Dramatic Vocalise Database

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

“Prelude” to Genesis, Op. 44 (1945)

From 1943 to 1945, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) worked intensively with Leonard Stein on his book Structural Functions of Harmony, refraining from composing due to deterioration in his health. Following this hiatus, he was asked to compose the prelude to a suite for chorus and orchestra by various composers based on selections from the book of Genesis. According to a note in the published score written by Stein:

The PRELUDE was commissioned by Nathaniel Shilkret as the first piece of a Genesis Suite to which several composers contributed. Schoenberg’s composition was completed on September 30, 1945, after little more than a week’s work. It was performed with the rest of the Suite by the Janssen Symphony of Los Angeles, under Werner Janssen, on November 18, 1945.¹

Shilkret, best known as a conductor of “pops” concerts on the radio, had engaged Aleksander Tansman (Adam and Eve), Darius Milhaud (Cain and Abel), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Noah’s Ark), Igor Stravinsky (Babel), Ernst Toch (The Covenant), and wrote one section himself (Creation).

The first recording of the Genesis suite includes a subtitle for Schoenberg’s Prelude, “The Earth was without form—Chaos.” Yet, the music is not chaotic, as Oliver Neighbour points out:

Schoenberg evidently thought of God as creating the world out of divine order rather than primordial chaos, for the core of his compact piece consists of an eight-part double canon followed by two strettos that draw into their orbit the more amorphous elements from the opening.²

Neighbour’s formal description seems incorrect, since there are only four entries of the subject (or its inversion functioning as a fugal answer) before the stretto sections. The work consists of an introduction, a fugato, and a coda.

The chorus enters during the first stretto section, echoing the fugato subject on flute and clarinet at the distance of one measure. Schoenberg provided no text for the chorus; instead, according to Leonard Stein, he approved the use of an unspecified vowel sound.³

Schoenberg, “Prelude” to Genesis, op. 44, mm. 64–67 ⁴

As to the significance of the choral passage, Peter Gradenwitz speculates the following, “[the] chorus—symboliz[es] the appearance of man.” ⁵ The work, written in the twelve-tone style, ends on octave Cs, suggesting form out of chaos, similar to the music accompanying the exaltation “and there was light” at the end of “The Representation of Chaos” in Haydn’s The Creation.