Expression of the Eternal: Analysis of

Schoenberg's

A Survivor from Warsaw

, Op. 46

January 5, 2011

Introduction

Arnold Schoenberg's contributions to the elds of music theory and music composition remain studied, taught, and celebrated. His success is hardly surprising,
as the introduction of his serial technique and practice has been a pillar of modernist composition throughout the greater part of the 20th century. Fueled by
the scientic advances, the beginning of the 20th century birthed many proposals for new philosophies, approaches, and structures within the arts and sciences. Despite such abundance, it is safe to say that Schoenberg's approaches
and developments remain far more popular and fertile in the eld of musical
research than, for example, proposals of the Italian Futurists or the Russian
Constructivists.

1 Remarkably, Schoenberg's theories remain alive in the world

of composition today, after serving as a monopolistic denition of the academic

and modernist music until the rise of minimalism in the 1960s and French spectralism in the early 1970s.

However, the discussion of the reasons as to why

serial composition has reached such widespread popularity and acceptance in

the Western world remain largely non-trivial. To shed some light on the subject,
we will turn to Schoenberg's

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op.

46. Composed at

the end of Schoenberg's life (1947), the piece presents several departures from
earlier serial compositions. As its main structural feature, the piece does not
utilize an ordered twelve-tone row, and instead utilizes hexachordal and trichordal partitioning of its source material. However,

A Survivor from Warsaw

is a mutifaceted work, combining modernist musical language, secular and spiritual texts, and a remarkable fusion between the past and the present of musical
expression.

Serial Features at a Glance

The pitch materials feature hexachordal combinatoriality, a feature through

which the entire row may be generated by the union of the rst hexachords of

1 Evelyne

Gayou, The GRM: Landmarks on a Historic Route,

3 (2007): 204.

Organized Sound

12, no.

the primary row and its inversion. Since the entire twelve-tone row is achieved
through such pairings, we will refer to its primary hexachord as
we will refer to the hexachord of the inversion as

I0 .

P0 .

Similarly,

Transpositions for both the

primary and inverted hexachords will be notated with the transposition index
in the subscript.
Combinatorial means establish a myriad of potential methods for presentation and development of the entire twelve-tone aggregate. Schoenberg's design,
however, achieves self-similarity through carefully constructing the trichordal
components of the source hexachord. In particular, the augmented triad A[-CE is present in three of the source hexachords (P0 ,
the inversions (I3 ,

I7 ,

and

I11 ).2

P4 ,

and

P8 )

and in three of

Schoenberg uses this triad as a pivot point,

allowing him to modulate from one hexachord to the next. These shifts allow
him to capitalize on unique trichordal remainders of each of the aforementioned
hexachords above. The notion of "developmental" motion within the piece is
achieved by the above modulation between row transpositions and the trichordal
combinatoriality. Cadential arrivals often return to the primary row form, as
can be seen in the formal analysis.

Text and Form

The modernity of the serial language discussed above is not without context.
While the text was written by Schoenberg himself, Willi Reich accounts the
origin of a text to a published interview with a real survivor from a Warsaw
ghetto.

The story serves as a testament to the dedication and faith of the

condemned Jewish victims singing

Shema Yisroel, a sacred Jewish prayer, prior

to their slaughter (an ultimate act of deance and reassertion of the Jewish

3 The prayer is the ultimate focal point of the piece, and is alluded to as
4 Schoenberg's treatment of the text implies its role as a
early as mm. 16-17.
faith).

metaphysical weapon against fascism, its celebration of individual identity and

the undying freedom. While the notion of the persistence of deant freedom of
faith is hardly unique, Schoenberg's treatment of the text within the modern
language of serial music hints on another dimension of its meaning. Before we
discuss this notion in full, a formal analysis of the piece is in order.
The piece may be divided into eight sections, which coincide with the developments in the text and in music. The exposition occupies the rst 11 measures,
and spans the A Theme of the piece. The transition to the second theme occurs over the introduction of the narration (mm. 12-17) with the Theme B
occupying mm. 18-24. The piece proceeds in a fairly conservative formal pro-

2 Richard

Swift, Some Aspects of Aggregate Composition.

no. 2 (1976): 239.

3 Mark

ity

in

Feezell,

Arnold

The

Lord

Schoenberg's

Our

God

Is

One:

Perspectives of New Music 14,

Form,

A Survivor from Warsaw,

Technique,
Op.

46,

and

Spiritual-

available

from

http://www.drfeezell.com/melodrama/schoenbergasurvivorfromwarsawweb.pdf: Internet; accessed 28 November 2009.

4 Michael

Strasser, 'A Survivor from Warsaw' as Personal Parable.

no. 1 (1995): 59-60.

Music & Letters 76,

le, as Schoenberg restates the A theme in mm. 25-31, and follows with a clear
motion through the development (mm. 32-53) and recapitulation (54-70). As
stated previously, the prayer section (mm. 80-99) is the goal of the piece, both
in terms of textual importance and the musical design.
The exposition focuses on the aforementioned augmented triad (A[, C, E)
by deriving most of its musical material in
present (m. 7 -

I3

and

P4 ;

m. 8 -

I7 ,

P0

I0

and

hexachords. Deviations are

and mm. 9-10 -

P8 ) yet all of the deviant

hexachords include the augmented triad. The following transitional material to

theme B settles on

P4 /I4

P4

hexachords in m. 18.

"prayer" through the Theme B section.

expository thematic complex in m.
B), followed by a return to the

is used to foreshadow the

Schoenberg returns explicitly to the

25 (section immediately following Theme

P0 /I0

conglomerate.

There are objections, however, to the dodecaphonic analyses of the opening

section of the piece (specically Beat Follimi's rejection thereof in the rst 80
measures of the piece). Instead, Follimi argues that the symbolic character of
the motives emerges from references to traditional models of composition (e.g.

