The original essays in this collection chronicle the transformation of Arnold Schoenberg's works from music as pure art to music as a vehicle of religious and political ideas, during the first half of the twentieth century. This interdisciplinary volume includes contributions from musicologists, music theorists, and scholars of German literature and of Jewish studies.

Contents:
Editors' Introduction. Abstract Polyphonies: The Music of Schoenberg's Nietzschean Moment, William Benjamin. Arnold Schoenberg as Poet and Librettist: Dualism, Epiphany, and Die Jakobsleiter, David Schroeder. Androgyny and the Eternal Feminine in Schoenberg's Oratorio Die Jakobsleiter Jennifer Shaw. Von heute auf morgen: Schoenberg as Social Critic,Stephen Davison. Schoenberg in Shirtsleeves: The Male Choruses, Op. 35, Robert Falck. The Prophet and the Pitchman: Dramatic Structure and Its Musical Elucidation in Moses und Aron, Act I, Scene 2, Edward Latham. Schoenberg's Moses und Aron: A Vanishing Biblical Nation, Bluma Goldstein. Schoenberg Rewrites His Will: A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46,David Isadore Lieberman. Texts and Contexts of A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46, Camille Crittenden. Returning to a Homeland: Religion and Political Context in Schoenberg's Dreimal tausend Jahre, Naomi Andr. Schoenberg's Modern Psalm, Op.50c, and the Unattainable Ending, Mark Risinger