Arnold Schönberg’s gargantuan Gurre-Lieder was performed Friday evening in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium by the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival Chorale under the baton of Leon Botstein, who is also the president of Bard College.
As I settled into my seat in one of the world’s most magnificent concert halls named after the man who almost singlehandedly saved it from demolition, violinist Isaac Stern, I sat back and thought of the last Schoenberg opus I had heard in the hall.
It was in 2010, the Wiener Philharmoniker was in town, and I had just seen them perform a few weeks earlier at the famous Neujahrskonzert, or New Year’s Day Concert, which is broadcast worldwide from Vienna’s Musikverein. That year, the world’s most democratic orchestra arrived not with one, but with two conductors, Daniel Barenboim, who conducted Friday night, and Pierre Boulez the following evening, focusing on twentieth-century revelations with works by Schönberg, Mahler, and Webern.
Carnegie Hall in New York City
The audience was enchanted by the performance of his Chamber Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto – both under the baton of Maestro Boulez with the piano soloist as Maestro Barenboim – two pieces the composer completed after his forced departure from Europe by the National Socialist party after the Machtübergreifung in 1933. Schönberg had been director of the Preußische Akademie der Künste, the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, a hotbed of National Socialist activity, and left for the United States from Paris while on vacation, without returning either to Berlin or to his native Austria.
Upon arriving in the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life, he changed the spelling of his surname, Schönberg, to the alternate spelling Schoenberg. [Editor’s note: The letter “ö” is one of the four letters found in German but not in English and it can be replaced by the digraph “oe” in cases where a typewriter or typeface does not have the “ö”.]
First, some background. Gurre-Lieder, which translates to the Songs of Gurre, is a heavily psychological text rooted in medieval Danish legend that sets to music the poem cycle “Gurresange” by the 19th century Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen, albeit after translation from Danish to German by Robert Franz Arnold.
Gurresange is set in the 12th century Gurre Slot, or Gurre Castle, and environs. It concerns the doomed love between King Waldemar and his cherished Tove, who is killed at the queen’s behest halfway through the work.
The concert hall shortly before the start of the program
Not only is the work itself gargantuan, but it requires a gargantuan ensemble equal to the task, comprised of 122 orchestra members, 80 members of the chorus, six soloists, and one conductor, which meant there were 209 musicians on stage, the most I had ever seen at Carnegie Hall. But it turns out that this was not even close to the hall’s record of 1,000 musicians when the People’s Singing Classes and People’s Choral Union performed there on May 14, 1900. From photographs published by Carnegie Hall, it looks as if the stage had been more than doubled in size and I cannot even begin to imagine how it felt to be in a seat that night 124 years ago since this time merely 209 musicians brought such tremendous power and beauty to the stage and to the piece itself.
The tale itself is told in narration. Part I consists of a dialog in alternating songs between König Valdemar Atterdags (King Waldemar, sung by Dominic Armstrong) and Tove (Felicia Moore), a lady in his court. But this raises the jealousy of Queen Helvig, who has Tove poisoned. Valdemar then curses God for her death and is sentenced to lead a ghost army every night on a “wilde Jagd” or wild hunt across Gurre-See (Gurre Lake).
Armstrong at times strained to be heard over the orchestra, something Botstein should have been able to tamp down, so I found it difficult to comprehend a good part of his dialogue, although the power of his lyrical voice did get through and there was always the rather hefty libretto distributed with the program, which to get it into a manageable size used the tiniest of print, making it difficult for some concertgoers to read.
Brenton Ryan was perfectly cast as Klaus-Narr, or Klaus the Fool or Jester, and the score here takes on a mischievous tone, somewhat reminiscent of Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, as he complains of having to repeat the ghost-ride every night with the König.
The view from the stage shortly before the start of the concert
Meanwhile, the rich tones of Krysty Swann as the Waldtaube (Forest Dove) were well suited to the role and Alan Held as the Bauer, or farmer, filled the hall with his description of the scene. The narrator, Carsten Wittmoser, half spoke and half sung of the glory of nature in its infinite variety.
Gurre-Lieder is a tale of passion, jealousy, tragic death, condemnation, and the unending search for love beyond death. The remarkable poem teaches of the eventual resurrection of the human spirit through the healing forces of nature and is displays a deep and mature insight into human emotions and the wonders of nature.
The massive chorus accompanied by the orchestra brilliantly perhaps channeled the ghost of that massive 1900 1,000-person chorus, closing the Gurre-Lieder with a wall of music that powerfully came crashing off the stage as it moved through the Wagnerian modulations to C major in order to bring this sad tale to a close with an energy rarely heard in this manner.
Gurre-Lieder, which was first performed in Vienna in 1913, was Schönberg’s greatest critical and popular success as none of his atonal or 12-tone works ever came close. Indeed, along with Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (Symphony of a Thousand), Gurre-Lieder represents the peak of the post-Romantic monumental style.
The orchestra and Botstein played with one singular and extraordinary voice: The immense proportions of the work made it feel as if the music were washing over me in my seat. It was an incredible feeling, one that I had never before experienced in the hundreds of concerts I have attended.
THE DETAILS
Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder
American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival Chorale
Performed on March 22, 2024 at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.
(Photos: Accura Media Group)
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