Herzgewächse

''Herzgewächse'' (German, 'Foliage of the Heart'), Op. 20, is a brief that Austrian (and later American) composer Arnold Schoenberg finished in late 1911, during his atonal period in Vienna. Using the German translation by and Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski, which he further modified, Schoenberg set Maurice Maeterlinck's poem "" to music for high soprano, celesta, harmonium, and harp. The art song exemplifies Schoenberg's structurally innovative, modernist harmonic language and more traditional use of expressive word painting.

The music evokes the poem's imagery of light and color playing on botanical forms inside a greenhouse, rendered as symbols of inner feelings. It employs rhythmic patterns, varied textures, ethereal timbres, and delicate, interlocking motives built from trichords and interval cycles. The virtuosic soprano melody, ranging G₃–F₆, is a musical metaphor for the Symbolist poem's narrative as centered on a moonlit lily, from its isolation among dark, entangled foliage and merely ornamental blooms to its spiritual ascent within the blue-glass enclosure. Scholars have suggested links to Richard Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde'' and its study, the third '' Wesendonck Lied''.

Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc included a facsimile of the music manuscript in ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (1912). In his essay "The Relationship to the Text", which was also included, Schoenberg described his approach to the musical setting as a flow of ideas. At its planned 1912 Berlin premiere, decided late not to sing ''Herzgewächse'', likely due to its difficulty. She was also asked to sing it in Vienna; this, too, did not happen. Universal Edition obtained a music engraving of ''Herzgewächse'' in 1914. Eventually, after World War I and amid economic instability, they published it in 1920.

Jean Wiéner organized its 1922 world premiere in Paris, and Eva Leoni sang its 1923 United States premiere to great acclaim with the International Composers Guild in New York City. () enthusiasts in Freiburg im Bresgau gave ''Herzgewächse'' its apparent 1925 German premiere. Marianne Rau-Hoeglauer sang its 1928 Austrian premiere, conducted by Anton Webern. In 1945 post-World War II Paris, ''Combat'' promoted Lucienne Tragin singing ''Herzgewächse'' with René Leibowitz conducting; Pierre Boulez, who the song likely influenced, performed on harmonium. In early 1950s Los Angeles, Marni Nixon sang it twice, giving encores both times, and local radio aired one performance live. She and Robert Craft first recorded ''Herzgewächse'' in 1954, and many other musicians' recordings followed.

Composition

Background

Schoenberg composed ''Herzgewächse'' with speed characteristic especially of his atonal period, completing it on 9 December 1911 for facsimile publication in the 1912 almanac ''Der Blaue Reiter'', edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.

Kandinsky, who linked sound and color, asked Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Webern to send their work. Berg sent "Warm die Lüfte", Op. 2/iv. Webern sent "Ihr tratet zu dem Herde", Op. 4/v, in what became only his second publication after some rejections. Schoenberg sent paintings, ''Herzgewächse'', and "" ("The Relationship to the Text"), his essay describing the as shaped by poetic inspiration and composed in a state of "ecstasy".

Scholars like Bryan R. Simms emphasize a stream-of-consciousness approach to musical form in Schoenberg's works of this period, with atomization of material, or musical ideas, into a kind of athematicism.

Song

At three and a half minutes, ''Herzgewächse'' is Schoenberg's shortest opus. The celesta and harp rest more than the harmonium, which uses stops to alter its timbre throughout.

The music is generally polyphonic and saturated motivically with cells. These include many trichords, especially ,1,4 sometimes interpolated with other sets, including cyclic sets. These cells are varied by continuous transformation as distinct figures. The voice leading yields quasi- tonal or tertian harmonies and fragments of cyclic harmonic progressions, often by melodic implication.

For example, this fragment is presented mostly as consecutive thirds. It unfolds as though in two voices. One voice repeats a kind of common tone parsimoniously as the other descends, followed by a voice exchange.

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Opening

The opening phrase of music begins on the harmonium with an A–C–G sonority, a particular ,1,4trichord, soon joined by the harp. This phrase contains two segments:

*First, a dense texture using the harmonium's clarinet stop (anacrusis and m. 1).
*Second, a rising melody using the harmonium's flute stop (mm. 2–3).

This foreshadows the poem's two-part narrative (stanzas 1–2 and 3–4). It also anticipates the song's roughly binary form (mm. 1–15 and 16–30, notwithstanding subsections).

Poem, translation, and narrative

The soprano sings Maurice Maeterlinck's "", a poem from the collection ''Serres chaudes'' (1889; English: ''Hothouses'', or ''Hothouse Blooms'') in the 1906 German translation of Karl Anton Klammer (pseudonym K. L. Ammer) and Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski.

A Symbolist meditation, Maeterlinck's poem portrays a soul mired in memories of sorrow, pleasure, and desire. It turns to the hopeful image of a lone lily. This pale flower rises above the others in a hothouse and is ensconced in radiant moonlight.

The translation is loose and necessarily loses some of the original's sound symbolism. Schoenberg changed "" ("melancholy", opening line of poem) to "" ("longing"), by intent or error. He also changed "" (end of third stanza), in the accusative case, to "" in the dative case. The former conveys a direct, active becoming of sorrow into foliage, while the latter emphasizes sorrow as enduring and rooted in its presence, having become foliage.

