Chapter Six—
Gurrelieder (1900–1901)

During the year following the completion of Verklärte Nacht in December 1899, Schoenberg was occupied principally with Gurrelieder, which evolved into his most ambitious composition to date. The broad outlines of the chronology of Gurrelieder were provided by Schoenberg to Berg when the latter was preparing his Gurrelieder-Führer, in which Schoenberg is cited directly (Berg 1913, 18). The genesis as described by Schoenberg can be summarized as follows:

March 1900: parts I, II, and "much of part III" composed

March 1901: part III completed

August 1901: orchestration begun

Mid 1902: orchestration continued

1903: orchestration continued up to ca. p. 105 of vocal score (near beginning of part III)

July 1910: orchestration completed up to final chorus

1911: final chorus completed

Although Schoenberg's chronology is probably in most respects accurate, it must be amended slightly in light of the piano-vocal drafts for the first nine songs (at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute), which bear dates in the composer's hand entered from March through 14 April 1900 and thus suggest that at least through mid April of that year, he was occupied almost exclusively with this portion of part I. The dates appear on songs 1, 3, 4, and 5 as follows (with the original keys):

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Although Schoenberg stopped dating these manuscripts after song 5, we can reasonably assume that the first intensive compositional activity on Gurrelieder unfolded over the early spring of 1900. The portion composed at this time can be seen to draw together the major tendencies of the preceding Dehmeljahr: an interest in song, a desire to grapple with large-scale structures (as reflected in Verklärte Nacht), and intensive involvement with the work of a single poet. As before, Schoenberg's poetic enthusiasm was shared (and perhaps stimulated) by Zemlinsky, who also worked with Jacobsen texts at this time.^[1]

It can be established with some certainty that Schoenberg did not first approach Gurrelieder as a lyric-dramatic whole; rather, he chose the first nine poems, which alternate between Waldemar and Tove, as the basis of a piano-accompanied song cycle. In his comprehensive dissertation on Gurrelieder, Simon Trezise has established, through consultation of the records of the Wiener Tonküntlerverein, that a competition for piano-accompanied song cycles had been announced in late 1899 or early 1900, and that about forty entries were submitted (Trezise 1987, 20). Zemlinsky, who was apparently to be one of the judges, recalled later:

Schoenberg, who wanted to win the prize, composed a few songs after poems by Jacobsen. I played them for him. . . .  The songs were wonderful and truly original, but we both had the impression that precisely on that account they would have little chance of winning the prize. Schoenberg nevertheless went on to compose the whole large cycle of Jacobsen. But no longer for a single voice; he added large choruses, a melodrama, preludes, and interludes, and the whole was set for gigantic orchestra.

ZEMLINSKY 1934, 35

[1] There are three settings of Jacobsen in Zemlinsky's Lieder sets opp. 7 and 8, probably composed in 1900 (see Oncley 1977, 297–98). There is also a Jacobsen poem in Zemlinsky's op. 10 (probably composed in 1901).

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In a remark reported by Dika Newlin, Schoenberg observed (in 1940) that he had begun the work as a cycle of nine songs for piano and voice but then "finished them half a week too late for the contest and this decided the fate of the work!" (Newlin 1980, 225). The excuse of the late completion date has a somewhat different implication from Zemlinsky's assertion that Schoenberg withheld the songs because they were unlikely to win. Nevertheless, it is clear from these various bits of verbal evidence, as well as from the manuscript materials, that Schoenberg did begin Gurrelieder as a cycle for soprano and tenor consisting of the first nine songs of the present work, without the transitions. It is not absolutely determinable from these sources just when Schoenberg's conception changed from that of a nine-song, piano-accompanied cycle to the massive cantata-like Gurrelieder that we know today. (In the drafts, the 16-stave paper, used by Schoenberg from the beginning, changes to a larger format only in "Die wilde Jagd," but as Trezise points out [1987, 26], parts of the draft of the Wood Dove's song are not executable at the keyboard.) In any case, that evolution must have occurred within a short span of time in the spring of 1900.

The poetic source, Gurresange, written by Jacobsen (in Danish) in 1868–69, had appeared posthumously in 1886. In 1897 the Gurresange were included in a collection of his poems published in a German translation (as Gurrelieder) by Robert Franz Arnold. These translations, further amended by Arnold, were taken over into a larger three-volume German edition, which appeared in 1898 (Glienke 1975, 22–23, 39). Trezise has established definitively that it was the original 1897 translation that served as the source for the Jacobsen settings of both Schoenberg and Zemlinsky (Trezise 1987, 57, 68, 85–86).

