2024 Music Since 1900 Conference

Spoken Paper Presentation | Leuven, Belgium

This paper scrutinizes Schönberg’s reorchestration of songs by Schubert and Mahler from the perspectives of reception history, public musicology, and music analysis. I consider Schönberg’s reorchestrations instances of artistic advocacy that are particularly revealing for their compositional and promotional strategies. By adapting works of the Viennese past for new ensembles, Schönberg contributed to the prolongation of a Germanic musical lineage, resurrecting songs in new forms for new audiences. The Schubert arrangements function as artistic advocacy by reigniting interest in Lieder reimagined for the chamber ensemble. Following Loges (2023), I view these arrangements as acts of public musicology—modes of musicological communication intended for popular consumption. These reorchestrations build on Jenkins’s (2016) account of how Schönberg sought time and again to educate the public about new music. The Schubert reorchestrations expose voice leading subtleties that remain otherwise hidden in the piano version, weaving them into the foreground across the chamber ensemble’s instrumental characters. On the other hand, Schönberg’s reorchestrations of Schubert’s and Mahler’s songs simultaneously constitute acts of anti-public musicology: they were intended for private, “semi-pedagogic” performances among the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen. By adapting the songs to this exclusive salon setting, Schönberg was able to center an evening around a critical lecture that linked his ideology with historical figures. The chamber orchestrations of the Gesellen songs and Das Lied had the added promotional potential to function as potent drivers of Mahler advocacy had they achieved their main goal: to preserve the original sonic qualities in an economically favorable ensemble size.