The (Drohende Gefahr, Angst, Katastrophe), Op. 34 (literally "Accompaniment Music for a Light Play Scene (Threatening Danger, Fear, Catastrophe)")—also known in English as Accompaniment to a Film Scene, Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, Accompaniment to a Cinematic Scene, and Music to Accompany a Cinema Scene—is an orchestral work by Arnold Schoenberg composed in late 1929 and early 1930.
Schoenberg had developed an interest in film as a medium for his own creative work in the years before composing the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, but his personal artistic beliefs also made him wary of it.
He composed the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene for Heinrichshofen Verlag in Magdeburg, which wanted to include it in a commemorative collection of scores they commissioned from German film composers. Schoenberg had no particular film or film scene in mind while composing the work, but he did later consider performing it along with an abstract film. His music was adapted for a short film by Straub–Huillet in 1972.
The reception of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene was generally positive; it was encored at its British premiere. The United States premiere in Los Angeles was contentious and the Los Angeles Times refused to review it. Robert Craft and Allen Shawn considered it one of Schoenberg's most attractive works, while Igor Stravinsky called it "best piece of real film music ever written".
History Background Schoenberg had contradictory feelings about film and film music; he aspired to work on film projects, but abhorred the film industry. The artistic possibilities of film interested him, but its essentially collaborative creative process ultimately dissuaded him from exploring it as a vehicle for his own work.
While composing Die glückliche Hand in 1910–1913, Schoenberg had the idea of directing a film that would have depicted the work's drama. He would have had total control over the scripts, acting, music, and any needed edits. He contemplated commissioning Oskar Kokoschka or Wassily Kandinsky to design the sets, as well as using colorization in order to depict the work's symbolistic use of color and light. He explained to Emil Hertzka:
[T]he basic unreality of the events, which is inherent in the words, is something that they should be able to bring out even better in the filming (nasty idea that it is!). For me this is one of the main reasons for considering it. For instance, in the film, if the goblet suddenly vanishes as if it had never been there, just as if it had simply been forgotten, that is quite different from the way it is on the stage, where it has to be removed by some device. And there are a thousand things besides that [can] be easily done in this medium, whereas the stage's resources are very limited. My foremost wish is therefore for something the opposite of what the cinema generally aspires to. I want: the utmost unreality!
In 1927, Schoenberg wrote an essay for the Neues Wiener Tagblatt wherein he worried that the rise of film would result in the decline of opera:
The opera [...] has less to offer the eye than the film does—and color film will soon be here too. Add music, and the general public will hardly need to hear an opera sung and acted any more, unless a new path is found.
While participating in sound film experiments in September of that same year at the studios of Universum-Film AG in Berlin, Schoenberg was recorded on film stating:
One should not consider the talking film to be simply a coupling of picture, language, and music. On the contrary, it is a completely new and independent instrument for innovative artistic expression. In this sense it has a great future. It is surely here through the force of the Idea that the word and art music will soon gain decisive influence. Therefore, the application of overall standards will become the rule, standards that up to now could only be reached by exceptionally gifted personalities like Chaplin. Namely: standards of artistic value! [...] [N]ow true [German] artists will be able to grant to [film] true and deep ideas and emotions: then marketability of broad mass appeal will certainly no longer alone determine production; then German film will achieve the position that corresponds to its poets and musicians!
In a later essay written in 1940, he rebuked this speech, explaining that he had expected a "renaissance of the arts" with the advent of sound film. "How wrong I had been!", he added.
When Schoenberg emigrated to Los Angeles in October 1933, one of his primary reasons for choosing the city was to be near the film industry, where he hoped to influence film music through his work as a teacher. During a conversation with Dika Newlin on April 8, 1940, he told her that he believed film music could never be good.
Composition
At the time of the creation of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Schoenberg had succeeded Ferruccio Busoni as professor of composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts, earned a comfortable living, and his music was regularly performed in major cities across Europe, which brought him international renown. Additionally, he had achieved a level of mastery with twelve-tone technique that allowed him to begin applying it to large-scale forms, evidence of which is discernible in the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene.
He also began to seriously pursue working in film and sought guidance from the . Upon hearing this, his friend Franz Schreker, a proponent for improving the standards of film music, invited him to work with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ton und Bild and, later in 1932, Comedia Tonfilm. Schoenberg consulted with Klaus Pringsheim about the former organization, but was especially enthusiastic at the idea of working with the latter.
