Arnold Schönberg: Fifteen poems from “The Book of the Hanging Gardens” by Stefan George, op. 15
Program from the premiere
Vienna, January 14, 1910
Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien
“With the George songs I have for the first time succeeded in approaching the ideal of expression and form that has been in my mind for years. [...] Now that I have set out along this path once and for all, I am conscious of having broken through every restriction of a bygone aesthetic. […] I am being urged in this direction not from the lack of invention, or technical ability, or the knowledge of the other demands of the prevailing aesthetics, but that I am obeying an inner compulsion, which is stronger than my education; that I am obeying that formative process, which, being natural to me, is stronger than my artistic training.”