Herzgewächse, for soprano, celesta, harp, and harmonium, op. 20

Herzgewächse (Heart's Foliage, or Foliage of the Heart), Op. 20, is a brief Lied (German art song) that Austrian (and later American) composer Arnold Schoenberg finished in late 1911 in Berlin, during his atonal period. Using the translation by Karl Anton Klammer and Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski, which he modified, Schoenberg set Maurice Maeterlinck's poem "Feuillage du cœur" to music for high soprano, celesta, harmonium, and harp. The art song exemplifies Schoenberg's structurally innovative, modernist harmonic language and expressive word painting. The music evokes the poem's imagery of light and color playing on botanical forms inside a greenhouse, rendered as symbols of inner feelings. It employs rhythmic patterns, varied textures, ethereal timbres, and delicate, interlocking motives built from trichords and interval cycles. The virtuosic soprano melody, ranging G♯3–F6, is a musical metaphor for the Symbolist poem's narrative as centered on a moonlit lily, from its isolation among dark, entangled foliage and merely ornamental blooms to its spiritual ascent within the blue-glass enclosure. Scholars have suggested links to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and its study, the third Wesendonck Lied. Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc included a facsimile of the music manuscript in Der Blaue Reiter Almanach (1912). In his essay "The Relationship to the Text", which was also included, Schoenberg described his approach to the musical setting as a flow of ideas. At its planned 1912 Berlin premiere, Martha Winternitz-Dorda decided late not to sing Herzgewächse, likely due to its difficulty. She was also asked to sing it in Vienna; this, too, did not happen. Universal Edition obtained a music engraving of Herzgewächse in 1914. Eventually, after World War I and amid economic instability, they published it in 1920. Jean Wiéner organized its 1922 world premiere in Paris, and Eva Leoni sang its 1923 United States premiere to great acclaim with the International Composers Guild in New York City. Neue Musik (lit. 'New Music') enthusiasts in Freiburg im Bresgau gave Herzgewächse its apparent 1925 German premiere. Marianne Rau-Hoeglauer sang its 1928 Austrian premiere, conducted by Anton Webern. In 1945 post-World War II Paris, Combat promoted Lucienne Tragin singing Herzgewächse with René Leibowitz conducting and Pierre Boulez, who the song likely influenced, on harmonium. In early 1950s Los Angeles, Marni Nixon sang it twice, giving encores both times, and local radio aired one performance live. She and Robert Craft first recorded Herzgewächse in 1954, and many other musicians' recordings followed.