Schoenberg's Handel Concerto and the Ruins of Tradition

Composing on Stage: Schoenberg and the Creative Process as Public Performance

“…This is evident in the most extreme form through which he made sketches and the creative process public: his recompositions and arrangements of Bach, Handel, Monn, and Brahms, many dating from the 1920s and 30s. 100 It is not coincidental that his interest in such arrangements began shortly after World War I, as he took on an increasingly public role through performances, teaching, and publications. These pieces also coincided with his first serious engagement with the problem of reconciling his German and Jewish identities, as noted in connection with plate 2.…”

“…With the Concerto for String Quartet, the effect is literal; Schoenberg started composing directly on Handel's score, a process clearly audible in the finished piece. 102 But a certain "contrarian" quality also marks the work based on Georg Matthias Monn's little-known 1746 keyboard concerto, now a Cello Concerto in which the deviations from the original style are quite clear. 103 Even in the newly composed late tonal works, for example, the Suite for String Orchestra (1934) and the Variations for Wind Band, op.…”