Arnold Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand: Artistic Self-Envisioning in the Early Modernist Era

Abstract

Arnold Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand: Artistic Self-Envisioning in the Early Modernist Era: This thesis focuses on Arnold Schoenberg’s stage work Die glückliche Hand (1913), a major composition of Schoenberg’s early atonal period, but one that has been less extensively studied by scholars. It argues that this work sheds considerable light on Schoenberg’s self-envisioning as creative artist during a crucial phase of his development, and is best understood as a Künstleroper with strong autobiographical resonances. The first chapter seeks to situate the piece in relation to other notable Expressionist stage works of the period, demonstrating how it can be seen to constitute an Ich-Drama with strong resemblances in both conception and dramaturgical design to stage works by Wassily Kandinsky and August Strindberg. The second chapter attempts to explore the symbolism of its libretto, elucidating connections with the work of three noted contemporary writers—August Strindberg, Otto Weininger, and Stefan George—who exerted an appreciable influence on Schoenberg’s worldview and artistic self-concept. Intrinsic to this self-concept were fin-de-siècle constructs of the artist as tortured, embattled genius, in possession of higher spiritual truths but destined to remain the target of uncomprehending hostility and persecution. Particular attention will be given to Strindberg’s autobiographical prose work Inferno as a likely source of inspiration for Schoenberg, as well as George’s major collection of poems Der siebente Ring. The conclusion sketches how the paradigm of artistic self-envisioning in Die glückliche Hand arguably remained central to Schoenberg’s self-understanding in later life.