The "Gedanke" as a Metaphoric Dimension in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg
Gordon Root, State University of New York, Fredonia
Using Schoenberg's writings on the Gedanke as a foundation, this study offers an analytical model that illuminates the interaction of text and music in Schoenberg's works. Since the composer often portrayed this interaction in metaphoric rather than mimetic terms, the formation of this model begins with a brief examination of contemporary metaphor theory. Following Sternberg and Tourangeau's conception of metaphor (1979), the Gedanke is interpreted as a shared dimension which houses a set of common attributes between text and music. Applied to Schoenberg's opera Moses and Aaron, the composer's own description of the Gedanke, as "the inconceivability of God" becomes the focal point. In the Old Testament, this concept of inconceivability is most often expressed in circular terms that portray God's existence as devoid of beginning and end. True to Schoenberg's penchant for outlining the problems of a work in an opening Grundgestalt, the theme in the initial bars of the opera is realized as a quasi-circular design in the initial bars of the opera; quite simply, the first and last trichords of the row are paired together.
In Act II, a variation on this Gestalt pairs the first and last tetrachords as follows: (BCABb, EDEbDb, GFF#G#). In turn, this nearly literal chromatic scale is explored as a metaphor for God's elemental power, while the chromatic scale itself is interpreted as the fundamental expression of circularity in mod 12 pitch-class space. Far from being an isolated expressive device, however, circularity as a metaphor for God seems to have formed a consistent thread throughout Schoenberg's sacred works. In fact, the chromatic scale is put to similar use during the Enlightenment Scene of Die Jakobsleiter (1917), long considered a prototype of twelve-tone composition. In conclusion, it is argued that this conception of the chromatic scale as the omnipresent foundation of the twelve-tone method, and, more importantly, as a metaphor for God as the source of all things, can be interpreted as a meta-Gedanke that unites all of Schoenberg's twelve-tone works. The usefulness of this conceptual overlap will be explored in a number of concluding paragraphs.