Nine
Schoenberg's Incomplete Works and Fragments

Jan Maegaard

Incomplete works and fragments may form quite a substantial portion of a composer's entire output. Together with completed works that were either withdrawn or never considered for publication, this body of works cannot be expected to contribute much to an author's image. But a closer examination may well contribute considerably to an understanding of the composer's creative development and perhaps even influence the evaluation of the completed and published works. The main purpose of this article is to give a survey of Arnold Schoenberg's incomplete works and fragments and attempt to group them into categories, with the hope that this may encourage further investigation. Because there are far too many incomplete works to allow a detailed consideration of each, only the larger fragments will be discussed more fully.

The materials Schoenberg left unfinished range from a few notes jotted down in haste to extended passages. At times it is difficult to distinguish clearly between the ways in which the items are unfinished. In an attempt to provide some provisional order in the wilderness, I propose a division into three categories: sketch, outline, and fragment.

A sketch shall be defined as a brief notation of a musical idea at any point within a work. It is often monophonic and shows the composer at work on some detail. There are numerous sketches, not included here, that pertain to finished works, as well as those that do not seem related to any identifiable work. Such cursory notations may be very hard to identify, and an unidentified sketch may, upon closer examination, turn out to belong to a known composition.

An outline shall be defined as a musical trajectory of some length. It transcends the shortness of the sketch and is focused not on details but rather on a comprehensive view of a part or several parts of a composition.

A fragment shall be defined as a piece of music, of any length, that starts at the beginning and is worked out in detail but not concluded. A large number of fragments contain only the first five to twenty measures of a composition. Normally such a fragment will be identical with what Schoenberg called an Einfall — a spontaneous idea, hastily notated in full or almost full detail, that was intended to be worked out and developed. This concept plays a crucial role in Schoenberg's compositional practice as well as in his teaching. On one of the first pages of his posthumously published textbook on composition he states:

The motive generally appears in a characteristic and impressive manner at the beginning of a piece. The features of a motive are intervals and rhythms, combined to produce a memorable shape or contour.^[1]

In 1911, immediately following the completion of the Harmonielehre, Schoenberg conceived another textbook, Das Komponieren mit selbständigen Stimmen. It exists in the form of two outlines, which show several subject headings and their chapters and subchapters. In part 1, under the heading "Das Wesen des Satzes mit selbständigen Stimmen" (The essence of the texture of independent parts), Schoenberg concludes:

Homophony and polyphony are just two different manifestations of the same matter, two principles of style — the same matter of art, the same matter of music, therefore identical laws, but different applications of them.^[2]

He goes on to say that in homophony, harmony is form creating and restricted by melody, whereas in polyphony, melody is restricted by harmony. This explanation — which pertains to very short bits of music — makes explicit what kind of texture Schoenberg had in mind as a primary goal in his teaching of composition. It conforms with what he demanded from the Einfall. Twenty years later, in 1931, in a commentary on Ernst Kurth's 1917 Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts, he stated this even more clearly:

"Whatever happens in a piece of music is nothing but the endless reshaping of a basic shape." . . . [T]here is nothing in a piece of music but what comes from the theme, springs from it and can be traced back to it; to put it still more severely, nothing but the theme itself.^[3]

Such beginnings of just a few measures are conspicuous among Schoenberg's fragments. Out of the total of 111 fragments, which span every stage of his creative career, 77 are twenty-five measures long or less; 41 of these are twelve measures long or less.

In the following tables, the sketches, outlines, and fragments are listed by category. Each item is identified by title (or, if untitled, by an indication of genre or instruments) and date (in editorial brackets if the date is derived from internal evidence); items whose date cannot be established are

listed separately under "Undated." Titles in italics are by Schoenberg, those in square brackets by the author. Similarly titled works from the same year are distinguished by Roman numerals following the year. Most of the material is located in the archives of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Los Angeles (abbreviated as ASI), in which case the microfilm, sketch, or sketch-book number is given. If the item is located or cited elsewhere, it is identified as follows:

Whereas the sketches that do not pertain to previously known music add little to our insight into Schoenberg's composing, other outlines and fragments reveal important details about his life and creativity. The fragments, for instance, illustrate Schoenberg's concentration on the initial motive as the starting point of a composition. This motive tended to come to him spontaneously in a moment of inspiration. His term for it, Einfall, and inspiratio, the Latin root of inspiration, actually have identical meanings — something that comes from outside one, that "falls" or "is blown" into one's mind. On several occasions Schoenberg stressed the importance of inspiration, as in a letter to the conductor Fritz Reiner regarding the Band Variations, op. 43, in which he wrote: "I know it is inspired. Not only because I cannot write even 10 measures without inspiration, but I really wrote the piece with great pleasure."^[4] Many, if not all, of the fragments document just such moments of inspiration.

