Arnold Schönberg. Peindre l’âme 28 September 2016 — 29 January 2017 “I have never seen faces, only gazes, because Schoenberg’s creativity extended beyond I look people in the eyes. This is why I can music, encompassing also literature and recreate a man’s gaze. A painter captures the particularly painting, which he practiced entire human being with a glance, but I only as an “amateur” from 1906 to 1944. his soul.” (A. Schoenberg, 11 February 1938) This exceptional body of work ranges from the quasi-hallucinatory visions he called The inventor of new ways of composing “gazes,” to portraits of his entourage and and teaching music and the creator of his many self-portraits. dodecaphony, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) They show an artist seeking the truest was one of the greatest and most innovative expression of himself, a quest also reflecting composers of the 20th century. Although his questioning of his Jewish identity. Verklärte Nacht [Transfigured Night], Pierrot Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1874, Lunaire and Moses und Aron [Moses and he converted to Protestantism at the age Aaron] caused scandals and were widely of twenty-four, but returned to Judaism in criticised, they inspired many modernist Paris in 1933 before emigrating to the United artists, notably his pupils at the Second States. School of Vienna and the painter Wassily Kandinsky.
The artistic revival in Vienna
Arnold Schoenberg participated fully in the to avant-garde artists and met Oskar artistic and intellectual life of the Austrian Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer and Egon capital at the turn of the 20th century. Schiele. The portraits and self-portraits Self-taught, he was introduced into these in this section of the exhibition show a circles by his mentor and future brother-in- world examining its attitude to modernity. law, the composer and conductor Alexander Schoenberg’s relationship with the artist Zemlinsky. Rejected due to the radicalism Richard Gerstl, who initiated him to painting, of the compositions that would lead him drew him towards new forms of expression. to atonal music, Schoenberg drew closer
Schoenberg and Kandinsky: artistic convergences
Following a concert in Munich on 2 January led to Schoenberg’s participation in 1911, Wassily Kandinsky wrote to Schoenberg the first exhibition of the Blaue Reiter to tell him how much his music reflected group in Munich in the winter of 1911–1912. his own “aspirations” in painting. This letter In 1912 Kandinsky published an article on marked the beginning of the sustained Schoenberg’s pictures, dividing them into correspondence and life-long friendship two genres: figures and landscapes painted between these two great creators, and directly from nature, and “visions.” The quest for the total work of art
Both Kandinsky and Schoenberg Die glückliche Hand [The Lucky Hand], were haunted by the notion of the composed between 1909 and 1913, recounts Gesamkunstwerk, an all-embracing the emotions of an artist incapable of synthesis of the arts or “total work of art.” creating whose wife leaves him for another Although both were experimenting with man. The monumental and burlesque Violett equivalencies between sounds and colours, [Violet], Kandinsky’s last stage project in their respective approaches to stage design 1914, is composed of crowd movements and direction resulted in very different in a Russian folk décor, interspersed with works. Schoenberg’s “drama with music” dramatic or absurd cameos.
The daily life of a composer
Paris played a key role in Schoenberg’s career, his latest works based on the twelve-tone successfully staging performance of works composition technique (dodecaphony). such as Pierrot lunaire (1912), conducted by But games also played an important role in Darius Milhaud, in 1924. In 1927, the Société his private life, as shown by the card games musicale indépendante organised a festival and chessboard for four players he invented in his honour, with Schoenberg conducting and the stories he imagined for his children.
Judaism, identity and politics
Schoenberg was born into a Jewish family he reconverted to Judaism at the synagogue but converted to Protestantism in 1898. in rue Copernic in Paris before leaving for the However, after the First World War, some United States. In May 1938 he was one of the of his works deal with biblical themes and targets of the Entartete Musik [Degenerate the destiny of the Jews. The unfinished opera Music] exhibition organised by the Nazi Moses und Aron [Moses and Aaron, 1928- regime in Düsseldorf. A Survivor from 1931] is probably the most emblematic of Warsaw, composed in 1947, is one of the first Schoenberg’s reflections on his relationship musical works to pay tribute to the victims to Judaism. Dismissed from his teaching of the Shoah. post at the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1933,
Self-portraits and visions
Schoenberg produced most of these works examined his threatened identity by painting between 1906 and 1911, the pivotal years in himself, yet without directly “depicting” the development of his musical composition, himself. These works were acclaimed in during which he produced the remarkable artistic circles and shown in three exhibitions Impressions and Fantasies and Self-Portraits in Vienna, Munich and Budapest from 1910 to series, which Kandinsky described as 1912. Schoenberg subsequently turned down “visions.” Schoenberg himself preferred the exhibition offers and distanced himself from term “gazes” evoking the subconscious. With this activity, which he said he practiced only his marriage in crisis, due to his wife’s affair as an amateur. with the painter Richard Gerstl, Schoenberg Lectures and panel Concerts For families discussions Sunday 9 October 2016, Sunday 11 December 2016, Wednesday 28 September 17:00 11:00 2016, 19:30 Schoenberg, Webern, La Princesse, Schönberg, à la croisée Beethoven a tale for children des chemins artistiques Florent Boffard, piano by Arnold Schoenberg Told by Agnès Delachair Discussion between Alain Poirier, musicologist, and Wednesday 30 November Jean-Louis Andral, curator 2016, 20:00 of the exhibition, moderated Guided tours by François-Xavier Szymczak, Arnold Schoenberg, of the exhibition musicologist, producer at Night Transfigured France Musique Johannes Brahms combined with String Sextet No.2 thematic tours Monday 14 November 2016, Musicians from the Orchestre 19:30 de Paris of the Centre Pompidou Schönberg-Kandinsky, Sunday 15 January 2017, correspondances 17:30 Lecture by Marcella Lista, Booklet-game art historian, with readings Arnold Schoenberg, by Laurent Natrella, actor Pierrot lunaire Qui suis-je ? (Comédie-Française) Alexander Zemlinsky, Arnold Schönberg, Trio for Piano, Clarinet musicien touche-à-tout and Cello, Opus 3 Wednesday 7 December 2016, For 7-12 year-olds 19:30 Soloists from L’Ensemble Intercontemporain Judaïsme, identité Catalogue et politique chez Schönberg Films Panel discussion between Esteban Buch, specialist in the Arnold Schönberg relationships between music Sunday 22 January 2017 Peindre l’âme and politics in the 20th century, Copublished by mahJ and Danielle Cohen-Levinas, Straub and Huillet and Flammarion philosopher and musicologist, Cycle presented by Cyril Neyrat, 208 pages, 35 € moderated by Karin Le Bail, writer on cinema and art historian, producer at France Musique 15:00 Introduction to Accompaniment to Colloquium a Cinematographic Scene by Arnold Schoenberg Friday 7 October 2016 followed by Trajectoires, expressions Du jour au lendemain et enjeux de l’exil artistique Organised by Parsons Paris, 17:00 The New School for Social Moïse et Aaron Research and the EHESS
This exhibition was organised with the exceptional participation of the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.
This exhibition was supported by the Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles d’Île-de-France – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, the Délégation interministérielle à la lutte contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme, the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, the Fondation
In partnership with Télérama Triboul / Jeanne : Doc Levin Pro mahJ and the Forum culturel autrichien. and France Musique Design Graphic