Arnold Schoenberg as Poet and Librettist

Arnold Schoenberg could have chosen a career from any one of a number of fields, and his extraordinary achievements as a composer, painter, essayist, theorist, and teacher have long been recognized. His work as poet and librettist has attracted less attention, even though he wrote many of the texts for his major vocal compositions. His own expressions of self-deprecation in this area may have contributed to the apparent notion that these efforts should be taken less seriously than his others. In writing to Richard Dehmel in 1912 requesting a text for what would ultimately become Die Jakobsleiter [Jacob ‘s Ladder], he remarked, “originally I intended to write the words myself. But I no longer think myself equal to it.” ¹ This disclaimer should not be taken literally. When the appropriate text was not forthcoming he did not hesitate to provide his own, and in fact was more than equal to it. The exceedingly complex text of Die Jakobsleiter draws on a vast array of literary, religious, and biblical sources, and weaves an intricate pattern of images which define his aesthetic, philosophical, and, to some extent, his musical future. Such a text deserves a closer look, a probing beyond the sources, associations, and images that present themselves most readily. This essay focuses on the words rather than the music, but this will open some new possibilities for an interpretation of the music as well.