Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw

A blast from the trumpets attacks my ears. It startles me. The sound of a snare drum rolling chills me. Woodwinds build up my tension, showing no sign of letting up. The strings saw out a repetitive sequence of notes, tightening the bind.

I’m frightened… and I’ve been playing the piece for weeks now.

Last year’s Schoenberg festival here at the University of Missouri-Kansas City had my ears ringing after every orchestra rehearsal. I hated it playing it. Most of his works made little sense to me during rehearsal, and I couldn’t practice it alone because it made absolutely no sense alone. The exception was playing A Survivor from Warsaw, for its narrative, even without a narrator, was clear and piercing.

With Schoenberg’s crusade for twelve-tone method arising in the majority of his work, not many pieces were received well by the general public. A Survivor from Warsaw, a cantata for orchestra, choir and narrative, is one of Schoenberg’s most well-known and widely accepted pieces. In his coupling of text with the twelve-tone music, its depth and power became better appreciated and understood than ever before. This is due in no small part to the piece’s chilling text that looks at the inside of the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Schoenberg was born to Jewish parents in 1874, setting the stage for what he was to compose later in life. Though he later converted to Protestantism (believed to be due to the anti-Semitism rising in Europe), he still sympathized for his people (Frisch, 1999). Yet, the inspiration of creating a work dedicated to the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany did not originate with him. It’s believed that the idea originally was suggested by dancer and choreographer, Corinne Chochem. Though she later abandoned the idea for reasons speculated but not established, Schoenberg continued to work on the piece (Strasser, 1995).

The piece premiered November 4, 1948 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. It was performed by a community choir and orchestra of amateur musicians with great enthusiasm and dedication (some driving 120 miles to attend rehearsals). The audience of around sixteen hundred responded with equal fervor for the performance, applauding until the piece was played again (Strasser, 1995). Survivor continued to meet success in its performances time and time again, as its content was fresh in the minds of the post-war world.

Admittedly, I am still no fan of Schoenberg, but A Survivor from Warsaw is an exception to my usual aversion for his works. I believe this is in part because of the subject, just as it is believed to be a significant factor in its popularity with its original audience. I wondered if perhaps it was also because the piece had an underlying harmonic progression, difficult to discriminate with the naked ear. Alas, I only found literature identifying the notation to be created through his famous twelve-tone method (Bailey, 1998). However, A Survivor from Warsaw was composed during Schoenberg’s mature twelve-tone method era. The mature twelve-tone method, as opposed to its preceding era, was “relatively stable, involving the common use of a substantial number of procedures in a large number of compositions spanning a long stretch of his career” (Bailey, 1998). Schoenberg was still known for his fearlessness to experiment. But, during his mature twelve-tone era, Schoenberg’s works did not stray so far from tonality as did his previous works. This gave the piece much more fluidity, and making it not nearly so distracting for the listener. What catch my attention as the more experimental element of A Survivor from Warsaw are his rhythms. They resemble syncopations, but feel lopsided at times, especially when the text is describing walking or counting.

I am surprised that Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw is not already included in the canon. Schoenberg’s work in creating the twelve-tone method, while there is controversy in its value, is undoubtedly a vital milestone in the development of twentieth century music. Considering the virtuosity and popularity of A Survivor from Warsaw, I would claim it to be a respectable piece to add to the canon.