Schoenberg's dependence on inspiration is also documented by the fragment of an early piano piece in A-flat major (see dated fragment no. 13). At the point where Schoenberg broke off, after bar 46, he wrote:

Continuation follows . . . If only I knew how the continuation should be! — Twice I have been mistaken about it. Now I dare not hope, or fear, anything any more. Will continuation follow? — Arn. Sch. February 1901.^[5]

This illustrates how Schoenberg set out, hoping from the beginning that the initial inspiration would carry him through. It also illustrates how such

an attempt could fail, even at times when composition of other works — in this case, Gurrelieder — was proceeding successfully. Furthermore, it reveals Schoenberg's own doubts as to whether he would be able to get back on track once he had lost the inspiration. Later developments, such as the 1900 symphony fragment, Die Jakobsleiter, and Moses und Aron, show that his doubts were well founded.

Among the outlines, two of Schoenberg's attempts to write a symphony (not his first attempts at the genre) are of particular interest. One is a fragment of a symphony dating from February 1900 (dated fragment no. 12), that is, a little earlier than the piano piece just mentioned; the second is a sketch from 1905 (dated sketch no. 6). The first manuscript shows a complete introduction of seventy-three bars in G minor followed by a short sketch of the beginning of the main part of the movement, an Allegro moderato in G major. There it stops abruptly. It is unlikely that Schoenberg would have composed such an extended introduction, and even written one page of it out in full score as a fair copy, as he did, without having had

a notion of what it was to be an introduction to. Nonetheless he abandoned the Allegro after those first seven bars and never returned to it. We do not know why, but can only surmise that it was put aside in favor of the composition of Gurrelieder, which he had begun in March of that year. And after that he may have felt that his orchestral and compositional technique had developed too far in another direction.

However, it could not have been easy for a young composer of that era to give up the idea of writing a symphony — a young composer who had witnessed the conclusion of Bruckner's and Brahms's careers and experienced the premiere of one Mahler symphony after another. Despite initial reservations about Mahler, Schoenberg's attitude at some time between 1904 and 1908 took a turn. When the Eighth Symphony was given its premiere in Munich in September 1910, an event that marked the climax of Mahler's career as a composer, Schoenberg would have studied the work carefully as a matter of course, even though he did not attend the performance. It is evident from his obituary lecture on Mahler, first held in Prague in March 1912, that he knew the work well, at least from study.^[6]

Schoenberg's next symphonic project (dated outline no. 8) may well have taken its impetus from Mahler's Eighth Symphony. Although it also includes many sketches and fragments, I have found it most appropriate to place it in the category of outlines. The concept goes back further than the date of the item would indicate, to a short fragment of an oratorio from December 1912, entitled Seraphita and based upon Honoré de Balzac's novel of that name (dated fragment no. 36). At about the same time Schoenberg wrote to the poet Richard Dehmel, whom he greatly admired, about his intention to write an oratorio; he describes the contents he envisions:

how this modern man, having passed through materialism, socialism, and anarchy and, despite having been an atheist, still having in him some residue of ancient faith (in the form of superstition), wrestles with God . . . and finally succeeds in finding God and becoming religious. Learning to pray!^[7]

As Schoenberg tells Dehmel, he had initially intended writing the text himself, then considered adapting Strindberg's Jakob ringt, and finally decided to start with positive religious belief by adapting the final chapter of Balzac's

Séraphita. "But," he writes, "I could never shake off the thought of `Modern Man's Prayer,' and I often thought: If only Dehmel . . . !"^[8] In his reply Dehmel sent Schoenberg his Oratorium natale, which he had written the previous year but not yet published.