In the Danish original, the nineteen individual poems of Gurrelieder are arranged into nine divisions articulated by Roman numerals:

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Although the Roman numerals were removed in the German translation used by Schoenberg, the divisions were retained by means of extra line spaces between the original groupings. This somewhat asymmetrical arrangement of the poems points up the diverse, highly heterodox nature of the Gurrelieder, which embraces a variety of literary styles and genres. Bernhard Glienke has suggested in his excellent study of the poetry that the cycle is

a lyrical-dramatic-musical development of the traditional northern romance cycle toward a concentration characteristic of the Singspiel. It functions as a seamless transition between romanticism, Biedermeier, and symbolism. With its folk-song strophic forms [parts I and II], with Edda pastiche [part VI], with Knittelvers^[2] and madrigal verse, it reaches far back into tradition. With its four Lieder in free rhythms [poems 3–5 of part V; poem 7 of part VIII] . . . it partakes in the development of modern poetry.

GLIENKE 1975, 201–2

Jacobsen's divisions correspond essentially to scene-like articulations within the larger cycle. Glienke further groups these "scenes" into "acts." His act 1, which he calls "The Monologues," comprises Jacobsen's I–IV. Act 2, corresponding to the poet's V, is "The Dialogues." Act 3, called rather loosely "Hawk and Dove; King and Fool," comprises VI and VII. Act 4, "Die Nacht," comprises VIII; and act 5, "Morning," IX. Whatever the larger articulation that a reader can discern, it is clear that Jacobsen's cycle combines lyrical and dramatic or narrative elements in a distinctive fashion, one that Glienke aptly characterizes as filmic:

Instead of stage scenes and acts, we might speak rather of different camera positions, so that, for example, Waldemar's ride to Gurre [IV] and the whole "Wild Hunt" [VIII] are presented more from the angle of characters in motion, [and] the introductory poems [I–III] and "Together" [V] from that of the fixed camera. The sudden scene changes are like film "cuts."

GLIENKE 1975, 180

[2] According to the Oxford Companion to German Literature (Garland 1976, 478), Knittelvers is a verse form first used in the fifteenth century and then revived in the late eighteenth. In it, four stresses occur with an irregular number of unstressed syllables, varying from four to eleven. The lines usually occur in rhyming pairs.

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Example 6.1
Gurrelieder,  large-scale key structure of songs 1–9.

Schoenberg's Gurrelieder shows him to have been highly responsive to many of the kinds of techniques and devices outlined by Glienke. For the purposes of the present study, we shall concentrate only on "acts" 1 and 2—that is, the first nine songs. It is in the formal, thematic, and harmonic aspects of this portion of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder that we see most clearly a connection with, and growth from, the songs and instrumental music of 1899. The more overtly dramatic and extended sections, especially part III, are necessarily less coherent as closed formal and lyrical structures.

The Large-Scale Design of Songs 1–9

Although Schoenberg abandoned his original plan for a nine-song cycle, the first nine numbers made—and in the final form still make—a nicely rounded entity beginning and ending in the key of

. On one manuscript page of the original drafts (p. 2183) we can see what was clearly intended to be the ending of the cycle, a conclusion to Waldemar's song, "Du wunderliche Tove," with a substantial piano postlude in and a double bar. At this stage (March-April 1900), Tove's first song, "O wenn des Mondes Strahlen," was set in the key of (MS pp. 2172, 2177); it was later transposed to . In the absence of the orchestral prelude, which had not yet been written, the original key of song 2 was thus intended to provide more time spent in the "tonic" , before the tonal excursions of songs 3–8. When he later added the prelude, which hovers around the key of and leads directly into song 1 in that key, Schoenberg may have felt it was no longer necessary to keep song 2 in , and, indeed, that a move away would be desirable.

