On the Analytical Tradition of Schoenberg's Erwartung (Op. 17)

Abstract

In the summer of 1909, Schoenberg and his family spent their vacation in Steinakirchen with a circle of friends including his brother-in-law and former composition teacher, Alexander von Zemlinsky. Also present were Schoenberg’s composition students Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and poet Max Oppenheimer. Through Zemlinsky, Schoenberg was introduced to Marie von Pappenheim, a medical student from the University of Vienna, who contributed poetry regularly for Karl Kraus’s journal Die Fackel under the pseudonym Mary Heim. Schoenberg asked the recent graduate to write a libretto for his next work, an opera for solo soprano. Without any further instructions, Pappenheim wrote the text for Erwartung.2 Pappenheim completed the libretto in only three weeks. Lucid and free, the poet’s writing style suggests a trust in “creative intuition