Arnold Schönberg and summer retreat antisemitism in the Salzkammergut
Online memorial exhibition
Sedition
Object # 38
Sedition
The composer’s baptismal certificate, in
Neue Freie Presse 20424, 9 July 1921, p. 9
Austrian National Library, Vienna
We reported recently on a significant summer experience had by the renowned composer Arnold Schönberg, who was expelled from Salzburgian Mattsee since, according to a local resolution, Jews are not allowed to sojourn in that community and the musician was suspected of not being able to satisfactorily answer the crucial question “Tell us, now – what is it with you and religion?” Now we have received a letter from the circle of Mattsee summer vacationers; from its content, it follows that the majority of the guests at the summer retreat – including those who passed the local council’s test of ancestry – does not at all sympathize with the unedifying circumstances having developed there out of the terrorism of individual elements. A certain personality from Vienna, identified by name, is reproached in the letter for grandstanding as dictator of Mattsee, as it were, arrogating to himself control of renting the summer lodgings without consideration for the seasonal association and the majority of the local populace, excluding summer guests whose noses he does not like and their children from taking part in the regattas, and so on. The sender points out that Mattsee is the seat of a diocesan chapter which never said a word of confessional intolerance; he explains that this sedition was brought into the quiet village from outside and lastly mentions that there is even less reason for this as unwelcome elements, parasites of wartime and post-wartime, have never found their way to Mattsee.
Cf. Therese Muxeneder: Arnold Schönbergs Konfrontationen mit Antisemitismus (III), in: Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 16/2019. Edited by Eike Feß and Therese Muxeneder. Wien 2019, p. 165–254
Introduction
This year’s tourist season in Mattsee
Object #1
Heinrich Schönberg with his wife Berta and his daughter Margit
Object #2
Come visit me
Object #3
Villa Nora
Object #4
It’s lovely here
Object #5
Harmonielehre
Object #6
A popular vacation destination
Object #7
Arrogance and Oriental Allures
Object #8
Row-boating
Object #9
Summer retreat free of Jews
Object #10
He is in good humor
Object #11
Heil Salzburg! Salzburg wants the Anschluss!
Object #12
How are you and yours in Mattsee?
Object #13
You will be pleased with me
Object #14
Kaiser-Elisabeth-Bahn
Object #15
Convivial gatherings
Object #16
Antisemitic scandals
Object #17
For rent to Aryans
Object #18
Disharmony
Object #19
Away with the Jews!
Object #20
They are doing well there
Object #21
Arnold Schönberg: Felix Greissle
Object #22
Arnold Schönberg: Harmonielehre
Object #23
Arnold Schönberg: the theory of coherence
Object #24
It must be splendid there
Object #25
I am not staying a day longer
Object #26
Threat in his own house
Object #27
Anti-Jewish proclamations
Object #28
The composer’s baptismal certificate
Object #29
Arnold Schönberg: on Zemlinsky
Object #30
The Jewish colony in Mattsee
Object #31
That outrageous, incredible thing
Object #32
The community physician
Object #33
An Aryan summer vacationer
Object #34
A summer retreat free of Jews
Object #35
Einstein’s propaganda speech
Object #36
The revolting press notice
Object #37
Sedition
Object #38
Antisemitic racial attitude
Object #39
All is calm within me
Object #40
Imaginary and material damage
Object #41
Guests of Max Ott
Object #42a
Guests of Max Ott
Object #42b
Arrival in Traunkirchen
Object #43
Departure
Object #44
Very ugly at the end
Object #45
Domestic and foreign newspapers
Object #46
Villa Josef
Object #47
Arnold and Mathilde Schönberg
Object #48
Shaken awake
Object #49
Such circumstances
Object #50
Arnold Schönberg: Baroness Löwenthal
Object #51
Traunkirchen
Object #52
Arnold Schönberg: Prelude
Object #53
A ridiculous matter
Object #54
Hegemony in the sphere of music
Object #55