Arnold Schoenberg Letters

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

129-130

text excerpt

Let me first of all say what particularly gratified me at the Breslau performance of my ‘Glückliche Hand’: the intense enthusiasm with which every individual threw himself into the work. / I must say that even with more ‘popular’ works, e.g. the Gurre-Lieder, I have never yet had to such a degree the feeling that my work was being treated with respect and indeed with affection. / And this was, I think, the source of all the qualities that this production had: All those in charge were dedicated to the matter in hand, and more than that: they were capable of communicating their own enthusiasm to the others, capable of evoking an achievement of sheer artistic will, the one and only means of so perfectly overcoming the difficulties inherent in the material; causing them to be so far forgotten that even in writing this letter I had forgotten that Breslau is not Berlin and that I ought to apply a relative standard, not an absolute one: in other words, one felt one was in an artistic capital. So I should like first and foremost to thank you and the management: Dr. Graf, Herr Cortolezzi, Herr Prof. Wildermann, and then the ‘soloists’, among whom I must actually indeed count not only Herr Andra, Frl. Swedlund and Herr Gargula, but all the rest as well: above all the six ladies and six gentlemen but not least the orchestra, whose admirable performance was a great surprise to me.

Let me first of all say what particularly gratified me at the Breslau performance of my ‘Glückliche Hand’: the intense enthusiasm with which every individual threw himself into the work. / I must say that even with more ‘popular’ works, e.g. the Gurre-Lieder, I have never yet had to such a degree the feeling that my work was being treated with respect and indeed with affection. / And this was, I think, the source of all the qualities that this production had: All those in charge were dedicated to the matter in hand, and more than that: they were capable of communicating their own enthusiasm to the others, capable of evoking an achievement of sheer artistic will, the one and only means of so perfectly overcoming the difficulties inherent in the material; causing them to be so far forgotten that even in writing this letter I had forgotten that Breslau is not Berlin and that I ought to apply a relative standard, not an absolute one: in other words, one felt one was in an artistic capital. So I should like first and foremost to thank you and the management: Dr. Graf, Herr Cortolezzi, Herr Prof. Wildermann, and then the ‘soloists’, among whom I must actually indeed count not only Herr Andra, Frl. Swedlund and Herr Gargula, but all the rest as well: above all the six ladies and six gentlemen but not least the orchestra, whose admirable performance was a great surprise to me.

excerpt from 'Arnold Schoenberg Letters' pp. 129-130 (251 words)

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1448981853048