Preface to Volume 17, 2 B

At the centre of the present volume on Schoenberg’s oratorio Die Jakobsleiter is the comprehensively annotated edition of all surviving sketches and drafts (pp. 1ff.) as well as the genesis and work history up to the Vienna première on 16 June 1961 of the full-score fragment prepared by Winfried Zillig (pp. 179 ff.). Also included is an edition of the 1944 fair-copy, short-score fragment in a revised version especially pertaining to the orchestration (pp. 163 ff.), as well as the most important letters and other documents relevant to the work’s genesis and reception (pp. 218 ff.). The volume is rounded off by an annotated edition of the sketches and drafts of two fragments closely associated with the Jakobsleiter genesis: Schoenberg’s 1912 dramatic work on Balzac’s Seraphita (pp. 291 ff.) and the large-scale vocal symphony on texts by others and Schoenberg himself, on which he worked between 1913 and 1915 (pp. 301 ff.). With a view to the chronology, the relevant correspondence is printed within the context of the oratorio documents.

The Jakobsleiter sketches and drafts relate not only to the elaborated short-score section presented in volume 17, series A, up to about halfway through the planned orchestral interlude
(bars 1–684), but also to its direct continuation as well as to the second half of the poetry. The work’s complex genesis can be studied in detail, by means of the 252 extant sketches handed down in five sketchbooks, but also within the context of the text and conceptual drafts as well as from deletions or paste-overs within the short-score’s inked inscription. The partly contradictory dating especially in sketchbook IV, for example, shows that Schoenberg first sketched the vocal parts for longer sections and executed, at least partly, the orchestral writing only at a much later point in time. The advantage of this procedure was that the extent of the respective section, depending on the amount of text, was predetermined, so that the view of the whole was not lost during the realisation of the musical detail. Close examination of the inscription chronology shows, furthermore, that Schoenberg made the much-cited programmatic-autobiographical entry Einrücken zum Militär!! [Enlisted in the military!!] in conjunction with the musical setting of the text line Dann ist dein Ich gelöscht [Then is your “I” extinguished] only in retrospect, suggesting a conscious self-enactment.

Only little material is extant for the dramatic work based on Balzac’s philosophical novella Seraphita, planned as early as 1911 – besides a 13-bar short-score draft, a detailed scenario for the first scene and other conceptual drafts –, although it is frequently discussed in Schoenberg’s various correspondence with his friends and students. A content-related link with the Jakobsleiter poetry, becoming tangible in the later deleted title addition, mit Benützung einiger Ideen aus Balzac’s “Seraphita” [with the use of some ideas from Balzac’s “Seraphita”], results primarily from the literary model’s extensive final monologue, describing life as a succession of reincarnations culminating in the Leben des Gebets [life of prayer] as the direct preliminary stage to the soul’s final ascension into the heavenly realm.

The projected vocal symphony, for which, alongside the rich sketch material, there is also an extensive scherzo draft based on the Dehmel poem Freudenruf [Shout of Joy], is not only ideationally linked to Jakobsleiter – through the conclusion already planned as a prayer at an earlier conceptual stage, for example –, but also very concretely on a material level. The oratorio, initially entitled Der Glaube des Desillusionierten [The Faith of the Disillusioned], was intended to function as the symphony’s final movement before being split off from the symphony shortly before the poetry’s completion. Above and beyond that, the extended violin theme, to open the scherzo’s second trio in the form of a setting of Dehmel’s poem Äonische Stunde [Aeonic Hour], found its way into the vocalise of the “Soul” as part of the ensemble movement concluding the oratorio’s first part. Work on the symphony ended in May 1915 with a series of drafts that served to rework the scherzo into a symphonic first movement. Besides a detailed commentary, the edition also offers a reprint of the texts that Schoenberg had considered for a musical setting as part of the symphony, including his own poetry Totentanz der Prinzipien [Death Dance of the Principles].

To all persons and institutions who have supported the editorial work by providing expert advice and documents and kindly answering bibliographical questions, the editor would like to express special thanks, in particular to Therese Muxeneder and Eike Feß (Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna), Simon Obert (Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel), Uta Schaumberg (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich), Martin Peche (Antiquariat Inlibris, Vienna) and Martin Schüttö (Berlin).

Blankensee, in August 2024
Ulrich Krämer