Edition 12, March 2004 – August 2004
Inhalt
Editorial
From the Archive
Arnold Schönberg Research Center
Avenir Foundation Research Grants
New Releases 2003
New Releases 2004
Friends of the Arnold Schönberg Center
Press Statements
Art Tour toParis
Editorial
Dear Friends of the Arnold Schönberg Center!
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!
We have selected "Arnold Schönberg's Brilliant Moves" as this year's theme. It cannot be mere chance that precisely at the same time when Schönberg was involved with the order of the twelve tones, he was also preoccupied with a revolutionary development in chess, his Coalition Chess. Many game constructs and diverse twelve-tone works sprang forth from Schönberg's creative genius after the end of the First World War. At the Arnold Schönberg Center, we will host several events dedicated to the exploration of this theme: an international symposium of several days, accompanying concerts, and an exhibition as part of the Vienna Festival.
As in past years, we have planned numerous international joint ventures. The most important are highlighted here as follows: The exhibition "Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider," the first comprehensive exhibition of Arnold Schönberg as painter at a major U.S. Museum, closed in February at the Jewish Museum New York. Finally, 70 years after Schönberg's immigration to the United States, this exhibition demonstrated the triumphant confirmation of his art works by American viewers. In addition, there have been cooperations with exhibitions in Verona (Palazzo Forti - "La creazione ansiosa. Da Picasso a Bacon"), which received a prize as the best Italian Special Exhibition; in Paris (Musée d'Orsay - "At the Origins of Abstraction"); in Bochum (Museum Bochum - "The Right of the Image. Jewish Perspectives in Modern Art") and in Ludwigshafen (Wilhelm-Hack-Museum - "The Blue Rider. The Freeing of Color"). These events point up the ever increasing interest in Schönberg's paintings and drawings.
In Summer of 2004, for the first time, there will be a representative crosssection of paintings on view at the Egon Schiele Art Center Cesky Krumlov (Czech Republic). This Fall several paintings will go to Paris, to be shown in special exhibitions at the Musée national d'Art moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, as well as at the Musée de la musique/Cité de la musique. The Yeshiva University Museum New York will be showing the exhibition "Vienna: Jews and the City of Music, 1870 - 1938" (8 February - 30 June) which was shown in 2003 with great acclaim at the Jewish Museum Vienna. This year as well, we will be cooperating with loans to the Jewish Museum Vienna for their Spring exhibitions, "Vienna, the City of the Jews. The World of Tante Jolesch" (19 May - 31 October), "Continental Britons. Music of Exile: Hans Gál and Egon Wellesz" (25 February - 2 May). We will also be involved in a series of 5 concerts, in which for the first time all the String Quartets by Schönberg's pupil and first biographer, Egon Wellesz, as well as two quartets by his colleague, Hans Gál will be performed. (Subscription Series egon wellesz quartett, details in the Calendar of Events.)
In Zagreb, "Schönberg Days," a series of concerts, workshops and lectures, will take place from 1 to 3 April in cooperation with our Foundation and the Cantus and Merlin Ensem-bles. In April, June, and July 2004, there will also be a new production by Peter Mussbach of "Moses und Aron" at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, Daniel Barenboim conducting. These performances will be accompanied by an exhibition and a symposium on the theme "Arnold Schönberg's 'Moses und Aron' - The Task of Translation" in cooperation with the Wissenschaftskolleg of Berlin, 25 till 27 June 2004.
Since January, our Foundation has its own webradio station. We are very proud to be one of the first cultural institutions in the German speaking world that is present on the Internet around the clock. In addition, Schönberg's complete œuvre can currently be listened to on our website. You will find further details concerning our webradio as well as the latest developments of our research and catalog projects in the report From the Archive as well as in the Calendar of Events, which also contains the webradio program.
We are also pleased about prominent visitors to the Center: Thomas Hampson came to study our database systems, the German conductors Christian Thielemann and Ingo Metzmacher were equally impressed with the contents of the Archive, as was the Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho. At the occasion marking the 1100 year Jubilee of the City of Mödling, former Jewish citizens, who had emigrated in the 30's and 40's, visited their birthplace at the invitation of the Mayor. In addition to reliving personal memories, important centers of Mödling's cultural history were also visited, among them Beethoven's residence and the Schönberg-House. The number of Friends of our Institution is steadily growing, their donations enhancing our capabilities of enabling research projects. Following our trips to Moscow (2001) and Madrid (2003) we intend to travel with our friends to Paris in 2004, in order to trace Schönberg's footsteps and to visit the two exhibitions concerned with Schönberg. I am looking forward to your enrolments for the trip and to seeing you at one of our next events.
