Tripartite Structures in Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw

Abstract

Arnold Schoenberg’s Holocaust cantata A Survivor From Warsaw, op. 46 features tripartite parallelisms between his self-penned text and his highly-charged music. Tripartite structures permeate all aspects of this Holocaust cantata. Schoenberg’s text includes three languages, utilizes three points of view, and key words or text descriptors are repeated three times. The three languages, three points of view, and tripartite text descriptors are consistent with tripartite elements in the music of A Survivor from Warsaw. The music that accompanies Schoenberg’s highly-charged text contains form-defining small- and large-scale cycles that consistently feature some form of a [0,4,8] trichord. The omnipresence of the [0,4,8] trichord and tripartite divisions throughout A Survivor form Warsaw symbolically represent God’s presence throughout the work.