Object #52

Arnold Schönberg
Draft of a will
1908

Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Writing a draft of his will in the summer of 1908, Schönberg refers to his wife’s adultery (Mathilde Schönberg’s affair with the painter Richard Gerstl). “I, who have been hindered so long in the exertion of my will, find it necessary, as a preliminary exercise for some acts of will that I now intend, to record my last will. I am also urged on by the realization that, with my energy gone and my vitality at its end, it is very likely that I shall soon follow the path, find the resolution, that at long last might be the highest culmination of all human actions. It could well be that I shall have to shake off the many sorrows that I have had to endure until now. Whether it be my body that will give way or my soul – I don’t feel the difference, but I foresee the separation.”

The fourth song from the Six Songs, op. 13 by Schönberg’s brother-in-law Alexander Zemlinsky reflects on the tragedy of Richard Gerstl’ suicide. By choosing D minor as the key of the piece, Zemlinsky plunges “Als ihr Geliebter schied” [When her lover departed] into the tragic realm of death, and allow the pain of loss and death to become audible with harmonic-semantic references and also symbolic musical references in the voice. Whereas emphasis of the letter G together with E refers to Gerstl, the frequent conflict of the tonalities A and E flat/s is a reference to the initials of Schönberg and Zemlinsky (when his name is pronounced correctly as “Semlinsky”).