The idea for the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene originated from F. Charles Adler, at the time music director of the Düsseldorf Municipal Opera and an agent for Heinrichshofen Verlag in Magdeburg, which published a number of film scores and owned a library of photoplay music. Adler liaisoned between Schoenberg and Heinrichshofen Verlag during negotiations; he also coordinated the work's eventual publication, one of several commissioned by the publisher from German film composers for a commemorative collection. The structure of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, as well as its evocative sub-titles, recalled photoplay music. A collection of photoplay music published by Universal Edition in 1927 includes a cue composed by Gustav Lindner called "Drohende Gefahr" (Threatening Danger), which Schoenberg also used in his work's subtitle.
Schoenberg began to work on the music after September 20, 1929, when he returned from his vacation in the Netherlands; he resumed work at the Prussian Academy of Arts in early October. The negative of the manuscript score indicates a starting date of October 15, but preparations for the premiere and publication of the opera Von heute auf morgen, as well as guest conducting engagements in London, detained his progress. The score was completed on February 14, 1930.
Schoenberg neither had any film or film scene in mind while composing Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, nor did he initially contemplate a later use for the score as incidental music. He also did not demarcate which sections in the score corresponded to the moods of "Threatening Danger", "Fear", and "Catastrophe" referred to in the work's subtitle. Because of this, attempts at realizing Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene in the style of the photoplay music they allude to would be unfeasible. It is not clear whether the subtitle was added during or after the work's composition.
Originally, he envisioned a more elaborate program for the work, as well as a choice between two possible endings:
I. Quiet—short (the calm before the storm) II. The threatening Danger appears III. The Threatened become anxious IV. The Danger draws closer V. The Threatened become aware of the Danger VI. The Danger grows VII. The fear grows ever greater VIIIa. Catastrophe IXa. Collapse VIIIb. The Danger passes IXb. Alleviation of the tension of the Threatened (salvation, deliverance)
During the preparations for the first concert performance, Otto Klemperer wrote to Schoenberg that the work could benefit from being played with an abstract film, suggesting László Moholy-Nagy as a collaborator. Schoenberg replied:
I find your suggestion about the abstract film, after thinking it over and over, very tempting indeed, since it solves the problem of this "music to no film". Only one thing, the horror of the Berlin staging of my two stage works, the abomination which was here committed because of lack of faith, missing talent, ignorance, and thoughtlessness, and which has damaged my works very deeply in spite of the musical accomplishments, this horror is still making me shake all over too much, so that I must be very cautious. How shall I protect myself against such matters? I do not know Mr. Moholy. But if I have especially bad luck, then he combines the rascally, ignorant skepticism of a Mr. Rabenalt with the unimaginative decency of Mr. Schlemmer. There seems to be only one way: that Mr. Moholy works on the film together with me (in that case there is at least one participant who can think of something). But perhaps that can be done?
Schoenberg declined to explore Klemperer's idea further.
Music Similarly to Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene does not open with a statement of its twelve-note row, but with a brief introduction, after which it unfolds in free variation form. Although its textures are simpler than that of the Variations for Orchestra, Schoenberg uses a wide array of orchestral techniques. The interval of the minor third, which carries connotations of "tragedy", is frequently used; overall the key of E-flat minor is implied. The work ends with a recollection of its opening.
Carl Dahlhaus called the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene a return to the symphonic poem, a form that Schoenberg had used often in his early works, and classified it as "program music in dodecaphonic technique".
A typical performance takes approximately nine minutes.
Instrumentation The instrumentation for Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene is as follows:
Woodwinds 1 flute (doubling piccolo) 1 oboe 2 clarinets 1 bassoon Brass 2 French horns 2 trumpets 1 trombone
Percussion timpani
bass drum snare drum tam-tam triangle tambourine glockenspiel xylophone piano
Strings 1st violins 2nd violins violas cellos double basses
According to Malcolm MacDonald, the proportion of the orchestra, added piano and percussion notwithstanding, is "almost Classical-sized".
Manuscript During World War II, the original manuscript score, along with the rest of Heinrichshofen Verlag's archives, was stored in a salt mine in Staßfurt. It is lost and presumed destroyed.
Premieres The world premiere of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene occurred on April 28, 1930, at the Broadcasting House of the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunkdienst AG in Frankfurt, Germany. It was performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conducted by Hans Rosbaud. This performance, according to Sabine Feisst, was "apparently not considered a real premiere". It was subsequently forgotten about in Schoenberg studies and only rediscovered in 1988.