On Sunday March 14, the Emmanuel Choir offers Schoenberg’s De Profundis for six voice a cappella choir, the composer’s last completed composition.  This represents the choir’s principal contribution to the Schoenberg part of our yearlong Haydn/Schoenberg series. 

As he approached his seventy-fifth birthday in 1949, Arnold Schoenberg declared his intention to complete his career composing only sacred music.  Shortly before coming to the United States in 1934, he had converted back to Judaism, confirming with this act what had been clear within two of his largest works, Moses and Aron and Jacob’s Ladder, his devotion to Hebrew Scripture.  From that time much of his private correspondence deals with his support for Zionism and his hope to emigrate to Israel.

Soon after completing De Profundis, his highly dramatic conception of Psalm 130, set in Hebrew, Schoenberg began to work on a Psalm text of his own, one of ten he planned to undertake.  This piece was never completed, but the sketches glow with his typical conviction and intensity.

Immediately after the March 14 presentation of De Profundis, a discussion of Schoenberg’s piece will be led in the Parish Hall by John Harbison, Emmanuel Music’s Acting Artistic Director; Pamela Werntz, Rector of Emmanuel Church; and Howard Berman, Rabbi in Residence at Emmanuel Church and leader of Boston Jewish Spirit.   The public is cordially invited to attend. 

‍