Setting to voice and music

= Musical setting

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In word paintings of the poem's imagery, Schoenberg uses the timbral palette of the ensemble, rhythmic patterns, and ornamented, interrelated cyclic and motivic figures. A passage of octave voicings reaching their height on staccato celesta (mm. 2–3) marks the greenhouse's "blue glass" ("", opening line of poem). A low triplet ostinato (m. 6) paints snoring, like its cross-linguistic onomatopoeias, upon "slumber" ("", end of first stanza).

Intricate, interlocking figures atop increasingly turbulently swirling figures in low tones depict merely ornamental blooms and dark, entangled foliage inside, which the poem associates with emotions and drives. The song's longest measure (m. 19) underscores their persistence as a sick, moonlit lily's appeal to transcend them is evoked by figures incorporating interval cycles unfolding rhythmically and shimmering repetitively in arabesque passages for celesta and harp.

= Vocal setting

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Ranging a nearly three-octave tessitura, the song's vocal melody outlines the poem's narrative using melodic motion, localized contouring, and a gradual rise in register. It

*descends to rest on the soprano's lowest pitch, G₃ (m. 6), on the final syllable of "" ("slumber", end of first stanza) and again briefly (in the manner of passing) on the second syllable of "" ("cool moss", end of second stanza);
*rises to a local maximum, C₆ (mm. 16–17), marked and held on the second syllable of "" ("upwards", third line of third stanza); and
*culminates in a passage with the soprano's highest pitch, F₆ (m. 27), also marked and held at length on the first syllable of "" ("mystical prayer", end of poem).

Ending

The fleeting conclusion (mm. 29–30) reworks prior figures into musical gestures of falling lines. As the melody accelerates by rhythmic subdivison, harmonic motion is suspended without resolution. The song ends like the poem, without answer to the lily's prayer and as if "in mid air". Some analysts note that the song seems to return cyclically to its beginning, and so they likewise interpret the lily's arc as merely part of a cyclical narrative.

Cultural context

Klammer and Oppeln-Bronikowski translated Maeterlinck's ''Serres chaudes'' as ''Im Treibhaus'' (), the same name as the third of Wagner's ''Wesendonck Lieder''. Wagner's song portrays sorrowful plants confined in a sheltered enclosure, longing for their distant (), and was a study for the Act 3 Prelude to ''Tristan und Isolde''. Schoenberg likely knew it.

Gordon Root argues that Schoenberg's stylistically modernist setting offers "Herzgewächse" a nonetheless Romantic reading. The music celebrates the desire to transcend but ultimately frames this as part of an endless cycle of desire as such. Here, ''Herzgewächse'' is tied to the tradition of Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde'' and Arthur Schopenhauer's ''The World as Will and Representation''. Schoenberg himself once wrote, in an undated aphorism, "Longing is the only positive happiness; fulfillment is disappointment."

Andreas Meyer compares the song, particularly in its imagery and instrumentation, to Bruno Taut's 1914 Glass Pavilion (German: , sometimes shortened to ). In their respective media, both use what is colorful, opaque, and vitreous to symbolize hidden inner worlds, a hallmark of Expressionism. For Kandinsky, as in ''Herzgewächse'', blue is linked not only with veiled sorrow, but also with desire for the infinite, the pure, and the supernatural.

Paulo F. de Castro raises the possible link between ''Herzgewächse'', with its theme of spiritual transcendence, and Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Berg's Violin Concerto, or Gustav Mahler's music.

Reception

Performance history

The early performance history of ''Herzgewächse'' is somewhat ambiguous, in part due to its first publication and circulation in ''Der Blaue Reiter'' from 1912. Universal Edition possessed a music engraving by 1914 but delayed publication until 1920 amid World War I and the Revolutions of 1917–1923, with economic disruption and rising inflation culminating in the Austrian hyperinflation. They issued a piano–vocal score by in 1925.

With its extreme vocal demands and some ambiguity as to the harmonium part's realization, the song has been infrequently performed since its omission from a planned 1912 Berlin premiere. Uncertainties regarding the type of harmonium, intended sound, and registration have sometimes led to the use of electronic substitutes. A full registration is notated in an autograph manuscript from the 1912 Berlin rehearsal process attended by Schoenberg, enabling more historically informed performance.

1912: Planned premieres

= Germany

=

Schoenberg planned for Martha Winternitz-Dorda, an Austrian soprano at the Hamburg State Opera (1910–1933), to sing ''Herzgewächse'' at 's , Lützowplatz, Berlin. Louis Closson was to play celesta, and , harp. Harmonium keyboardist Paula Simon-Herlitz, Willy's wife, withdrew on 21 January 1912; Anton Webern stepped in. The 28 January concert was delayed by scheduling conflicts. Following rehearsals on 2 and 3 February, it was reset for 4 February.

Winternitz-Dorda cut ''Herzgewächse'' from the already printed all-Schoenberg concert program due to its vocal demands, short notice, or both. Eduard Steuermann accompanied her in ''The Book of the Hanging Gardens'' (1908) and ' later grouped in Opp. 2 and 6 (1899–1905). Closson and Steuermann joined Louis Gruenberg and Webern on two pianos (eight hands), led by Schoenberg in Nos. 1–2 and 4 of the Five Pieces for Orchestra (1909), using the transcription Webern adapted from Erwin Stein1982">https://web.archive.org/web/20250519143033/https://archive.schoenberg.at/av/werk.php?id_werk=48&action=view
*Rita Tritter (soprano), George Silfies (celesta), Paul Jacobs (harmonium), Laura Newell (harp); Robert Craft (conductor). Recorded 17 December 1963, Manhattan Center, New York City. Columbia Records, 1965; reissued Sony Classical, 2023.iller