In his subsequent work on the text of this symphony Schoenberg included poems by Dehmel — some of them from Oratorium natale — and by Rabindranath Tagore, along with several texts from the Old as well as the New Testament. By January 1915 he had finished his own text, Totentanz der Prinzipien, which he designated as "3rd Movement," and three days later he started writing the text of Die Jakobsleiter under the heading "4th Movement." This seems to have been completed in May 1917. This ambitiously designed work, which thus goes at least as far back as 1912, ended up as the extensive fragment Die Jakobsleiter (dated fragment no. 40). Later, when mentioning the work, Schoenberg always referred it to 1914-1915, which is actually when most of the musical sketches for it were composed.

The original concept, which was to undergo so many changes, bears some analogy to Mahler's Eighth Symphony. However, whereas it had been Mahler's endeavor to sum up European man's feeling for religion and love, from the medieval "Veni creator spiritus" to Goethe's Faust, Schoenberg's concept evidently was to interpret what was left of religious feeling and love in European man at the beginning of the twentieth century, and to do so by means strikingly similar to those of Mahler's symphony. Schoenberg conceived his work on an even larger scale. Not only did he at first plan to have five huge movements, but he foresaw an orchestra of ten to twelve flutes, oboes, and bassoons, twelve to sixteen clarinets, twelve French horns and tubas, six to eight trumpets and trombones, two to three contrabass tubas, and a number of harps, celestas, glockenspiels, and xylophones, in addition to the traditional complement of percussion instruments, twenty stands of violins, ten to twelve stands of violas, cellos, and double basses, and on top of that a number of soloists and a large chorus.

Schoenberg's concept is significant in yet another respect, in that it marks a radical departure from the expressionistic outburst of 1909, represented by the Three Piano Pieces, op. 11, Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, and Erwartung, op. 17. In fact, the uncompleted concept would have been a far more radical departure than that of the completed and published works: the Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19, Herzgewächse, op. 20, and Pierrot lunaire, op. 21.

Between June and September 1917 Schoenberg composed almost the entire first part — 603 bars — of Die Jakobsleiter. Then he was called up for military service, and although he was released after less than three months, it proved difficult for him to resume work. During the following years, until 1922, he managed to compose only a further one hundred bars, which extended to the end of part 1 and the beginning of an interlude. It is readily

apparent that Schoenberg was unable to continue work on the composition at the same time that the "method of composing with twelve tones only related to one another" was being born in a series of new works. The desire to complete Die Jakobsleiter remained alive, however, and in 1944, at the time of his retirement from UCLA, Schoenberg resumed work on the score. In 1945, when he applied unsuccessfully for a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Die Jakobsleiter was mentioned among the projects he hoped to complete. Finally, less than one month before his death in July 1951, he asked his former pupil Karl Rankl to help him finish part 1.^[9]

Schoenberg's last attempt to write a symphony occurred in January and February 1937. On seven sheets he conceived the outline of a dodecaphonic symphony in four movements, which in a programmatic manner was intended to depict the contemporaneous situation of the Jewish people, their frustrations, and their hopes.^[10] But this project, too, remained uncompleted. Thus three of Schoenberg's four symphonic projects were not carried out beyond the preliminary stages, whereas the one project that ended up as a huge fragment was more oratorio than symphony.

In the 1920s Schoenberg started another ambitious work that was also destined to remain a fragment, the opera Moses und Aron. The circumstances surrounding this work are well documented and do not need to be repeated in detail here. The idea for the text sprang from Schoenberg's theater play Der biblische Weg of 1926-1927 and had initially been intended as an oratorio text. Schoenberg apparently made the decision to turn it into an opera at the time he began to compose the music in 1930. He completed the first two acts within two years. But neither the final version of the text nor the music of the third act ever materialized. In 1933 Schoenberg told Walter Eidlitz that he had had difficulties with the text because of contradictions in the Bible, and that he had rewritten it at least four times.^[11] He is known to have resumed work on it again in 1934 and 1935. Years later he gave permission for a performance of Moses und Aron with the 1934 version of the third act either as a spoken dialogue or left out altogether.^[12] Some musical sketches do exist for this act, but nothing that could justify an attempt to reconstruct it. Thus Moses und Aron too has remained a large fragment.