Sincerely,
Christian Meyer
Director
From the Archive
Digitizing Project
Arnold Schönberg arranged in 1951 for his entire correspondence - the originals of letters written to him as well as his own letters in the form of drafts or carbon copies - to be deposited at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., after his death. The comprehensive collection, comprising approximately 21,000 letters of correspondence and 35,000 written pages, provides biographical documents as well as information about Schönberg's artistic development. The letters also attest to a half century of cultural and intellectual history: Albert Einstein, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka, Thomas Mann, Karl Kraus, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss not only penned their thoughts but exchanged ideas with Arnold Schönberg. Correspondence with publishers, analyses of works, a post card from Egon Schiele, Christmas and birthday letters of congratulation from his pupils and friends, estimates for furniture, patent specifications, birth announcements, letters of condolence, letters to the editor, and vacation brochures are collected together with royalty statements, rehearsal schedules, legal documents and even records of Schönberg's telephone calls.
In order to make these heretofore unpublished documents available to a larger public, the Arnold Schönberg Center, in cooperation with Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles, and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., has established a digitizing project which plans to have the complete collection of Schönberg's correspondence available in color facsimiles on the Internet by the end of this year. All of the correspondence will first be digitized in print quality, and, upon completion of the project, will be available for internet transmission in standard resolution as part of the already extant source database at www.schoenberg.at.
As a further step, we are hoping to expand the digital holdings of the Library of Congress by way of scanning original Schönberg letters housed in private and public collections world-wide. This ambitious and to date most comprehensive and universal digitizing project of a composer's correspond-ence is being financed by the Arnold Schönberg Center, Belmont Music Publishers, and the Avenir Foundation, Wheat Ridge/Colorado. An "analog" catalog of the complete correspondence was published in the "Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute" (Vol. XVIII/XIX - 1996/97) and is available through the Center.
Webradio
Since December 2003, the Arnold Schönberg Center has been broadcasting a webradio program over www.schoenberg.at, which not only provides information about events, symposia and exhibitions, but also presents listening examples from the manifold audiovisual sources in the Archive. Documentation about Schönberg's life and works, interviews with contemporaries and family members, scholarly lectures, as well as present and historical recordings of Schönberg's works, serve to present an aural portrait of the composer, painter, writer, teacher, theoretician and inventor. Links to the holdings of the Center, presented in the form of color facsimiles of autograph manuscripts, program notes, as well as a comprehensive Schönberg discography, provide visualization for an auditory encounter with one of the most prominent artistic personalities of the 20th century. The program, presented in both German and English, is broadcast non-stop, updated weekly, and supplemented by live transmissions of musical and scholarly events. ( System requirements: ISDN/DSL/ADSL).
By expanding the comprehensive list of works on our website, now all compositions can also be heard unabridged, among them the completed instrumental and vocal works with and without opus numbers, arrangements, as well as a selection of fragments. This service will be supplemented with a series of historical recordings as well as live performances of events held at the Arnold Schönberg Center. As a result of the transfer and restoration of audiovisual media from the Schönberg legacy, for the first time saved live cuts from Schönberg's conducting and rehearsals, which took place between 1927 and 1940, will be accessible to a worldwide audience. Among these recordings are the Parisian First Performance of the Suite, op. 29, rehearsals to the première of "Kol Nidre," op. 39, cuts of "Verklärte Nacht" ("Transfigured Night"), op. 4, "Song of the Wood-dove" and the opera "Von heute auf morgen," op. 32, as well as recorded broadcasts of Schönberg's lec- tures, interviews, and introductory remarks to his works.
The gift of a dictating machine (Webster Wire Recorder) from his pupil, Clara Silvers, in 1948, offered Schönberg the possibility of dictating letters and also some homespun fairy tales for his children. These private, wire voice recordings have also been included in the Internet catalog of the archive as streaming audio files.