Within the

frame, one can discern a tonal grouping of songs 3 and 4 (E–B), and of 5–8 (D–G) (ex. 6.1) that shows Schoenberg's sensitive response to the arrangement of Jacobsen's verse as outlined by Glienke. The first two "monologues," both originally set in , present individual portraits of the two lovers apart; each is contemplating the beginning of evening. The tonality of the original draft of song 2, then, is perhaps closer in spirit to the design of Jacobsen's cycle. But when transposed to in the final version of Gurrelieder, the song forms more of a tonal bridge or mediator between the tonal area of the orchestral prelude and song 1 and the E–B matrix of songs 3–4: is both of and (as ) dominant of B major.

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In the third and fourth poems, the "action" begins with the increased anticipation of the meeting of Waldemar and Tove. Schoenberg shifts to a new tonal region, E major. Waldemar rides to Gurre, and in the last line of poem 3 actually sees Tove, who is probably watching from her window. Poem 4, set in B, the dominant of E, expresses Tove's jubilation at Waldemar's arrival. In the last four lines, Waldemar runs up the steps to her and falls into her arms.

In poems 5–9, or part V of Jacobsen's original, the two lovers participate in what Glienke calls the "dialogues" (or act 2). Like the first two songs of the cycle (in the original drafts), the first two of this section share a key, now D major. With Waldemar's announcement of midnight (song 7), the tonality shifts to D minor, but turns back to major for the central section (mm. 581–615) and the coda (646–52). For Tove's final song, the D resolves as dominant to G major. This move can be said to complement—actually to reverse—on another tonal plane, the move from E to its dominant B between songs 3 and 4.

Song 9, the final song of the original cycle, returns to the key, the mood, and even to some of the thematic-harmonic material of the first. As in song 1, there is considerable emphasis on the sixth degree, C, which is often sounded with the tonic harmony. Although it returns emphatically to the key of

, the final song also seeks to integrate within that key references to the key of the preceding song (and by implication, the preceding four songs). Thus the middle section of song 9 (mm. 758–84) is set in the key of G major (and a V⁷ of G returns prominently at m. 797). (This move to G major is not present in the original piano-vocal draft of the song, where the segment beginning "Auf der Lippe" remains in the principal key of .)

Large-scale tonal design is only one of the devices by which Schoenberg gives a collective shape to the first nine songs of Gurrelieder. Another is the strategic placement of two large and distinctive musical climaxes. The first comes near the conclusion of the "monologues," in song 3, at the words "Volmer hat Tove gesehen (mm. 330–32). This represents the first contact (albeit eye contact) between the two lovers; the preceding songs (and the preceding portion of song 3) have all been concerned with the anticipation of their union. Schoenberg marks the moment with a broadening of the tempo and a fortissimo. The second large climax comes at the end of song 8, at Tove's "So laß uns die goldene Schale leeren," specifically at the word "Ku&geshp;!" in m. 705. This moment represents a still more significant peak within the first nine songs: physical union. After this climax near the end of song 8, song 9 functions as a kind of epilogue.

Individual Aspects of Songs 1–9

The great variety of formal structures among the individual songs in Gurrelieder goes well beyond anything we have encountered in Schoenberg's earlier Lieder,

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and indeed beyond nineteenth-century song traditions. Trezise has rightly emphasized that despite the regularity of much of the poetry, Schoenberg's forms tend to be "progressive" rather than rounded or strophic:

An overwhelming impression left by the work is of forward, goal-directed movement. This is achieved by the weakening or absence of closure in the songs; the use of interludes that make only a veiled distinction between postlude, transition, and introduction. The tendency of the music to be exposing new material, rather than preparing major structural recapitulations of earlier material, is also a contributing factor.

TREZISE 1987, 188

Yet as in the best of Schoenberg's songs of the 1890s, and as in Verklärte Nacht, the urge to through-composition is tempered by an equally strong impulse toward recapitulatory structures. One of the most compelling aspects of Gurrelieder, at least for this listener, is the variety of ways in which Schoenberg handles returns or reprises within the separate songs, especially those in the "dialogue" section of part I.

