26 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

Notes on the ProgramBy James M. Keller, Program Annotator, The Leni and Peter May Chair

Arnold Schoenberg was born a Jew in 1874, converted to Lutheranism in 1898, and

remained a spiritual person whose belief sys-tem was not closely linked to any organizedreligion. During the 1920s he worked on (butleft incomplete) two works with explicitlyJewish themes — the oratorio Die Jakobs-leiter (Jacob’s Ladder, 1917–22) and the operaMoses und Aron (Moses and Aaron, 1928–32)— and wrote a prose drama titled Der bibli-sche Weg (The Biblical Way, 1926–27) as a pro-pagandist piece to support the United JewishParty. He was appalled by the upsurge ofanti-Semitism in Germany, and when theNazis came to power in 1932 he could notavoid acknowledging the seriousness of thesituation. From his home in Berlin, he wroteto his friend Alban Berg that September:

More and more I am forced to concern my-self here with the question whether and towhat extent it is wise to count myself in thiscamp or that …. Of course I know exactlywhere I belong. It has been hammered intome loud and so long that I would have to bedeaf, even before now, not to have under-stood the message. … Today it is with pridethat I call myself a Jew.

Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Ger-many in January 1933. That May, the Schoen-bergs left for France, where the composerofficially reclaimed his Jewish faith througha ceremony in Paris. A few months later theymoved to America, arriving in New York inOctober and then moving on to southern Cal-ifornia, where they settled in 1934.

In early 1947 Schoenberg was approachedby Corinne Cochem, a promoter of Jewishfolk music and dance, who wanted him towrite a piece using a Jewish melody she pro-vided; but she could not afford an appropriatecommission fee. The idea nonetheless lodgedin his mind. When the Koussevitzky Founda-tion wrote to him that July expressing inter-est in commissioning a new orchestral work,he responded that he had in mind a piece “fora small group of about 24 musicians, one or

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46

Arnold Schoenberg

IN SHORT

Born: September 13, 1874, in Vienna, Austria

Died: July 13, 1951, in Los Angeles, California

Work composed: August 11–23, 1947, on commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation; dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky

World premiere: November 4, 1948, at theUniversity of New Mexico in Albuquerque, bythe Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra,Kurt Frederick, conductor, Sherman Smith, narrator, the Estancia Men’s Chorus, andmembers of the Albuquerque Choral Association

New York Philharmonic premiere: April 13,1950, Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor, AdolphAnderson, narrator, with the Princeton University Chapel Men’s Chorus; the performance marked the New York Premiere

Most recent New York Philharmonic performance: May 7, 1974, Pierre Boulez, conductor, Philip Sterling, narrator, with The Camerata Singers

Estimated duration: ca. 9 minutes

05-03 Schoenberg.qxp_Layout 1 4/25/17 3:10 PM Page 26

MAY 2017 | 27

two ‘speakers’ and a mens [sic] choir of an ad-equate size” — but he allowed that he mightbe able to adapt his concept into a symphonicpoem if that was the kind of piece required.The Foundation replied that it would be con-tent with whatever form the compositiontook. On August 24 Schoenberg wrote to themthat the work was completed:

I could not change the piece into a sym-phonic poem as I had hoped to do. It would

not have been the same thing I wanted toexpress. But, though I employ one narra-tor and a mens [sic] choir, I could at leasteliminate the second speaker — it requiredmany changes!

A Survivor from Warsaw is built on whatSchoenberg characterized as “reports whichI have received directly or indirectly.” Hewrote the macaronic text himself; perhaps itessentially transcribes the account by the

At the PremiereSymphonic works commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation were typically premiered by theBoston Symphony Orchestra, which Serge Koussevitzky led as music director from 1924 to 1949. Butword leaked out that Schoenberg was about to let loose a new piece, and he received a query outof the blue from Kurt Frederick, a fellow Viennese émigré, who taught at the University of NewMexico and accordingly made music far from the symphonic mainstream:

Just recently I heard that you wrote a composition for a men’s chorus and small orchestra. Thisis to ask whether it would be possible for me to obtain the score, and whether, if the composi-tion does not prove too difficult, there would be a chance of our performing it in Albuquerque?

Amazingly, Schoenberg consented. As a fee, he asked only that Frederick’s Albuquerque CivicSymphony Orchestra provide copies of the orchestral parts they would be preparing. The EastCoast music establishment huffed and puffed about the decision, but in the end A Survivor fromWarsaw was premiered by an amateur orchestra “of lawyers, doctors, secretaries, high schooland university students, railroad engineers, etc.” — as Frederick described it. Schoenberg did notattend, but Frederick reported to him:

The performance was a tremendous success. The audience of over 1,600 was shaken by thecomposition and applauded until we repeated the performance. This happened in a town, whicha few years ago was considered to be a small “Railroad Town.”

The work was not less warmly received when it wasgiven its first “major-league” performance, with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Phil-harmonic in 1950. Musical America reported:

The listeners cheered and would not let the per-formers leave the stage for the intermission until theconductor had broken a Philharmonic Symphonyprecedent [and] repeat[ed] the performance.

