At the Crossroads: Schönberg's Wartime Compositions and His Crisis of Faith, 1914-1918

Abstract

In January 1932 Hans Rosbaud, music director of Radio Frankfurt, wrote to ask Schönberg if he would prepare a lecture on his Four Orchestral Songs, op. 22. Rosbaud explained to Schönberg that the lecture would precede the premiere performance, by the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and soprano Hertha Reinecke, of all four songs. These were Schönberg's 1913 setting of "Seraphita," a poem by Ernest Dowson that had been translated into German by Stefan George, and his settings of three poems by Rainer Maria Rilke: "Aile,welche dich such en" (1914-15), "Mach mich zum Wächter deiner Weiten" (1914-15) , and "Vorgefühl" (1916).l Schönberg was eager to oblige, but he was living in Barcelona at the time with few of his possessions or scores. For health reasons, officially, Schönberg had taken leave from his teaching position at the Prussian Academy of Arts, but, as he admitted to a Jewish aquaintance in the United States, he was also keen to move as far away as possible from the "swastika-swaggerers andpogromists" of Berlin.