Society for Private Musical Performances

The Society for Private Musical Performances (in German, the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen) was an organization founded in Vienna in the Autumn of 1918 by Arnold Schoenberg with the intention of making carefully rehearsed and comprehensible performances of newly composed music available to genuinely interested members of the musical public. In the three years between February 1919 and 5 December 1921 (when the Verein had to cease its activities due to Austrian hyperinflation), the organisation gave 353 performances of 154 works in 117 concerts that involvd a total of 79 individuals and pre-exsting ensembles.

Circumstances permitting, concerts were given at the rate of one per week, with each programme consisting entirely of works from the period 'Mahler to the present' (Alban Berg, letter to his wife Helene of 1 July 1918). The range of music included was very wide, the 'allowable' composers not being confined to the 'Schoenberg circle' but drawn from all those who had (as Schoenberg himself put it) 'a real face or name'. During the Society's first two years, in fact, Schoenberg did not allow any of his own music to be performed; instead, the programmes included works by Bartók, Berg, Busoni, Debussy, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Mahler, Ravel, Reger, Satie, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Webern, and many others.

The players at these events were chosen from among the most gifted young musicians available, and each work was rehearsed intensively, either under Schoenberg himself or by a Vortragsmeister ('Performance Director') specifically appointed by him. (The list of Vortragsmeister included Berg, Webern, Benno Sachs, Rudolf Kolisch, Erwin Stein and Eduard Steuermann). Clarity and comprehensibility of the musical presentation was the over-riding aim, with audiences sometimes being permitted to hear 'open rehearsals', and complex works sometimes being played more than once in the same concert (and as many as five or six times in total).

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