Before turning to these songs, brief consideration should be given to the way Schoenberg manipulates form and harmony to delineate the individual characters, especially that of Tove, in the "monologue" section before their union. Waldemar's songs, 1 and 3, tend to be more complex; Tove's songs, 2 and 4, project the portrait of a far simpler personality. This image is reflected in the verse structure created by Jacobsen and his translator, Arnold. Poem 2, "O, wenn des Mondes Strahlen," cast entirely in rhymed couplets (six in all), may derive from the Knittelvers tradition to which Glienke refers, and which here seems to be regularized into something like iambic pentameter:

O, wenn des Mondes Strahlen leise gleiten,
Und Friede sich und Ruh durchs All verbreiten,
Nicht Wasser dünkt mich dann des Meeres Raum,
Und jener Wald scheint nicht Gebüsch und Baum.
Das sind nicht Wolken, die den Himmel schmücken,
Und Tal und Hügel nicht der Erde Rücken,
Und Form und Farbenspiel, nur eitle Schüume,
Und alles Abglanz nur der Gottesträume.^[3]

[3] The orthography and layout of this and the other poetic texts from Gurrelieder cited below are reproduced from Berg 1913.

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Oh, when the moon's beams glide gently, and peace and silence spread
themselves over everything, then the expanse of the sea does not seem like
water to me, and that forest does not appear like thickets and trees. Those
aren't clouds that decorate the sky, nor do hill and vale cover the earth, and
the play of forms and colors is only empty fluff, and everything is merely
the reflection of God's dream.

Schoenberg captures the uncomplicated faith of Tove, for whom each natural beauty is only a reflection of God, by returning to the tonic at the end of each line of poetry except line 6. Even though it ends on a different chord (

), the musical setting of line 6 is in fact a sequential repetition up a whole tone of line 5 and thus in spirit retains the simplicity of the overall formal-harmonic design. Line 7 concludes on an chord, enharmonically the tonic minor, and line 8 returns us directly to the tonic major. It is striking, too, how in each case the tonic at the end of the poetic line is approached, not from its dominant, but from either a diminished-seventh chord or a German sixth. Dominant resolutions would sound too "strong," too forceful (not to mention monotonous). The cadences created by Schoenberg tend to sound appropriately "weak."

Jacobsen maintains this vision of Tove in her next song, as does Schoenberg in turn. "Sterne jubeln" (no. 4) is an overenthusiastic litany of subject-verb pairs expressing joy, pride, and similar emotions:

Text                                                                                        Musical Structure

Sterne jubeln, das Meer, es leuchtet,                                 strophe 1
Preßt an die Küste sein pochendes Herz,
Blätter, sie murmeln, es zittert ihr Tauschmuck,
Seewind umfängt mich in mutigem Scherz,
Wetterhahn singt, und die Turmzinnen nicken,               strophe2
Burschen stolzieren mit flammenden Blicken,
Wogende Brust voll üppigen Lebens
Fesseln die blühenden Dirnen vergebens,
Rosen, sie müh'n sich, zu späh'n in die Ferne,                 strophe 3
Fackeln, sie lodern und leuchten so gerne,
Wald erschließt seinen Bann zur Stell',
Horch, in der Stadt nun Hundegebell.                             (strophic structure breaks off)
Und die steigenden Wogen der Treppe
Tragen zum Hafen den fürstlichen Held,
Bis er auf alleroberster Staffel
Mir in die offenen Arme fällt.

Stars rejoice, the sea is shining, it presses the shore to its beating heart. Leaves are murmuring, their dewy cover quivers, sea wind enwraps me in bold play, weathervane sings, and tops of towers nod, young boys strut with sparkling glances, in vain do the blossoming girls repress the heaving

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breast full of sensual life, roses try to peer out into the distance, torches blaze and shine happily, forest instantly reveals its magic, hear the barking of dogs in the city. And the rising waves of the staircase bear the princely hero to the harbor until, on the highest step, he falls into my open arms.

Until near the end of the song, the musical setting is organized into almost schematically clear two-and four-measure groups, which are placed into a modified strophic setting. The vocal melody swings along in a regular, unproblematically articulated triple meter. Even the harmonic rovings, among the most advanced in Schoenberg's work up to this time, take place with a bluntness that seems well suited to the character of Tove. As Berg points out (1913, 32), Schoenberg uses the same diminished-seventh chord to change gears abruptly from B to

(m. 354) in the first strophe and then from B to A major in the second (m. 370).

The disruption of this regularity comes at m. 395 ("Horch, in der Stadt"), when Tove first becomes aware of the arrival of Waldemar. Until then, the first eight lines are set as two slightly varied musical strophes beginning in the tonic, B major. The third strophe begins in the mediant,

, and although further varied, shows strong similarities to the first two; but the strophic design is broken off after the third line as Tove hears the barking dogs that mark the arrival of Waldemar.

