Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellenpple    (1884)

arranged by Arnold Schoenberg (1919)

Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht

Ging heut Morgen über’s Feld

Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer

Die zwei blauen Augen

Schoenberg’s arrangement of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen is one of many such transcriptions made for the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances) which he and his star pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg had set up in Vienna in severely straitened post-war circumstances in 1918. 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. Dedicated to “giving artists and enlightened amateurs a precise idea of the music of today,” the concerts were open only to subscribers, critics being firmly excluded. Applause was forbidden.

The instrumentation of the present Mahler arrangement – flute, clarinet, harmonium, piano, string quintet and percussion – is much the same as that applied to many of the orchestral works performed by the Society, ranging from Busoni’s Berceuse élégiaque at one extreme to Strauss waltzes at the other. The one peculiarity in this case is the percussion part necessitated by the prominent role given by Mahler to triangle and glockenspiel in the orchestral original. The desirability of having percussion colours available might even have been one of the factors that persuaded Schoenberg to make a chamber arrangement of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen    when there was already a perfectly legitimate voice-and-piano version by Mahler himself. Another might have been the contrast between wind and strings which, for example, is such vital aspect of Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht where the cheerful wedding-dance music on woodwind so poignantly offsets the unhappy reflections made in a slower tempo by voice and strings. Similarly, Ging heut Morgen über’s Feld would be seriously impoverished without the joyful “sound and colour” created by woodwind and percussion only to be drained away in the tragic last three lines.

While it is true that Schoenberg found no satisfactory substitute for    Mahler’s harp in any of the four songs and that the harmonium cannot replace the horns, he is remarkably successful in his version of Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer which is the most heavily scored of all in the original but which is just as effective in a version that, necessarily, thrusts the pained vocal line into such high-profile prominence. As in the first song, wind instruments are essential to Die zwei blauen Augen, in this case for authentic colouring of the funeral-march material, not least when it returns for the last time and effects the the chilling change to the minor in the very quiet closing bars.