»Hochzeitslied« op. 3 Nr. 4, autograph, first written copy
For the first time, at an auction, our Foundation was able to obtain a music autograph by Arnold Schönberg: the first written copy of the “Hochzeitslied” (“Wedding Song“), op. 3,
No. 4. This manuscript is a valuable source of the composition, which until now has remained undated, and provides new details about the early origins of the “Gurre-Lieder.” The song has been referred to as originating “around 1901,” both in the scholarly literature as well as in the Complete Schönberg Edition. Although the printer’s copy is missing, we now know precisely that the manuscript’s date is 31 March 1900.
By comparing the paper and style of the manuscript with other compositions on texts by Jens Peter Jacobsen, similar arguments can be made for the fragments “Wir müssen, Geliebteste, leise” (autograph in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York) and “In langen Jahren büßen wir” (autograph in the Arnold Schönberg Center). In the early catalog of vocal compositions, both fragments also were referred to as having originated
“around 1901,” but now can be dated back to March 1900. Supposedly, Schönberg came upon the German edition of the Jacobsen poems, which he also used for “Gurre-Lieder”
(translated from Danish by a Viennese Philologist under the pseudonym Robert F. Arnold and released in 1897 by the Leipzig Publisher, Georg Heinrich Meyer), through his brother-in-law, Alexander Zemlinsky. At the time, Zemlinsky was Founder and Member of the Board of the Viennese Composers’ Society that had advertised a prize competition for a songcycle with piano. “Schönberg, who wanted to apply for the prize, composed a few songs to Jacobsen’s texts. […] The songs were really beautiful and written in a new vein, but we both felt that that was precisely why he would probably be rejected. Schönberg
nevertheless proceded to compose the entire cycle by Jacobsen.” (Alexander Zemlinsky, “Jugenderinnerungen,” 1934). The first preserved autographs in the Schönberg Archive, sources for the later, monumental, symphonic Oratorio for Choruses, Soli and Orchestra, “Gurre-Lieder” (sketches, first written copy) reveal that the composition actually was written at first as a cycle of love songs for piano, alternating between Waldemar and Tove. However, the concept changed and already as early as 1900 was seen to include the whole cycle, as Ulrich Krämer, editor of the volume “Gurre-Lieder” of the Complete Schönberg Edition, proved in the year 2000 (published in the Report of the Symposium “Arnold Schönberg in Berlin”).
The earliest dating within the comprehensive “Gurre-Lieder” file can be seen on the first draft of Waldemar’s first song. The note “Begun March 1901,” was apparently added by
Schönberg later, yet supports with information in letters to Alban Berg containing allusions to the beginning of the composition. An examination of the “Hochzeitslied” (“Wedding Song”) of 31 March 1900, and the two song fragments created from the same publication of Jacobsen’s texts, suggests that Schönberg did not use the Jacobsen edition for the Society of Composer’s competition exclusively for the “Gurre-Lieder,” but that he also might have used other poems from the 1897 edition to set to music and submit for the prize, and that, in fact, he might have begun the “Gurre-Lieder” later than these. Both song fragments, whose texts follow one another in the Leipzig Jacobsen edition, are not dated, but the completion date of the “Hochzeitslied” does not exclude the possibility of an earlier date of origin. In addition to Zemlinsky’s recollection of the Spring of 1900, published in the “Schönberg Festschrift” of 1934, Schönberg later told his American pupils
that he had not taken part in the competition, since he had only completed the piano song-cycle of the “Gurre-Lieder”after the competition deadline (recalled by his pupil Dika
Newlin in “Schoenberg Remembered”). The “Hochzeitslied,” was first put into a collection for publication, together with five other songs from the years 1899 – 1903, for the publisher Dreililien-Verlag in 1904.
The provenance of the newly acquired autograph goes back to Schönberg’s brother, Heinrich, who was a singer. Schönberg gave the manuscript as a gift to Heinrich in 1917, at the occasion of the latter’s marriage to Bertel Ott, the daughter of the mayor of Salzburg. At the same occasion, Schönberg also dedicated a copy of the “Jakobsleiter” libretto to his new sister-in-law.
Therese Muxeneder