With the "dialogue" section of part I of Gurrelieder, Schoenberg attains new heights in the integration of form, theme, and harmony. Song 5, Waldemar's "So tanzen die Engel," is in this respect a miracle of recapitulatory subtlety. The poem comprises four four-line stanzas, each with an identical rhyme scheme (the stanzas are not actually separated by line spaces in the Arnold translation used by Schoenberg, although the structural divisions are readily apparent):

Text                                                                                         Musical Structure

So tanzen die Engel vor Gottes Thron nicht,                  A
Wie die Welt nun tanzt vor mir.
So lieblich klingt ihrer Harfen Ton nicht,
Wie Waldemars Seele Dir.
Aber stolzer auch saß neben Gott nicht Christ              B
Nach dem harten Erlösungsstreite,
Als Waldemar stolz nun und königlich ist
An Tovelilles Seite.
Nicht sehnlicher möchten die Seelen gewinnen             C
Den Weg zu der Seligen Bund,
Als ich deinen Kuß, da ich gurres Zinnen
Sah leuchten vom Oeresund.
Und ich tausch' auch nicht ihren Mauerwall                   D
Und den Schatz, den treu sie bewahren,
Für Himmelreichs Glanz und betaübenden Schall           A'
Und alle der Heiligen Scharen!

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The angels do not dance before God's throne as the world now dances before me. Their harps do not sound as lovely as Waldemar's soul does to you. Even Christ, after the hard struggle of redemption, did not sit beside God more proudly than Waldemar now proudly and royally sits at Tove's side. The souls could not desire more passionately to win access to the holy band than I to your kiss, when I saw Gurre's battlements shining from the Danish straits. And I wouldn't exchange its walls and the treasure they firmly guard even for the glow of heaven and the stupefying noise and all the holy bands!

As it unfolds, Schoenberg's setting seems to be almost entirely throughcomposed (see letters to right of text above; the music of the song appears in Appendix ex. N). Then at the third line of the final quatrain (m. 490) Schoenberg returns quite unexpectedly, and quite splendidly, to the opening theme, which appears not in the tonic, D major, but in the key of the Neapolitan,

. The tonic arrives only in the piano postlude (m. 480), after the end of the vocal text (not shown in ex. N).

Although it may seem unprepared, the

return on "Himmelreichs" in fact forms the climax of what has been a very gradual and subtle return of the opening material, extending well back into the C section. The recapitulatory process can be summarized in the following stages:

1. At m. 467 the tonic returns in first inversion and in minor. There is at this point no direct thematic reference to the "So tanzen" theme, although its A-D-A profile is suggested by the chromatic ascent and descent between A and D in the melody of mm. 467–69.

2. At mm. 471–72, the opening theme is adumbrated still more strongly by the setting of the words "ich deinen Kuß," which is also a recurrence of one of the principal leitmotives of Gurrelieder. The motive, which can be taken in a general sense to stand for the love between Waldemar and Tove (see Trezise 1987, 197–201), occurs first in song 2 at m. 223 (ex. 6.2a) and reappears frequently throughout the work. Here in Waldemar's song it also constitutes a decorated reprise of the opening theme. A juxtaposition of this passage with the opening of the song (ex. 6.2b, c) shows that the correspondence is quite close for four measures. The only significant melodic difference is the emphasis on E in m. 473, different from the

in m. 446. The return here is a harmonic as well as thematic one, although like the thematic one, it is oblique: as in stage 1, the tonic chord appears in first inversion in mm. 472 and 474 and is approached not from its dominant but from V⁷ V.

Measures 475–76 recall another portion of the opening of the song:

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Example 6.2
Gurrelieder,  "So tanzen die Engel," transformation of motive.

the approach to V/vi in mm. 456–48. The original harmonic motion from G to

is here condensed or compressed.

3. The third stage, beginning in m. 477, brings the tonic in root position and another quotation from earlier in Gurrelieder: the first two phrases from the coda to Waldemar's first song (m. 146, "Und jede Macht"). In its original context, this passage served to depart from, and then confirm, a tonic (

) that had already been firmly established. It is thus striking that in song 5, Schoenberg brings the material back in a context where the tonic has not yet been confirmed—where no clear return has yet occurred. Because we first heard it as a coda in song 1, we tend to hear a similar function here: that is, leading away from the tonic. The D major on the downbeat of m. 477 is soon reinterpreted as a D⁷ , inflecting toward the subdominant (a gesture typical of codas) and its own supertonic (m. 480).

