Die glückliche Hand (Op.18), (The Fortunate Hand), is a Drama mit Musik ("drama with music") by Arnold Schoenberg. It was composed between 1910 and 1913 and is seen as a companion piece to Erwartung, which was written in 1909. Unlike Erwartung, Schoenberg wrote the libretto for Die glückliche Hand himself. The first performance took place in Vienna on 24 October 1924. The underlying message of the piece is the idea that man continues to repeatedl...
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Die glückliche Hand (Op.18), (The Fortunate Hand), is a Drama mit Musik ("drama with music") by Arnold Schoenberg. It was composed between 1910 and 1913 and is seen as a companion piece to Erwartung, which was written in 1909. Unlike Erwartung, Schoenberg wrote the libretto for Die glückliche Hand himself. The first performance took place in Vienna on 24 October 1924. The underlying message of the piece is the idea that man continues to repeatedly make the same mistakes and the plot is developed from events in Schoenberg’s personal life.
The drama has only one act in which there are four scenes and lasts around twenty minutes. The staging of Die glückliche Hand is complex due to the range of scenic effects that must be combined with the use of coloured lighting. The drama represents an inescapable cycle of mans plight as it starts and finishes with the male character struggling with the monster on his back. The male character sings about his love for a young woman (mime) but despite...
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