Gertrud and Arnold Schönberg
Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, op. 34
Programmatic sketch. 1929

To mark a company anniversary, the publisher Heinrichshofen, based in Magdeburg, commissioned composers to write pieces for use in cinemas. Because films had long been produced without soundtracks, so-called “cue sheets“ were issued at the time, and these contained collections of recommended musical ideas that could be freely combined with any kind of film. These custom-made musical arrangements of emotional states seem to have inspired Schönberg: A handwritten memo outlined atmospheric settings under the general terms “danger – fear.“ A note in the lower-right corner of the page, “Lessingtheater | Cyankali,“ refers to the contentiously debated play Cyankali [Cyanide] by Friedrich Wolf, which broached the issue of the so-called Abortion Law Paragraph §218. The cited dramatic points echo as subtitles, “imminent danger – fear – catastrophe,“ in the orchestra piece composed for the publisher Heinrichshofen. Schönberg’s Opus 34 took up the ideas of programmatic tone poems such as Transfigured Night, op. 4, or Pelleas and Melisande, op. 5, and it combined the practice of leitmotivic references with the unifying possibilities of the twelve-tone method.