4. At this point, the opening theme of the song returns at last, not in the tonic, but in the Neapolitan,

. The gesture seems to reach back harmonically to the similarly abrupt turn to the Neapolitan in m. 459 of this song. The final phrase (mm. 485–88), an augmentation of the phrase from stage 3 (m. 477) and song 1, brings the song back into the tonic realm—but not to the tonic chord. The diminished-seventh

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Example 6.3
Gurrelieder,  "Nun sag ich dir zum erstenmal," tonal design.

chord prolonged here (

) relates to both (D as leading tone) and D major ( as leading tone to the dominant), thus to both the Neapolitan and the true tonic.

The ways in which harmonic, thematic, and formal returns are greatly expanded and kept out of phase in this song far surpass anything we have seen in Schoenberg's work to date, although there are clear points of contact with the kinds of practices examined in Verklärte Nacht. In "So tanzen" there is no single moment of return, but rather an intricate, multiphase reprise spread out over eighteen measures.

The withholding of the final tonic is intended to lead smoothly into Tove's song, no. 6 ("Nun sag' ich dir zum erstenmal"), in the same key, perhaps the most admired (or at least the most analyzed) individual number in Gurrelieder (see Webern 1912, 25–26; Wellesz 1925, 77–79; Gerlach 1985, 74–87). Several critics, including Schoenberg himself, have pointed to the main melody, with its broad leaps, as a harbinger of his later vocal style. In its harmonic practice, however, the song relates most directly to its immediate predecessor in the cycle and to Verklärte Nacht. We recall that in part II of the sextet the tonic D major forms the fulcrum or focal point for a wide range of tonal relationships: some third-based, as in the initial ascent from D to

to ; some based on half-steps, as in the circumscription by and ; some diatonic, as in the strong emphasis on the dominant, A. Something similar, but in more compressed form, occurs in Tove's song (ex. 6.3).

The tonic D (unlike in the sextet or in "So tanzen die Engel") is not sounded in root position in the opening measures; rather, the harmony hovers around the dominant note A, which underpins the first "cadences" to D (in

position) in mm. 501 and 506. The first root-position triad is in m. 511. (Here I would disagree with Berg, who hears the functioning as a dominant within the region of B minor [Berg 1913, 38]. The is prepared by its own dominant, , and does not have the feel of a half-cadence.) From here Schoenberg returns to D

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major in mm. 513–15, but only as a way station for further forays. B minor is touched upon in m. 517, and a strong cadence is made to

in m. 521. We might expect, as in Verklärte Nacht, the to function as , dropping down to the dominant A. In fact, however, it behaves enharmonically as : in the following measure, m. 522, Schoenberg returns directly to major. He then flips just as rapidly back to the flat side with the strong plagal approach to major in mm. 524–26.

From the viewpont of local harmonic syntax, the song might appear a patchwork, but in fact the principal bass motion since the beginning can be heard as two interlocking chains of thirds connected by half-step.^[4] The first chain is

; the second, . The role of here recalls its role in Verklärte Nacht, where it forms one of the means of approach to the tonic D. In this song, however, the final approach to D is made tantalizingly more elusive. Measures 527–29 seem to hint at a move toward the subdominant, G: a first-inversion dominant of G appears on the downbeat. This alternates with an augmented dominant triad of . In second half of m. 529, this triad resolves to ,  which now acts as flatted sixth and drops down to A (the dominant of D), an approach that recalls the first climax in part II of Verklärte Nacht (mm. 337–38).

Together, songs 5 and 6 of Gurrelieder show Schoenberg exploring further the kinds of harmonic and formal issues adumbrated in the sextet, especially the sustaining of harmonic tension and formal expectation over a large span and the attempt to integrate dominant-related with chromatic or third-based tonal processes.