A third work of a comparable scale deserves to be mentioned in this connection — namely, Gurrelieder. Schoenberg composed the music during 1900-1901, and had completed the orchestration up to the Peasant's Song at the beginning of part 3 by 1903. Then he laid the work aside. Fortunate circumstances caused him to arrange for a performance of part 1 in a version for pianos in a concert in Vienna in January 1910; also on that program were the first performance of the fifteen songs from Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, op. 15, and the Three Piano Pieces, op. 11. In the often cited program note that Schoenberg wrote for that recital it is stated that the two

new and groundbreaking works are presented together with the older one so as to show "that not lack of inventiveness or of technical ability or of familiarity with the demands of traditional aesthetics" had driven him in that direction, but that he had followed an inner compulsion stronger than education.^[13]

That performance gave rise to a desire in Schoenberg to hear the entire Gurrelieder in the orchestral version and with the big choruses of part 3. An added inducement was Franz Schreker's eagerness to perform it with his newly founded Vienna Philharmonic Chorus. As a result Schoenberg completed the score during 1910-1911, and Schreker conducted the first performance of the work in Vienna in 1913, which was a great success. That Schoenberg was able to take up and finish this large work after eight years of stylistic development seems to be due to the fact that in this case the music had actually been composed at an earlier stage.^[14] It only remained for Schoenberg to complete the orchestration as of the end of the Peasant's Song. If the situation had been otherwise, Gurrelieder might well have shared the fate of Die Jakobsleiter and Moses und Aron.

There is only one additional fragment of a length exceeding 150 bars — namely, the Serenade in D major from 1896. Schoenberg completed the first movement, an Andante, but the two subsequent movements, a Scherzo and Finale, remained fragments of 63 and 198 bars, respectively. There is no reason to believe that he would have felt inclined to complete this work at any later stage.

The consideration of big fragments in Schoenberg's oeuvre would be incomplete without a word about the Moderner Psalm for narrator, mixed chorus, and orchestra, op. 50C. This was certainly also intended to be a work of considerable dimensions, as can be seen from the texts. Ten psalms seem to have been intended as a first group; beyond that there are five further psalms and a text fragment. Schoenberg began composing the music in October 1950 but had notated only eighty-six bars, together with a few sketches for the continuation, before his death on 13 July 1951. The last words Schoenberg ever set to music were "Und trotzdem bete ich." (And nevertheless I pray).^[15]

In the course of half a century Schoenberg's music passed through stylistic changes more far-reaching than had ever been seen in music history during such a short span of time; his musical language developed through many stages, and not always in a straightforward fashion. That state of constant change allowed very little time for the composition of large, time-consuming works. Almost as if he were aware of this, Schoenberg at an early stage developed the ability to compose very quickly. Thus the 426 bars of

the monodrama Erwartung were composed in one burst of inspiration in the two weeks between 27 August and 12 September 1909. But whenever Schoenberg was interrupted in the middle of a big project, it was usually impossible for him to pick up the thread again. In 1917 work on Die Jakobsleiter was interrupted, first by military service and then by Schoenberg's preoccupation with developing the dodecaphonic technique. In 1932 work on Moses und Aron was interrupted, first by difficulties with the text and then by Schoenberg's flight from Germany in October 1933. In 1902 the orchestration of Gurrelieder had been similarly interrupted by Schoenberg's need to earn money by orchestrating operettas; he resumed work on Gurrelieder in 1903 but again gave it up, presumably because the possibility of having the colossal work performed in Vienna at that time seemed so slight. Fortunately Schoenberg was able to finish the score when the opportunity presented itself in 1910, but he himself admitted that the parts orchestrated in 1910 and 1911 sound different from the rest.

The same is true of another work that was saved from remaining a fragment. Schoenberg began his Second Chamber Symphony in 1906, right after completing the First Chamber Symphony, but soon thereafter gave it up. After resuming it in 1911 (upon completion of the Gurrelieder orchestration) and again in 1916, he did eventually complete the work in 1939, more than thirty years after its initial stages. No wonder that in this work, composed over a span of so many years, there are striking differences to be heard between the various parts.

Taking the pace of Schoenberg's stylistic development and the turbulence of his life into consideration, it is not surprising that throughout his creative life one or two of his most ambitious compositional projects were always pending, waiting to be completed. From 1900 on it was Gurrelieder, which took another twelve years to reach completion; from 1912 on it was the symphony that ended up as the Jakobsleiter fragment; and from 1930 on it was Moses und Aron. Given this situation, it is truly amazing — and testifies to his enormous vitality — that in September 1950, despite old age and failing health, Schoenberg had the courage to enter upon yet another big project, the Moderne Psalmen. There is no other great composer in whose oeuvre huge unfinished works play a role as decisive as they do in the oeuvre of Arnold Schoenberg.