Therese Muxeneder
Archivist
Avenir Foundation Research Grant
The Avenir Foundation of Wheat Ridge/Colorado is sponsoring our private foundation on the condition that the annual interest from the donation be used to give international students and scholars grants for travel and accomodations for their research at the Arnold Schönberg Center.
The Arnold Schönberg Center Private Foundation has established Research Grants to encourage scholarly and archival research at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna. Grant recipients work at the Arnold Schönberg Center on projects which relate directly to the life and works of Arnold Schönberg.
Support for the Research Grants will include:
o Housing at the Schönberg-House in Mödling for a two-week period (note: scholars may apply for additional two-week periods based on more extensive projects)
o Public transportation passes within Vienna and Mödling
o Per diem allowance
o Transportation allowance to assist in travel to and from Vienna
o Full use of the Arnold Schönberg Center's archive and library facilities
Please check our website at www.schoenberg.at to familiarize yourself with the available archival materials and the Center's facilities.
All written applications for Research Grants should be sent to:
Arnold Schönberg Center Privatstiftung
Direktion
Schwarzenbergplatz 6
A -1030 Wien
e-mail: direktion@schoenberg.at
Fax: (+43/1) 712 18 88-88
Information: Therese Muxeneder
Telefon: (+43/1) 712 18 88-30
Responses to all grant applications will be sent no later than three months after receipt of the application.
Applicants should include the following:
o A detailed project description
o Curriculum vitae
o Letter of recommendation from school or university (for students)
Further projects at the Arnold Schönberg Center sponsored by the Avenir Foundation:
o Multi-Media Exhibition on the life and works of Arnold Schönberg (1874 - 1951)
o Critical Complete Edition of the Writings of Arnold Schönberg
o Arnold Schönberg Correspondence Digitizing Project
Recipients of the Avenir Foundation Research Grant 2003:
Áine Heneghan, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Jean-Jacques Dünki, Basel, Switzerland
Florian Heesch, Universität zu Köln, Germany
Ralf-Alexander Kohler, TU Berlin, Germany
Stephen Peles, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA
Sokol Shupo, Universiteti i Tiranës, Albania
Activities of the Arnold Schönberg Research Center at the Institut für Musikalische Stilforschung of the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna
In preparation of the Critical Complete Edition of the Writings of Arnold Schönberg, numerous manuscripts have already been transcribed. Beginning in April, we will start to put these transcriptions on the Internet. They can be retrieved, together with general information concerning Arnold Schönberg's writings as well as editorial guidelines, by way of links from the Arnold Schönberg Center website.
The new Visiting Professor, Elmar Budde, began his teaching responsibilities at the Arnold Schönberg Research Center in October. In the Winter Semester 2003/2004, Elmar Budde lectured on "Forms of the Visual and Pictorial in the compositions of the Viennese School," as well as the Seminar "Piano Music of the Viennese School." In the Summer Semester 2004 he will lecture on "The Orchestra Music of the Viennese School," as well as the "Songs of the Viennese School," the latter together with Therese Muxeneder. In another seminar, he will work on students' research papers.
At the end of 2003, Thomas Brezinka completed his Dissertation, "Erwin Stein (1885 - 1957). A Musician in Vienna and London." This excellent work, which focuses on the life and influence of an important Schönberg assistant, conductor, composer and music theorist, is presented with great precision and detail and will appear in the series of publications of the Institute.
Between 12 and 15 December 2003, a large scale International Hanns Eisler Congress took place in the Concert Hall at the Rennweg, at the Arnold Schönberg Center, and at the Schönberg-House in Mödling. It succeeded in creating new awareness of Eisler's influence in Vienna and Mexico. Nuria Schoenberg Nono was able to shed light on the personality of this important Schönberg pupil through personal memories. The papers of this symposium will be published in the Symposium Report.
Similar events took place at our symposium "Arnold Schönberg and France," held from 15 till 17 January at the Arnold Schönberg Center as well as in Mödling. Papers from Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland focused on Schönberg's many "French Connections," and three concerts provided opportunities to study these mutual influences acoustically as well.
On 23, 24 and 25 March 2004 the Arnold Schönberg Research Center, together with the Egon-Wellesz-Foundation of the Society of Friends of Music and the Jewish Museum Vienna are hosting a symposium to accompany the exhibition "Continental Britons. Hans Gál and Egon Wellesz" (25 February to 2 May). The "Steinerne Saal" of the Musikverein Building, intended to host scholarly and pedagogical events, will be initiated at the occasion of this symposium featuring yet another important Schönberg pupil. For details concerning the time and series of events, please contact the Institute.