A similar mastery is evident in song 8, Tove's last song ("Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick"). The poem is one of the least regular in structure of any in Gurrelieder, perhaps one of the freest that Schoenberg had set up to this point in his career. Here Tove has, as it were, fully left behind the naive versifying of her earlier "monologues":

Text                                                                                             Musical structure
                                                                                                    Part I
Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick                                      A1, mm. 653–67
Und senkst das Auge,
Doch der Blick preßt deine Hand in meine,
Und der Druck erstirbt;
Aber als liebeweckenden Kuß
Legst du meinen Händedruck mir auf die Lippen.
Und du kannst noch seufzen um des Todes willen,            A2, 668–74
Wenn ein Blick auflodern kann

[4] For another analysis of the song that stresses the role of third or mediant relationships, see Ballan 1986, 56–67.

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Wie ein flammender Kuß?
Die leuchtenden Sterne am Himmel droben                       B, 675–79
Bleichen wohl, wenn's graut,
Doch lodern sie neu jede Mitternachtszeit
In ewiger Pracht.—
So kurz ist der Tod,                                                                 transition, 680–82
Wie ruhiger schlummer
Von Damm'rung zu Damm'rung,
Und wenn du erwashst:                                                          A1', 683–90
Bei dir auf dem Lager
In neuer Schonheit
Siehst du strahlen
die junge Braut.
                                                                                                   Part  II
So laß uns die goldene                                                            A, 691–97
Schale leeren
Ihm, dem machtig verschonenden Tod:
Denn wir gehn zu Grab                                                            B, 698–705
Wie ein Lacheln, ersterbend
Im seligen Kuß!                                                                       orchestra: A', 705ff.

You send me a glance of love and lower your gaze. And the glance presses your hand in mine, and the pressure dies away. But as a love-awakening kiss, you press your hand to my lips, and can you still sigh in longing for death, when a glance can flare up like a flaming kiss? The shining stars in the heavens above turn pale when dawn comes, but blaze anew in full glory
each midnight. Deat h is as brief as restful sleep, from dusk to dawn, and when you awake: next to you in bed you see the young bride gleaming in renewed beauty.

So let us empty the golden cup to him, to powerful, beautifying death: for we go like a smile, dying away in the blessed kiss!

With its increasing ecstasy, this poem is cast somewhat in the mode of the Isolde's Verklärung in Wagner's Tristan. There is, however, nothing patently Wagnerian about Schoenberg's setting, which is one of the most magnificent among his early Lieder. As indicated by the letters to the right of the poem, the setting divides into two parts of unequal length, each of which, as Berg plausibly suggested, might be said to have a highly modified ternary form (Berg 1913, 46). (In the analysis above, the A segments of parts I and II are independent of each other.) These two sections of the song stand in relation to each other somewhat in the way that songs 5 and 6 do: the second functions as a fulfillment or completion of the first. In part I, the tonic G major is continually withheld or avoided in what Berg considers a prime example of Schoenberg's "schwebende Tonalität" (Berg 1913, 45). In part II, G is given broad thematic and harmonic confirmation.

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Example 6.4
Gurrelieder,  "Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick," motives.

Schoenberg makes the division just before Tove's toast, "So laß uns," which represents the climax not only of this individual song, but also (as was suggested above) of the entire "dialogue" segment of part I of Gurrelieder.

The broader formal processes of Tove's song are linked up with, or generated by, motivic-thematic and harmonic procedures in ways that constitute a high point in Schoenberg's early tonal works. The song opens with the threefold statement, descending by octave, of an upward appoggiatura figure,

, in the orchestra (motive x; see Appendix ex. O). This motive becomes expanded and transformed in the vocal part into a melody comprising a neighbor-note figure (, motive y; see ex. 6.4a) and one ascending chromatically by half-step (, motive z).

In the second section of A, A2 (m. 668), these thematic elements are retained but in a sense reversed (ex. 6.4b): the rising scalar figure z appears first, the neighbor-note figure y' second. (Although the interval content of z has changed—it contains several whole steps—its association with the earlier figure seems indisputable.) The lyrical B-major melody that forms the B section of part I represents a further transformation of the theme as it was heard in A2 (ex. 6.4c). Although the neighbor-note configuration of the original y has been altered to

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Example 6.5
Gurrelieder,  "Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick."

form a descending scale (hence y"), the motivic association with m. 668 is made clear by the similar rhythmic structure.

