Behind the scenes of Pelleas and Melisande with the Arnold Schönberg Center

Artifacts from the collection of the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna provide exceptional insight into one of the composer’s most significant early works, performed by the CSO in performances conducted by David Afkam. 

Arnold Schoenberg composed his symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5, his first complete orchestra work, between 1902 and 1903 in Berlin.

“I had initially planned to convert Pelleas and Melisande into an opera, but I gave up this plan, even though I did not know that Debussy was working on this opera at the same time. I still regret that I did not carry out my initial intention. It would have differed from Debussy’s. I might have missed the wonderful aura of the poem; but I might have made my characters more singing,“ said Schoenberg. ”On the other hand, the symphonic poem helped me in that it taught me to express my characters in precisely formulated units, a technique that an opera would perhaps not have promoted so well. Thus my fate, evidently, guided me with great foresight.”

The premiere of Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande occurred on Jan 25, 1905, in Vienna. It was also notably the composer’s conducting debut. 

“The first performance, 1905 in Vienna, under my own direction, provoked great riots among the audience and even the critics. Reviews were unusually violent and one of the critics suggested putting me in an asylum and keeping music paper out of my reach.”

Not all who heard or saw Pelleas were critical, including Italian composer, pianist and conductor Furrucio Busoni and the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

“Esteemed [Mr. Schoenberg]: I have received your Pelleas and Melisande and read it right through. You are a master of orchestration; from first impression this seems to me undeniable.” Ferruccio Busoni to Arnold Schönberg, Oct 14, 1903

“Dear Mr. Schoenberg, I’m only now able to write you a few words about the premiere of Pelleas and Melisande. I believe I can say, that the premiere was good; [...] The performance brought me great joy. I consider it by far the most significant recent orchestral work which I have encountered.” Wilhelm Furtwängler to Arnold Schoenberg, March 18, 1920

The sequence of events in Maurice Maeterlinck’s five-act drama Pelleas and Melisande creates associations between artificial encounters, which act as heavily symbolic depictions of mood and space. Schoenberg concentrates his interpretation — which takes the form of a one-movement symphonic poem with a latent multi-movement inner structure, whereby the concepts of sonata movement and sonata cycle are intertwined — on the characters Golond (Golo), Melisande and Pelleas, and their fateful relationship in an indefinite, placeless and timeless world.

The three main characters are presented by themes, in the manner of Wagnerian leitmotifs, except that they are not as short. Melisande, in her helplessness, is portrayed by a theme, which undergoes many changes in response to various moods.

Thematic ideas, characteristic to individual scenes or persons form the building-blocks of a symphonic development. The development begins in the forest scene introducing the first movement (Golo meets Melisande, they marry), continues on through the inner segments Scherzo (scene at the fountain, Melisande loses her wedding ring, encounter with Golo’s half-brother Pelleas) and Adagio (farewell and love scene of Pelleas and Melisande, Golo kills Pelleas), ultimately leads to the recapitulation of the thematic material in the Finale (death of Melisande).

Golo is pictured by a theme that first appears in the horns. Later, this theme is often transformed.

The youthful and knightly character of Pelleas’ motif contrasts with Golo’s.

Schoenberg summarized the fundamental anchoring points of his Opus 5 in a letter to his brother-in-law, Alexander Zemlinsky, who wanted to make cuts in Pelleas und Melisande for a Prague performance he was to conduct in 1918. He wrote, “the opening motif (12/8) is linked to Melisande,” this is followed by the “fate motif,” the Scherzo contains “the game with the ring”, the Adagio the “scene with Melisande’s Hair,” and the “love scene; […] the dying Melisande” and “entrance of the ladies in waiting, Melisande’s death” in the finale.

Much later, while in American exile, Schoenberg was inspired by Anthony Tudor’s ballet version of his Transfigured Night, which premiered in 1942 in New York under the title Pillar of Fire. Schoenberg decided to modify and arrange the Pelleas score as a ballet for commercial reasons. He did this by expanding (and simultaneously reducing) the one-movement symphonic poem into a multi-movement suite.

Special thanks to the Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna, for providing these materials.