Hartmut Krones
Wissenschaftszentrum Arnold Schönberg am Institut für Musikalische Stilforschung der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
c/o Arnold Schönberg Center
Schwarzenbergplatz 6, Eingang Zaunergasse 1, A-1030 Wien
Telefon: (+43/1) 712 18 88-17 und 18 DW
Friends of the Arnold Schönberg Center
The Friends of the Arnold Schönberg Center support the scholarly projects of our Foundation. Research projects include the conservation and restoration of autograph manuscripts from Schönberg's legacy, the digitization of tens of thousands of pages of music and text manuscripts, as well as the Critical Complete Edition of the Writings of Arnold Schönberg.
Also supported are the purchasing of letters, first editions and historical documents, the scholarly research of the Schönberg Foundation, and the distribution of information concerning Schönberg's work and influence to interested parties of all ages and educational levels.
Your membership provides you with many advantages: Friends receive copies of the scholarly publications of the Arnold Schönberg Center, reduced rates for subscription series and individual concerts, free admission to exhibitions, discounts on special shop articles, and updated information (Calendar of Events, Newsletter and brochures to exhibitions).
In addition, each year we feature an exclusive, organized art tour. The minimum annual fee of 75 Euro as well as other donations in support of the scholarly projects of the Arnold Schönberg Center can be paid by means of the money order included in this Newsletter. We ask that Friends outside Austria pay by credit card. Both Austria and the United States offer tax exemptions for charitable gifts.
Arnold Schönberg Center
Information: Alena Salvini-Plawen
Telefon: (+43/1) 712 18 88-15 DW
e-mail: direktion@schoenberg.at
Press Statements
Kandinsky and Schoenberg, Seen and Heard on Canvas
When it comes to "Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider" at the Jewish Museum, we can be grateful on two counts. First, in a time when recorded music often wafts through museum exhibitions, the organizers of this show have refrained from making us listen while we look - even though they might have claimed every right to do so. The show examines a historical intersection of art and music: the friendship between the Viennese Modernist composer Arnold Schoenberg and the Russian Modernist painter Wassily Kandinsky. But fortunately, musical accompaniment has been limited to the Acoustiguide, which in this case is a valuable aid that I recommend listening to - at least the musical selections - with eyes shut. Kandinsky's roiling paintings, radical in their time, may have lost much of their ability to shock, assuming a secure place in both the history of art and public consciousness. But Schoenberg's tumultuous music, like Malevich's "Black Square," remains relatively unassimilated, emblematically modern. It demands your complete attention and is not about to fade quietly into any easy-listening background. The second cause for gratitude is that Schoenberg was himself a painter, a genuine if somewhat capricious hit-and-miss one. His efforts, usually small and often wan, center on self-portraits and are variously outsiderish, nearly abstract and conventionally representational. The last category includes a series of full-size portraits of friends, which he painted on commission in an attempt to support himself. The 36 Schoenberg paintings here outnumber all else and add a wonderful emotional weight to the visual firepower of the rest of the show: 13 paintings by Kandinsky, as well as 12 by other members of the German Expressionist Blue Rider (Blaue Reiter) group, which flourished briefly just before the First World War - among them Franz Marc, Alexej von Jawlensky, August Macke, Albert Bloch and Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky's companion. Flitting in and out among more professional, fully committed visual statements, Schoenberg's images both disrupt and pull together the exhibition's visual narrative in an essential way.
Roberta Smith, The New York Times, 24. Oktober 2003
Erste Schönberg-Schau in New York - Kooperation mit Wien
Bereits um 11 Uhr hat sich eine kleine »queue« vor dem Jewish Museum am New Yorker Central Park gebildet. Eine Bedienstete des Museums fordert die Besucher auf, die Treppen freizuhalten. Als dann, wie jeden Morgen, die Flügeltüren aufschwingen, hat das etwas Feierliches. Zwischen 500 bis 1.500 Menschen kommen täglich in das Jüdische Museum ... Und für die meisten sei die aktuelle Ausstellung »eine absolute Novität«, erzählt der Associate Curator des Museums, Fred Wasserman. Denn daß Arnold Schönberg ein großer Komponist war, weiß in New York fast jeder. »Seine Malerei aber«, so Wasserman, »und seinen Einfluß auf die bildenden Künstler seiner Zeit kannte hierzulande kaum jemand.«
Christoph Hirschmann, Format, 21. November 2003
Symposium Der Maler Arnold Schönberg ...