What I have called the transition back to A1' is preceded on the final eighth note of m. 679 by a D or dominant chord (Appendix ex. P). (In the piano draft of this song, the dominant preparation is more extensive: there is actually an extra full measure of D⁷ harmony between what are now the third and fourth beats of m. 679.) The transition, marked "Erstes Zeitmaß" (return to first tempo) by Schoenberg, begins with the disguised or ambiguous return to G in m. 680 and is based largely on motive z. At the actual return ("Bewegter, steigernd"), x, y, and z appear in their original sequence; but the thematic process is now speeded up—put into fast forward, so to speak—in order to prepare one of the most astonishing transformations in the song. In the accompaniment of mm. 686–88, the z motive evolves magically into the main theme of Tove's earlier song "Nun sag' ich dir zum erstenmal." The process, in which the earlier theme is "born again," as Berg puts it (1913, 49), is the splendid culmination of a motivic development reaching back to the beginning of the song.

The principal vocal melody of part II (m. 691) consists of essentially new material. Yet Schoenberg provides continuity with part I by introducing the rising semitones of x and z in the top line of the accompaniment:

(Appendix ex. N). The B section of part II is a clear transformation of the preceding A, and it, too, reveals close motivic links with part I in what is one of the most compelling transformations in the entire song. At the climax, "im seligen Kuß" (ex. 6.5a) the original complex is "born again" out of elements of part II, specifically out of the downward stepwise motive first heard at "Schale" in m. 692. In its initial appearance, as at subsequent ones, this figure (a half-step at mm. 692–93

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and 702, a whole step at m. 700) is always followed by a descending leap. By analogy to the previous statements, we would expect

at "se-" to follow the same pattern, but rather than falling down by leap, the E rises in m. 704 back up to the and to G. Thus on "seligen" a broad augmentation of y–z is born out of a transformation of the "Schale" motive. The association with y–z, audible even in augmentation, would have been especially clear in Schoenberg's original draft, where "seligen" appears at twice the speed, in quarter notes (ex. 6.5b).

In part II of this song, the return to A' takes place simultaneously with the vocal climax of B: the opening melody associated with "So laß uns die goldene" reappears in the orchestra underneath "Kuß." The recapitulatory procedure is thus different from that in any of the other ternary or return-oriented structures in part I of Gurrelieder.

The treatment of phrase structure in Tove's song is no less remarkable than the large formal-thematic design. As Berg suggested in one of the most perceptive analyses in his Gurrelieder-Führer (1913, 46–47), the opening section of the song (section A1 of part I) is based almost entirely on a repeated harmonic-bass pattern treated in the manner of a chaconne.^[5] The pattern consists of the bass progression

, first set out in mm. 655–58. The bass line supports a chordal progression arranged entirely as a circle of fifths; except for the last chord, a first-inversion D-major triad, all are in root position.

The pattern begins on the tonic G, which is, however, attenuated by the

inner voice appoggiaturas (motive x) suggesting the relative minor, E. The D-major chord coming at the end of the pattern appears to function as the dominant of G, but the harmonic resolution coincides with the beginning of a new statement of the pattern in m. 659; G major is thus side-stepped once again.

The third statement of the pattern begins as if speeded up: each chord/bass note occupies a single beat in m. 663. As Berg points out, this acceleration brings about a harmonic displacement such that the E chord now falls on the strong beat of m. 664. Where, in the earlier presentations of the pattern, E major was just one stop on the circle, it now becomes the principal harmonic focus of the phrase: an E triad is articulated unequivocally in mm. 664 (here an augmented triad), 666, and 667. The veering from G major toward E implied at the beginning of the pattern is thus fully realized. Indeed, at the beginning of what would be the fourth statement of the pattern in m. 666, Schoenberg even substitutes

for the expected . This last statement of the pattern is in fact further truncated and compressed, extending only as far as the V–I resolution on E in m. 667.

[5] It should be noted that Berg's measure numbering in his analysis, ex. 52 on p. 46, is off by one measure from that of the published vocal score; his starting measure, m. 650, is actually m. 651. In my analysis, I follow the vocal score.

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Tove's song is at once one of the most ambitious and synoptic works of Schoenberg's early tonal period. If Verklärte Nacht can be said to have borrowed certain compositional strategies from the realm of the Lied—specifically from the Dehmel songs—for instrumental music, the song "Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick" repays the debt handsomely, and expansively. Tove's song is in fact the longest individual number in part I of Gurrelieder, lasting over five minutes. Schoenberg's ability to maintain structural and recapitulatory integrity over such a long span is a real triumph, of a kind that had in part eluded him in Verklärte Nacht.

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