Gurre-Lieder von Jens Peter Jacobsen Deutsch von Robert Franz Arnold für Soli, Chor und Orchester. [Full score]
- Wien–Leipzig: Universal-Edition [PN U.E. 6300], 1920
Wien–Leipzig: Universal-Edition [PN U.E. 6300], 1920. Large folio. Modern full dark tan buckram, publisher's light green printed wrappers bound in. 189 pp.
New York music seller's stamp to lower margin of title.
Wrappers slightly worn and soiled with two small tape repairs to outer margin of lower. First Edition in this form. Rufer (E), pp. 78-79. GA B 16/1, p. 161. The work was first published in a facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript. It was subsequently engraved with corrections by Schoenberg, and published in 1920.
Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder was first performed in Vienna at the Großer Musikvereins-Saal, 23 February 23 1913, with Franz Schreker conducting.
The Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885) wrote his Gurresange in 1871, and a German translation was made by Robert Franz Arnold (1872-1938). Schoenberg first set these poems, which depict the love of King Waldemar and Tove, as a song cycle for voice and piano in 1900. He then began setting the entire cycle in a choral-orchestral work of Mahlerian proportions, composed and orchestrated over a decade. Scored for vast vocal and instrumental forces, it required custom 48-stave paper to fit all the parts. The Gurre-Lieder represents a culmination of the aesthetics of the Romantic period–musical language had already begun to shift into the kaleidoscope of 20th-century styles. Schoenberg, of course, was a dominant force in this shift, a fact he clearly recognized:
"When he finished the orchestration in 1910/1911, he considered the piece a document of a style of composition and an intellectual attitude which already seemed alien to him–although that did not detract from the work’s importance: 'It is the key to my entire development. It shows sides of me which I do not reveal later on, or, from a different approach. It explains how everything had to happen as it did later on, and that is enormously important for my work – that one can follow the man and his development from that point on.'" Agnes Grond, website of The Arnold Schönberg Center.
New York music seller's stamp to lower margin of title.
Wrappers slightly worn and soiled with two small tape repairs to outer margin of lower. First Edition in this form. Rufer (E), pp. 78-79. GA B 16/1, p. 161. The work was first published in a facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript. It was subsequently engraved with corrections by Schoenberg, and published in 1920.
Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder was first performed in Vienna at the Großer Musikvereins-Saal, 23 February 23 1913, with Franz Schreker conducting.
The Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885) wrote his Gurresange in 1871, and a German translation was made by Robert Franz Arnold (1872-1938). Schoenberg first set these poems, which depict the love of King Waldemar and Tove, as a song cycle for voice and piano in 1900. He then began setting the entire cycle in a choral-orchestral work of Mahlerian proportions, composed and orchestrated over a decade. Scored for vast vocal and instrumental forces, it required custom 48-stave paper to fit all the parts. The Gurre-Lieder represents a culmination of the aesthetics of the Romantic period–musical language had already begun to shift into the kaleidoscope of 20th-century styles. Schoenberg, of course, was a dominant force in this shift, a fact he clearly recognized:
"When he finished the orchestration in 1910/1911, he considered the piece a document of a style of composition and an intellectual attitude which already seemed alien to him–although that did not detract from the work’s importance: 'It is the key to my entire development. It shows sides of me which I do not reveal later on, or, from a different approach. It explains how everything had to happen as it did later on, and that is enormously important for my work – that one can follow the man and his development from that point on.'" Agnes Grond, website of The Arnold Schönberg Center.