Methods of Analyis of Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand
Sunday, July 20th, 2008I wrote this paper in June 1993 for one of my graduate music theory classes at UC Riverside, which I believe was taught by the John Crawford mentioned in this paper.
Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand is a work which combines music with other elements, such as drama, visual effects, libretto, and art. It is perhaps different than other musical works falling into the category of opera in that these non-musical elements are so closely connected to the music that they are strictly notated in the music score. These non-musical factors could be problematic to an analyst seeking to discover structural elements of the work in a solely musical environment. This paper will examine the various approaches toward this work, determine to what extent non-musical factors play a role in the decision of musical structure, and discuss the effectiveness of such analyses. Based on the writings below, the areas of examination will be the influence of color (in this work, colored lighting) on the music, the approach to formal examinations of the work (including the influence of the text on the music), and the aspect of motivic processes (primarily the “leitmotif”). The non-analytic aspects of the following articles will not be discussed in this paper.