Schönberg gilt unbestritten als der innovativste Komponist des vergangenen Jahrhunderts, und dieser Bedeutung verdankt sich ohne Zweifel das Interesse an seiner bildnerischen Produktion. Welchen Rang hat sie? Diese Frage stand im Mittelpunkt des zweitägigen internationalen Symposiums. …Dilettant oder nicht? Mag sein, daß sich in Anbetracht der gegenwärtigen, schier grenzenlosen Erweiterung des Kunstbegriffs die Antwort erübrigt. In Moskau hatte eine Schönberg-Ausstellung 100.000 Besucher, in Madrid kamen 270.000 zu der Ausstellung »Analogias musicales« ... der Thyssen-Bornemisza-Stiftung, in der Schönberg neben Monet gehängt war. Schließlich ist mit Dubuffets Kategorie der »Art brut« der Unterschied zwischen Profi, Dilettant und Amateur aufgehoben. Und auch die Kunst der sogenannten Naiven und der psychotisch Kranken ist von jenem unbedingten Ausdruckswillen bestimmt, auf den sich Schönberg beruft: »Ich entscheide beim Komponieren nur durch das Gefühl, durch das Formgefühl … Jeder Akkord, den ich hinsetzte, entspricht einem Zwang …« Über seine Malerei sagt er dann 40 Jahre später: »Malen bedeutet für mich in der Tat dasselbe wie Komponieren.«
Paul Kruntorad, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, November/Dezember 2003
Die Kunst und das Leben
Schönberg boomt - wer hätte es gedacht? Die beeindruckend hohe Anzahl wissenschaftlicher Kongresse, Ausstellungen und vor allem Publikationen zu Arnold Schönberg in den letzten Jahren bezeugt ein Interesse an dem Komponisten und seiner Musik, das weit über gewöhnliche Jubiläumspietät (2001 war das fünfzigste Todesjahr) hinausgeht. Trotz der Tatsache, daß das Konzertpublikum Schönbergs Musik immer noch als sperrig empfindet (außer früheren tonalen Werken wie das Streichsextett »Verklärte Nacht«), sind Hauptwerke wie »Pierrot lunaire«, die Fünf Stücke für Orchester op. 16 oder seine Opern »Erwartung« und »Moses und Aron« im Repertoire fest etabliert; bestätigt wird diese Beobachtung dadurch, daß fast alle seiner Werke, und die meisten von ihnen in mehreren Interpretationen, auf Compact Disc greifbar sind. Das 1998 eröffnete und großzügig ausgestattete Arnold Schönberg Center in Wien, das das ehemalige Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles abgelöst hat, ist ein Motor für viele Aktivitäten, aber zugleich ist seine Existenz ein Zeichen für Schönbergs neue Relevanz.
Anne C. Shreffler, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10./11. Januar 2004
Kunstreise nach Paris
Paris ist immer eine Reise wert! Die dritte Studienreise für Freunde des Arnold Schönberg Center führt uns im Herbst 2004 in die Stadt des Lichts. Arnold Schönbergs letzte Station vor seiner Emigration in die USA war Paris, und wir nehmen zwei Ausstellungen mit Schönberg-Bezügen zum Anlaß für eine viertägige Reise. Am Centre Pompidou werden wir die spektakuläre Herbst-Ausstellung »Musique et Arts Plastiques au 20e siècle« besuchen und an der Cité de la musique »Le Troisième Reich et la musique«.
Geplant sind außerdem weitere Ausstellungs- und Konzertbesuche sowie Stadtrundgänge. Reservieren Sie schon jetzt diese Oktober-Tage! Wir freuen uns über Ihr Interesse und bieten ab Juli 2004 detaillierte Reiseinformationen per Post, Internet und persönlich.
Arnold Schönberg Center
Information: Alena Salvini-Plawen
Telefon: (+43/1) 712 18 88-15 DW
e-mail: direktion@schoenberg.at
