''A Survivor from Warsaw'', Op. 46, is a
cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of ...
by the Los Angeles-based Austrian composer
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
, written in tribute to
Holocaust victims. The main narration is unsung; "never should there be a pitch" to its solo vocal line, wrote the composer.
Scored for
narrator, men's
chorus and
orchestra, it resulted from a suggested collaboration between
Jewish Russian émigrée dancer
Corinne Chochem
Corinne Chochem (December 16, 1907 – September 18, 1990) was an American choreographer and dance teacher of Russian Jewish descent. In her late life she became a painter. She is recognized for her impact on Hebrew folk dance. She published tw ...
and Schoenberg, but the dancer's initiative gave way to a project independently developed by the composer after he received a commission from the
Koussevitzky Music Foundation for an orchestral work. Concept, text, and musical sketches date from July 7 to August 10, 1947 – the text, by Schoenberg, being in English until the concluding
Hebrew plea, except for interjections in German. Composition followed immediately, from August 11 to 23,
four years before the composer died. The work was premiered by the
Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kurt Frederick on November 4, 1948.
Story
The work narrates the story of a survivor of the
Warsaw Ghetto in the
Second World War, from his time in a concentration camp. The Nazi authorities one day hold a roll-call of a group of Jews. The group tries to assemble but there is confusion and the guards beat the old and ailing detainees who cannot line up quickly enough. Those left on the ground are presumed dead. The guards demand another count to determine how many will be deported to death camps. The guards repeatedly demand the group to count faster until the detainees break into sung prayer, the ''
Shema Yisrael'', ending with
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...
6:7, "and when thou liest down, and when thou riseth up".
Text
"I cannot remember everything. I must have been unconscious most of the time.
I remember only the grandiose moment when they all started to sing, as if prearranged, the old prayer they had neglected for so many years – the forgotten creed!
But I have no recollection how I got underground to live in the sewers of Warsaw for so long a time.
The day began as usual: Reveille when it still was dark. "Get out!" Whether you slept or whether worries kept you awake the whole night. You had been separated from your children, from your wife, from your parents. You don't know what happened to them … How could you sleep?
The trumpets again – "Get out! The sergeant will be furious!" They came out; some very slowly, the old ones, the sick ones; some with nervous agility. They fear the sergeant. They hurry as much as they can. In vain! Much too much noise, much too much commotion! And not fast enough! The Feldwebel shouts: "Achtung! Stillgestanden! Na wird's mal! Oder soll ich mit dem Jewehrkolben nachhelfen? Na jut; wenn ihrs durchaus haben wollt!" ("Attention! Stand still! How about it, or should I help you along with the butt of my rifle? Oh well, if you really want to have it!")
The sergeant and his subordinates hit (everyone): young or old, (strong or sick), guilty or innocent … .
It was painful to hear them groaning and moaning.
I heard it though I had been hit very hard, so hard that I could not help falling down. We all on the (ground) who could not stand up were (then) beaten over the head … .
I must have been unconscious. The next thing I heard was a soldier saying: "They are all dead!"
Whereupon the sergeant ordered to do away with us.
There I lay aside half conscious. It had become very still – fear and pain. Then I heard the sergeant shouting: "Abzählen!" ("Count off!")
They start slowly and irregularly: one, two, three, four – "Achtung!" The sergeant shouted again, "Rascher! Nochmals von vorn anfange! In einer Minute will ich wissen, wieviele ich zur Gaskammer abliefere! Abzählen!" ("Faster! Once more, start from the beginning! In one minute I want to know how many I am going to send off to the gas chamber! Count off!")
They began again, first slowly: one, two, three, four, became faster and faster, so fast that it finally sounded like a stampede of wild horses, and (all) of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began singing the
Shema Yisrael."
Background

In 1925 Schoenberg was selected to lead a masterclass on composition at the
Prussian Academy of Arts by the Minister of Culture
Carl Heinrich Becker
Carl Heinrich Becker (12 April 1876 – 10 February 1933) was a German orientalist and politician in Prussia. In 1921 and 1925–1930 he served as Minister for Culture in Prussia (independent). He was one of the founders of the study of t ...
. After his post was revoked on
racist grounds in September 1933, he returned to the Jewish faith he had abandoned in his youth and emigrated to the United States, where he became a professor of composition and, in 1941, an American citizen. The proposal for ''A Survivor from Warsaw'' came from the Russian
choreographer
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...
Corinne Chochem. She sent Schoenberg the melody and English translation of "
Partizaner lid" ("Partisan Song") in early 1947 and requested a composition following the
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
original or a Hebrew version. Schoenberg requested fees from Chochem "for a 6- to 9-minute composition for small orchestra and choir", and he clarified: "I plan to make it this scene – which you described – in the Warsaw Ghetto, how the doomed Jews started singing, before gooing
icto die."
But Schoenberg and Chochem failed to reach a financial agreement, and so the plan to use "Partizaner lid" as the basis of the work had to be abandoned. A commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in Boston, however, offered the composer the opportunity to realize his plan in a modified form.
Schoenberg wrote out a text based on an authentic witness account he had heard from a survivor from Warsaw. He began composition on August 11 and completed it in under two weeks on August 23, 1947.
