, the
protagonist varying from one country to the next."  And some of these folk tales may have made their way to the New World resulting in stories such as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The Vox liner notes provide a much more detailed account of the tangle of myths and legends that ultimately resulted in Jacobsen's poem, many of them with gruesome details such as Folkvard's slaying (which is not taken up in the Jacobsen poem) and Tove's murder ("Helvig's falcon [Folkvard] it was, who cruelly tore apart Gurre's dove [Tove]").

And once there did stand a Gurre castle in Zealand in Denmark whose ruins can be seen to this day (click for a tour).  Fact and legend co-mingle in Jacobsen's verse to create the wonderful haunting text for Schoenberg's Wagnerian cantata ~ his own musical vision of the ruins of Gurre.








.

"How one becomes lonely"

As usual, after this tremendous success [Vienna premiere performance of Gurrelieder in 1913] I was asked whether I was happy.  But I was not.  I was rather indifferent, if not even a little angry.  I foresaw that this success would have no influence on the fate of my later works.  I had, during these thirteen years, developed my style in such a manner that, to the ordinary concert-goer, it seemed to bear no relation to all preceding music.  I had had to fight for every new work; I had been offended in the most outrageous manner by criticism; I had lost friends and I had completely lost any belief in the judgement of friends.  And I stood alone against a world of enemies.

~ Arnold Schoenberg         

"How One Becomes Lonely" (1937)         

Reprinted in Style and Idea, p.41          

.