FULL DAS BUCH DER HÄNGENDEN GÄRTEN (Schönberg) San Antonio TX 2022 Chelsea Helm
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Das Buch der hängenden Gärten
- Composer: Schoenberg Arnold
- Libretto: Stefan George
- Venue & Opera Company: Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio, Texas
- Recorded: 2022
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Chelsea Helm
- Conductor:
- Orchestra: Instrumental Ensemble
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Classical Music Institute
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
The Book of the Hanging Gardens (German: Das Buch der hängenden Gärten), Op. 15, is a fifteen-part song cycle composed by Arnold Schoenberg between 1908 and 1909, setting poems of Stefan George. George’s poems, also under the same title, track the failed love affair of two adolescent youths in a garden, ending with the woman’s departure and the disintegration of the garden. The song cycle is set for solo voice and piano. The Book of the Hanging Gardens breaks away from conventional musical order through its usage of atonality.
The piece was premiered by Austrian singer Martha Winternitz-Dorda and pianist Etta Werndorf on January 14, 1910, in Vienna.
As argued in Schorske’s groundbreaking study of Viennese society, the Book of the Hanging Gardens uses the image of the garden as a metaphor of the destruction of traditional musical form. The garden portrayed in George’s poem, which Schoenberg puts to music, represent the highly organized traditional music Schoenberg broke away from. Baroque geometric gardens made popular during the Renaissance were seen as an “extension of architecture over nature.” So too did the old order of music represent all that was authority and stable. The destruction of the garden parallels the use of rationality to break away from the old forms of music
Structure
Although the 15 poems do not necessarily describe a story or follow a linear development, the general subjects can be grouped as follows: a description of the paradise (poems 1 and 2), the paths that the lover takes to reach his beloved (poems 3–5), his passions (poems 6–9), the peak of the time together (poems 10–13), premonition (poem 14), and finally, love dies away and Eden is no more (poem 15).
First line of each poem (Original German), Approximate English translation
1 Unterm Schutz von dichten Blättergründen Under the shade of thick leaves
2 Hain in diesen Paradiesen Groves in this paradise
3 Als Neuling trat ich ein in dein Gehege As a novice, I entered your enclosure
4 Da meine Lippen reglos sind und brennen Because my lips are motionless and burning
5 Saget mir auf welchem Pfade Tell me on which paths
6 Jedem Werke bin ich fürder tot To everything else I am henceforth dead
7 Angst und Hoffen wechselnd sich beklemmen Fear and hope alternately oppress me
8 Wenn ich heut nicht deinen Leib berühre If I today do not touch your body
9 Streng ist uns das Glück und spröde Strictness to us is happiness, and brittle
10 Das schöne Beet betracht ich mir im Harren I looked at the beautiful [flower] bed while waiting
11 Als wir hinter dem beblümten Tore As we behind the flowered gates
12 Wenn sich bei heilger Ruh in tiefen Matten If it with sacred rest in deep mats
13 Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide You lean against a white willow
14 Sprich nicht mehr von dem Laub Say no more of the foliage
15 Wir bevölkerten die abend-düstern Lauben We occupied the night-gloomy arcades
Quoted from Wikipedia