Weihnachtsmusik

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

Weihnachtsmusik

Johann Strauss II

Schatz-Walzer (Treasure Waltz) Op.418 arr Webern

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

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

Kaiserwalzer (Emperor Waltz) Op.437 arr 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.

More surprising perhaps than Schoenberg’s waltz arrangements is his Weihnachtsmusik (Christmas Music). Robustly Jewish though he was in the last decades of his life, having returned to the faith in defiance of Nazism in 1933, he was for 35 years of his life a Christian: he had joined the Protestand Church a year after Mahler converted to Catholicism in 1898. Weihnachtsmusik, written on 23 December 1921, is one of several chamber pieces intended for his family to play together at Christmas. Scored for two violins, cello, harmonium and piano, it is a a sort of chorale prelude on the Christmas carol “Es ist ein Ros’ ensprungen” with “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” discreetly interwovenas a counterpoint.

The instrumentation of Weihnachtsmusik is not very different from that adopted by Schoenberg, his star pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg and other associates for arrangements of orchestral music for the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances) which he 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. 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. 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.

For anyone present on that “merry evening,” as Schoenberg described it,    Webern’s Strauss arrangement would have been at least as good an investment. 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 (Treasure Waltz)    – 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.

Although Berg was no doubt pleased to have the manuscript of his Strauss arrangement handed back to him by the successful bidder after the concert, 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 infelicitous touches in the waltzes themselves.

Schoenberg also had an introduction to cope with in 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 (The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief) – 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. His version of the Kaiserwalzer    –arranged for the same instrumentation as Pierrot Lunaire for a tour of that work in Spain in 1925 – benefits greatly from the presence of flute and clarinet (not to mention the absence of harmonium) both in the march-time introduction 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.

Gerald Larner © 2010