5 This notion is interesting not because of the diculties that arise

Reveille).

from attempts to analyze the music without utilizing Schoenberg's models for
hexachordal combinatoriality, but because of abundance of traditional models
within the piece. For example, Schoenberg's utilization of the trumpet fanfare
in the introduction (and its return at the end of Theme B) provide a traditional
musical context in light of the modernity of his compositional method.
very notion of sacred text setting provides an ancient musical context.

The
Its

construction, remarkably, ows rather naturally from the pantonal approach

within the piece.
The recollection of the victims' panic described by the narrator is set within
the developmental section. While the pitchwise design of the modulatory motion
may be rather dicult to hear, Schoenberg shifts through the transpositions
of the hexachords of the prime row in order, starting with
through

P9 , P10 ,

and

P11

until the arrival to the tonic

P0

P8 ,

and moving

in m. 37 (again, the

augmented triad mentioned above is reiterated). The musical material shifts to

the extensive use of percussion, which illustrates the preceding rise of tension
in the musical material as the narrator's memories present a series of images
of misery, abuse, and violence (mm.

38-41).

The remainder of the measures

in this section create thematic counterpoint.

The narrator recites commands

of the German ocer, set in German (the native tongue of the composer, used
in the piece strictly for antagonistic Fascist speech), and the narration reaches
a sudden break in the rhythmic structure in m.

43, which marks the return

to the English narration of the occurence from the perspective of the survivor.
Pitchwise motion, however, presents a return to

P0

(mm. 42-43), which serves

as a dramatic return from the striking reality of the described horrors to the
original retelling of a memory.
The recapitulation of the opening material, reinforced by the narrator's I

5 Amy

Lynn Wlodarski, An Idea Can Never Perish:

Schoenberg's
582.

Memory, the Musical Idea, and

A Survivor From Warsaw (1947). The Journal of Musicology 24, no. 4 (2007):
3

must have been unconscious, leads towards the nal transitional development
to the prayer material in mm. 72-80. While this transition is rather dicult to
analyse, its function is similar in the rise of tension to the preceding discussion of
the development, that is, to transport the listener into the heart of the atrocities.
The music features accelerandos to create the powerful moment of prayer, the
nal deance of the Jewish people in the face of death.

The Prayer

As mentioned before, Schoenberg wrote the text for the piece along with the
music, setting the text of

Shema Isroel.

The prayer is one of the most sacred

Jewish prayers, and contextual importance of the reassertion of the cultural

identity of what essentially amounts to "a condemned people" is responsible for
giving the piece its emotional power.

6 Musically, Schoenberg supports the im-

portance of the moment through the striking choice of orchestration, utilization

of more traditional musical language (particularly triads) and sung vocal parts
(in contrast to the predominating narrator of the exposition). The chorus ulti-

P0 P8 /retrograde I8 .

mately arrives to
and

the "tonic" construct in the piece, preceeded by

P4 /I4 ,

The sacred text setting here transcends the notion of modernity, and celebrates the origins of Western music as a whole. The textural expansion of the
vocal materials into a grandiose men's chorus underline the aesthetic acceptance
of Schoenberg's creation. The voice-leading of the section acts as a particular
residual of both worlds, deriving its origin from the row, yet facilitating the new
language for familiar and traditional musical aesthetic of a sacred text setting.
To reiterate,

Survivor

is an act of constructive expansion of the musical lan-

guage, leaving little of the established musical tradition behind. Returning to

the original observation of the popularity of Schoenberg's music and writing,
my claim remains that this approach features a unique contribution due to its
continual celebration of traditional and established musical features.

Conclusion

Our investigation into the hexachordal combinatoriality and formal design of

Survivor from Warsaw

has led to a discussion of the traditional and modern

conglomerate encompassing a consistent method for the creation of new music

from the re-imagining of the traditional concepts.

As mentioned previously,

Beat Follimi's view of the opening of the piece places conventional forms over
the dodecaphony, which further supports this claim.

6 Mark
ity

in

Feezell,

Arnold

The

Lord

Schoenberg's

Our

God

Is

One:

Form,

A Survivor from Warsaw,

Beyond the meticulous

Technique,
Op.

46,

and

Spiritual-

available

from

http://www.drfeezell.com/melodrama/schoenbergasurvivorfromwarsawweb.pdf; Internet; accessed 28 November 2009.

analyses of pitch content, however, remains a touching, deeply emotional work.

Despite its complex subject, documentary text, and modern musical language,
the music itself creates a compelling listening experience, extending its reach
toward a synthesis of the pantonal aesthetic.

References
[1] Feezell, Mark. The Lord Our God Is One: Form, Technique, and Spirituality in Arnold Schoenberg's

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46. available from

http://www.drfeezell.com/melodrama/schoenbergasurvivorfromwarsawweb.pdf.
Internet; accessed 28 November 2009.
[2] Strasser, Michael. 'A Survivor from Warsaw' as Personal Parable.

& Letters 76, no. 1 (1995): 52-63.

Music

[3] Wlodarski, Amy Lynn. An Idea Can Never Perish: Memory, the Musical

A Survivor From Warsaw

Musicology 24, no. 4 (2007): 581-608.

(1947).

The Journal of

[4] Swift, Richard. Some Aspects of Aggregate Composition.

Perspectives of

Idea, and Schoenberg's

New Music 14, no. 2 (1976): 236-248.

[5] Gayou, Evelyne. The GRM: Landmarks on a Historic Route.

Sound 12, no. 3 (2007): 203-211.

7 Michael

Strasser, 'A Survivor from Warsaw' as Personal Parable.

no. 1 (1995): 52.

Organized

Music & Letters 76,