Schoenberg teaching in Los Angeles, 1947

05-03 Schoenberg.qxp_Layout 1 4/25/17 3:10 PM Page 27

28 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

unidentified witness. A speaker declaims thenarrative in English in Sprechstimme, speechnotated with specific rhythms and generalpitch contours. It is an account of viciousbrutality. The speaker is one of a group ofJews (in the Warsaw ghetto? in an extermi-nation camp?) who are beaten by their Nazicaptors and made to count off so the sergeant(who declaims in German) will know howmany he needs to accommodate in the gaschamber. On the verge of their execution, theJews break into song, intoning (in Hebrew)the prayer Sh’ma Yisroel, Adonai elohenu,Adonai ehod (Hear, O Israel, the Lord ourGod, the Lord is One), an essential text that,according to some Jewish traditions, is to besaid in preparation for death. The men’schoir enters with this melody as the orches-

tra, heard almost in chamber configurationearly on, surges to its full strength. Thehighly expressive music, which adheres quitestrictly to Schoenberg’s 12-tone method, sup-ports the narrative consummately. Thisdensely packed work is sometimes describedas triumphant, but a listener may just as eas-ily feel decimated by what it communicatesin its few intense minutes.

Instrumentation: two flutes (both doublingpiccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bas-soons, four horns, three trumpets, threetrombones, tuba, timpani, orchestra bells,xylophone, chimes, bass drum, cymbals,tam-tam, snare drum, triangle, tambourine,castanets, harp, and strings, plus narratorand men’s chorus.

Sources and InspirationsThe title of Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw evokes the Warsaw Ghetto, which was estab-lished by Nazi forces in 1940, following the invasion of Poland the previous year. The entire Jewishpopulation of the city, plus those from surrounding areas, was forced to locate within the ghetto.It was physically cut off from the rest of Warsaw by a ten-foot high brick wall topped with barbedwire. More than 400,000 people were contained in the area of a little more than one square mile.Food supplies to the ghetto were severely rationed by the Germans and an estimated 100,000 peo-ple died of starvation and illness even before the Nazis began systematic deportations in 1942 toconcentration camps, mostly to Treblinka, under the guise of resettlement. When it became clearwhat the “resettlement” entailed, an uprising began, in January 1943, to resist further roundups.On April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, Nazi troops entered the ghetto and began burning and destroying buildings, and shooting people on the spot. According to the United States Holocaust Me-

morial Museum, some 42,000 peoplecaptured during the uprising weresent to forced labor camps; 7,000Jews died fighting or in hiding in theghetto; and another 7,000 were sentto the Treblinka killing center. By theend of the war, an estimated 11,500Jews survived in Warsaw.

— The Editors

Jews being rounded up during the burning of the Warsaw Ghetto, 1943

05-03 Schoenberg.qxp_Layout 1 4/25/17 3:10 PM Page 28

32 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

NarratorI cannot remember ev’rything.I must have been unconscious most of

the time.I remember only the grandiose moment

when they all started to sing, as if prearranged,

The old prayer they had neglected for somany years — the forgotten creed!

But I have no recollection how I gotunderground to live in the sewers of Warsaw for so long a time.

The day began as usual: Reveille when itstill was dark.

“Get out!” Whether you slept or whetherworries kept you awake the whole night.

You had been separated from your children,from your wife, from your parents.

You don’t know what happened to them,how could you sleep?

The trumpets again — “Get out! The sergeant will be furious!”They came out; some very slow: the old

ones, the sick ones;some with nervous agility.

They fear the sergeant. They hurry as muchas they can.

In vain! Much too much noise; much toomuch commotion — and not fast enough!

The sergeant shouts: “Achtung! Stillge-standen! Na wird’s mal? Oder soll ich mitdem Jewehrkolben nachhelfen? Na jut;wenn ihr’s durchaus haben wollt!”

The sergeant and his subordinates hiteverybody: young or old, quiet or nervous,guilty or innocent.

It was painful to hear them groaning andmoaning.

[“Attention! Stand still! How about it, orshould I help you along with the butt ofmy rifle? Well then; if you want it!”]

Schoenberg’s A Survivor from WarsawText by the composer, from eyewitness accounts

Texts and Translations

05-03 Schoenberg.qxp_Layout 1 4/25/17 3:10 PM Page 32

MAY 2017 | 33

I heard it though I had been hit very hard,so hard that I could not help falling down.

We all on the ground who could not stand up were then beaten over the head.

I must have been unconscious.The next thing I knew was a soldier saying:

“They are all dead!”Whereupon the sergeant ordered to do away

with us.There I lay aside half conscious.It had become very still — fear and pain.

Then I heard the sergeant shouting:“Abzählen!”

They started slowly and irregularly: one,two, three, four.

“Achtung!” the sergeant shouted again, “Rascher! Nochmal von vorn anfangen! In einer Minute will ich wissen, wieviele ich

zur Gaskammer abliefere!Abzählen!” They began again, first slowly: one, two,

three, four,became faster and faster, so fastthat it finally sounded like a stampede ofwild horses.

And all of a sudden, in the middle of it,they began singing the Sh’ma Yisroel.

Chorus

[“Count off!”]

[“Faster! Start over, from the beginning!“In a minute I want to know how many I am

sending to the gas chamber!Count off!”]

Sh’ma Yisroel Adonai elohēnu Adonai ehod

V’ohavto es Adonai elōhekho b’khol l’vov’khouv’khol nafsh’kho, uv’khol m’ōdekho. V’hoyuha-d’vorim hoeleh, asher on-ohi m’tzav’khoV’hoyu hayyōm al l’vovaykho. V’shinantoml’vonaykho, v’dibbarto bom b’shivt’kho b’veys -sayho uv’lekht’kho badderekh uv’shokh’h’khouv’kumaykho.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord isone.

And Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, withall thine heart and with all thy soul and withall thy might. And these words, which I com-mand thee this day, shall be upon thineheart. Thou shalt teach them diligently untothy children and shalt talk of them whenthou sittest in thy house, and thou walkest bythe way, and when thou liest down, and thourisest up.

(Please turn the page quietly.)

05-03 Schoenberg.qxp_Layout 1 4/25/17 3:10 PM Page 33