Object #60

Johann Sebastian Bach
Arnold Schönberg (arr.)
Schmücke Dich, o liebe Seele [Adorn thyself, o dear soul]
Score (copyist’s handwriting)
1922

Universal Edition, Wien

In a letter to kapellmeister Fritz Stiedry dated July 31, 1930 Schönberg discussed his arrangements of two chorale preludes by Bach from 1922: “‘Our sound requirements’ do not aim at ‘tasteful’ colors. Rather, the purpose of the colors is to make the individual lines clearer, and that is very important in the contrapuntal web! [...] A ‘pleasant’ effect originating in an ensemble of skillfully constructed parts is no longer sufficient to us. We need transparency, that we may see clearly.” In his transposition of the source material for his composition, Schönberg was keen to expose the motivic work yet also to conceal it, to align the dynamics of the individual parts with the transparency of the overall sound and to “distribute the stresses correctly in the line.” In doing so, the phrasing was not to serve the pathos and feeling, but instead the thematic differentiation. Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele is a Lutheran hymn and thematizes the soul’s self-exhortation to prepare for the Last Supper and the purification of the soul with Christ.