Symbolism In Theodor Adorno's 'Im Windesweben'

Theodor Adorno called one of George’s poems, that you can hear in a setting by Webern in tomorrow’s concert, the “größte und rätselhafteste Gedicht” (the greatest and most enigmatic poem). Characteristic for George was both the self-staging and mystification of his texts and his persona. Themes he often used were art, nature and friendship. However, the images in his poems were never meant to be naturalistic, but to evoke emotions.

In some poems, George employed a technique of verbal instrumentation. (The term was first used by French symbolist René Ghil.) The goal was a euphonious sound through the musical order of vowels, diphthongs and consonants. An example is the poem “Im Windesweben” that was set by Anton von Webern that I will talk

George plays with symmetries, mirroring, repetition and transfer of vowels. (show Meine weissen ara haben safrangelbe kronen / Hinterm gitter wo sie wohnen / Nicken sie in schlanken ringen / Breiten niemals ihre schwingen) The artistic language might mirror the beauty or exoticism of the birds who despite their passivity and confinement seem elegant in their slender rings. Although the distinction between call and song in the following verse is ornithologically correct, it also depicts the rings graphically: “Ohne ruf ohne sang”. In addition, two stressed syllables enclose one unstressed syllable twice, like two rings might frame two birds. The two following verses highlight the birds’ passivity. They seem resigned to their fate. They doze long which is conveyed both through the verse’s sound and graphically. “Schlummern” is due to its consonant combination one of the articulatory longest disyllabic words in German. It is also one among those that need most space in writing. Despite containing only three syllables, the verse is almost equally long in writing as the previous verse of six

He gave a radio lecture about his Orchestral Songs op. 22 in 1932, where he said “if a performer speaks of a passionate sea in a different tone of voice than he might use for a calm sea, my music does nothing else than to provide him with an opportunity to do so, and to support him.” He also took back statements from Pierrot in his 1949 article “This is my Fault” where he wrote that music heightens the expression of the text and express things provoked by the text. He had not intended a stiff, detached performance.

Unlike Schönberg, his student Anton von Webern did not make many comments about the relationship between text and music in his works. His George-settings appear rather different to Schönberg’s in their relationship to the text. He was guided much more by declamatory and rhythmical aspects of the poetry than Schönberg.

The first example, we want to perform for you, is his first song from op. 3 “Dies ist ein Lied” (This is a Song), where the speaker expresses his wish to move another person through a simple