The Gurre-Lieder tell a story of love, betrayal, jealousy, revenge and, ultimately, punishment. Their author, Jens Peter Jacobsen, drew on a medieval legend recounting the tragic love of King Valdemar IV Atterdag of Denmark and Tove, a lady-in-waiting. Their romance blossomed at Gurre Castle in northern Zealand. When the King's wife, Helvig of Schleswig, discovered the affair, she flew into a rage and killed the girl in the castle baths. Devastated by the loss of his beloved, Valdemar cursed God for allowing Tove to die. For this act of blasphemy, a terrible curse befell the king: after his death, every night at midnight, his spirit rides out from Gurre Castle through the surrounding forests and along the shores of the lake in the company of a host of ghostly knights.
Arnold Schönberg began setting Jacobsen's poems to music in 1900. He intended to submit the work to a competition organised by the Vienna Composers’ Association (Wiener Tonkünstler-Verein), but missed the entry deadline. Later that same year, however, he began to expand the work, composing, among other sections, the ‘Song of the Wood-Dove’ (Lied der Waldtaube), which would become its best-known movement. In 1903, he abandoned the project, returning to it only after his personal acquaintance with Gustav Mahler had enriched his artistic experience. Inspired by Mahler's mastery of orchestration, Schönberg finally completed the cycle in 1911.
The Gurre-Lieder were premiered in 1913 at Vienna's Musikverein. The performance by the Vienna orchestra, conducted by Franz Schreker, was met with great enthusiasm by the audience. The composer himself, who was present in the hall, showed no sign of gratitude. As a gesture of contempt for the criticism that Viennese audiences had directed at his more experimental works, he bowed only to the musicians. Such gestures are rare today, however. Christoph König, a conductor renowned for his interpretations of the repertoire of the German-speaking world, will no doubt extend his thanks to the audience as well.
Jan Lech