Due to poor health, he produced only a condensed score;
René Leibowitz, a friend, completed the score under his supervision. The work was dedicated to the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky.
Premiere
The connection between conductor
Serge Koussevitzky
Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevit ...
's foundation and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
led to the presumption that he and that orchestra would give the premiere, but Kurt Frederick, conductor of the Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra, had heard about ''A Survivor from Warsaw'' and wrote to Schoenberg to ask permission to do the honors, and Schoenberg agreed, stipulating that in lieu of their performance fee the New Mexico musicians should prepare a full set of choral and orchestral parts and send those to him. The premiere was at first scheduled for September 7, 1948, but was delayed until November 4 of that year. Frederick conducted his orchestra at the
University of New Mexico in Albuquerque
with Sherman Smith as narrator. During the two-month delay, Koussevitzsky heard of Frederick's request and approved of the plan.
The premiere was followed by a minute's silence, after which Frederick repeated the whole work; then began a frenzied applause. There were skeptical voices as well. ''
Time'' magazine wrote:
''A Survivor from Warsaw'' premiered in Europe on November 15, 1949, in Paris, under the direction of Leibowitz.
Recent performances
As noted in 2004 documentary ''La neuvième'', at least one performance (the date is not mentioned), "In a tremendous symbolic gesture, the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn plays Schoenberg's ''A Survivor from Warsaw'' and without a pause goes straight into the
Ninth Symphony of
Beethoven. The Jewish prayer is joined by Beethoven's." On 30 October 2010, the
Berliner Philharmonic under
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal ...
performed this piece in the same way, leading into
Mahler's Second Symphony. The
New York Philharmonic, under
Alan Gilbert has also performed the piece followed by the
Ninth Symphony of
Beethoven, in a sequence of five performances were conducted in May 2017 as part of Gilbert's final season as Music Director of the ensemble. Schoenberg's work has also been programmed just before the
Mozart Requiem
The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a requiem mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version dat ...
.
Analysis
Richard S. Hill published a contemporary analysis of Schoenberg's use of
twelve-tone rows in ''A Survivor from Warsaw'', and
Jacques-Louis Monod
Jacques-Louis Monod (25 February 1927 – 21 September 2020) was a French composer, pianist and conducting, conductor of 20th century music, 20th century and Contemporary classical music, contemporary music, particularly in the advancement of th ...
prepared a definitive edition of the score, later, in 1979. Beat A. Föllmi has since published a detailed analysis of the work's narrative.
Recordings
* RCA LSC-7055:
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
;
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor;
Sherrill Milnes, narrator;
New England Conservatory
The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...
Chorus,
Lorna Cooke deVaron
Lorna Cooke deVaron (January 17, 1921 – October 6, 2018) was an American choral conductor. She was one of the pre-eminent choral conductors of the 20th century, having given the world premiere or American premiere of many important works by Ben ...
, conductor.
* Columbia SBRG 72119-20:
CBC Symphony Orchestra;
Robert Craft, conductor
Edward Greenfield
Edward Harry Greenfield OBE (3 July 1928 – 1 July 2015) was an English music critic and broadcaster.
Early life
Edward Greenfield was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. His father, Percy Greenfield, was a manager in a labour exchange, while his ...
, "Gramophone Records" (review of Schoenberg, Complete Works, Vol. 1) (1963). '' The Musical Times'', 104 (1448): p. 714.
* CBS 76577:
BBC Symphony Orchestra;
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mont ...
, conductor;
Günter Reich, speaker
* Naxos 8.557528:
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, W ...
; Simon Joly Chorale;
Robert Craft, conductor;
David Wilson-Johnson, narrator
* Deutsche Grammophon 431 774-2:
Vienna Philharmonic;
Claudio Abbado, conductor;
Gottfried Hornik
Gottfried Hornik (born 5 August 1940) is an Austrian operatic baritone and voice teacher. He was a member of the Vienna State Opera for 25 years and appeared worldwide in leading roles. His signature role was Beckmesser in Wagner's ''Die Meisters ...
, narrator; Male Choir of the Concert Chorus of the Vienna State Opera
References
Further reading
*
Calico, Joy. ''Arnold Schoenberg's ''A Survivor from Warsaw'' in Postwar Europe''. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2014. .
*
Kamien, Roger. ''Music: An Appreciation'', 6th brief edition, New York, 2008, pp. 325–327.. .
* Offergeld, Robert. ''Beethoven – Symphony no. 9 – Schoenberg – A Survivor from Warsaw'', included booklet. BMG Classics 09026-63682-2, New York, 2000.
* Schoenberg, Arnold. ''Style and Idea.'' University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1984.
External links
History, full text, tone row and analysis Aeiou Encyclopedia
Austria-Forum is a freely accessible online collection of reference works in both German language, German and English language, English about Austria-related topics.
Background
The predecessor of Austria-Forum, the AEIOU project was launched in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Survivor from Warsaw, A
Twelve-tone compositions by Arnold Schoenberg
Holocaust commemoration
1947 compositions
Compositions with a narrator
Cantatas
Classical music about the Holocaust