Classical Works Spotlight #345--Schoenberg

[erik]

A post-World War II work by Arnold Schoenberg based on the horrors of the Holocaust is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.

Schoenberg: A SURVIVOR FROM WARSAW

Great art has often been known to come from traumatic events; and this was the case of the work for narrator, male chorus, and orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg, “A Survivor From Warsaw”. Schoenberg, who had managed to escape from Europe to America and was now living in Los Angeles, had composed this work upon a suggestion by the Russian émigré ballet dancer Corinne Chochem to pay tribute to the six million victims of the Holocaust. It took the composer only twelve days in August 1947 to compose the work; and because Serge Koussevitsky’s music foundation in Boston (he had bought the Boston Symphony to world prominence by that time) had been asking for new orchestral works, it was assumed that Koussevitsky would give the world premiere of the work in Boston. However, Kurt Frederick, the music director of New Mexico’s Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra, had heard about this work and had asked the composer if he and his orchestra could do it. With Koussevitsky’s blessing, Frederick and the A.C.S.O. had planned to premiere it on September 7, 1948, but the actual premiere, at the University of New Mexico, didn’t occur until November 4. Sherman Smith narrated the performance, along with the University of New Mexico Male Chorus. Koussevitsky did, however, get around to conducting it in Boston not long after. The work is sometimes paired with another major work for chorus and orchestra in most performances (still few they are), usually the Beethoven Ninth, but also Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.



Narrator: SHERRILL MILNES

New England Conservatory Chorus

Boston Symphony Orchestra/ERICH LEINSDORF (RCA)

Included:
Beethoven: SYMPHONY NO. 9 (CHORAL)

Soprano: JANE MARSH
Mezzo-Soprano: JOSEPHNE VEASEY
Tenor: PLACIDO DOMINGO
Baritone: SHERRULL MILNES

New England Conservatory Chorus
Chorus Pro Musica

[egoodstein]

A work I've only heard of, never heard. Thanks for info. I will def. check it out. Schoenberg was definitely very innovative in the way he combined  voice and music in general, and doubtless so for such a significant subject.

[erik]

It was a work that came late in Schoenberg's life; but given that he had managed to escape to the West before Hitler's Third Reich turned a lot of Europe in a gigantic graveyard, he felt a work like this was necessary. The choral text, depending on which recording (few that there still are of it), is either sung in English or Hebrew; and the music itself is less dissonant than what people came to expect from this composer, though no less compelling.

It should also be said that this recording of "A Survivor From Warsaw", paired with the Beethoven 9th, was made in April 1969, and was the last recording that Erich Leinsdorf made during his seven-year tenure in Boston (1962-69), which was quite successful but also rather turbulent at times as well.