Austrian concert programme — Schoenberg, Schubert, Berg & others

Johann Strauss II (1825–99)

Kaiserwalzer (Emperor Waltz) Op.437

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

Rosamunde: Overture

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg

Johann Strauss II

Wein, Weib und Gesang (Wine, Women and Song) Op.333

arranged by Alban Berg (1885–1935)

Johann Strauss II

Schatz-Walzer (Treasure Waltz) Op.418

arranged by Anton Webern (1883–1945)

Gustave Mahler (1880–1911)

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg

Wenn main Schatz Hchzeit macht

Ging heut’Morgen übers Feld

Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer

Die zwei Augen

Franz Schubert

Rosamunde: Entracte 3 and Ballet Music 2

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg

Johann Strauss II

Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses from the South) Op.388

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg

The Schoenberg image has been distorted into such an unattractive caricature over the years that any thought of associating the master of the Second Viennese School with music of less than complete intellectual rigour seems weirdly incongruous. But Schoenberg – who in his youth supplemented his meagre income by arranging and orchestrating Viennese operettas by composers like Heuberger and Lehár, who wrote cabaret songs in his 20s and who played tennis with George Gershwin in his 60s – was associated with popular music throughout his life. “There are a few composers like Offenbach, Johann Strauss, and Gershwin,’ he wrote admiringly, “whose feelings actually coincide with those of the average man in the street.” While not counting himself among them, he declared, “I do not attach so much importance to being a musical bogeyman as to being a natural continuer of properly understood good old tradition.” That much is clear from his Strauss waltz arrangements alone.

In the severely straitened conditions in Vienna at the end of the First World War Schoenberg had set up a series of weekly chamber concerts called Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances). A high-minded organisation which devoted unbelievably long hours to rehearsal, it presented as many as 150 different contemporary works – in their original form if the scoring was modest enough, in arrangements otherwise – during the four years of its existence. Customarily, the concerts were open only to subscribers, critics being firmly excluded. But in June 1921, in an effort to raise money, the Society opened its doors to the general public for a concert including a selection of Strauss waltzes in arrangements for string quartet, harmonium and piano by Schoenberg and his star pupils Aton Webern and Alban Berg. When the mansucripts were auctioned off at the end of the concert, Schoenberg’s version of Rosen aus dem Süden, he was pleased to note, fetched the best price.

The first waltz arrangement in today’s programme, Schoenberg’s version of the Kaiserwalzer, was written four years later to accompany Pierrot Lunaire in a tour of Spain and is scored for the same seven instruments (flute, clarinet, string quartet and piano). In comparison with the 1921 arrangements, it benefits greatly from the presence of flute and clarinet (not to mention the absence of harmonium) both in the march-time introduction and the waltzes themselves. While it lacks something of the charm of Webern’s Schatz-Walzer scoring, it is entirely worthy of the greatest of all symphonic waltzes.

While Berg was no doubt glad to have the manuscript of his Strauss arrangement handed back to him by the successful bidder in the auction after the concert in 1921, he was perhaps not too pleased to have faced the most difficult task of the evening. Written originally for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, Wein, Weib und Gesang has an Andante quasi religioso introduction in 6/8 and a march-like Allegro in 4/4 culminating in a Maestoso hymn before getting on with the waltz tunes. If his quasi religioso use of the harmonium in the opening bars and in the transition to the Allegro was intended to be ironic one can scarcely blame him for reacting in that way to an impossible situation – although one might well question one or two two infelicitous touches in the waltzes themselves.

For anyone present on that “merry evening,” as Schoenberg described it,    Webern’s Strauss arrangement would have been as good an investment as any. Although he had not enjoyed much of the popular repertoire when he worked as as an opera conductor, he was enchanted by Johann Strauss whom he declared “a master.” His treatment of the Schatz-Walzer – a medley of the best waltz tunes from Der Zigeunerbaron, which he had conducted in Danzig in 1910 – is particularly attractive for its seductive string writing, its witty piano colouring and its discreet but effective use of the harmonium.

Like Berg, Schoenberg had an awkward introduction to cope with in making his arrangement of Rosen aus dem Süden but in this case it is shorter and, except in a few bars of Allegro agitato in 4/4, more waltz-like. As for the waltzes themselves –    Strauss’s selection of the best examples from his operetta Das Spitzentuch der Königin – they are treated with respect but not quite literally: Schoenberg clearly could not resist exaggerating a stylish rhythmic feature in the first waltz and making a small cut later on.