Der Blaue Reiter

Der Blaue Reiter

Previous History

Previous History In his article Die "Wilden" Deutschlands (Germany’s "Wild Ones") which appeared in the almanac “Der Blaue Reiter” in 1912, Franz Marc describes three groups of artists: the “Brücke” in Dresden, the “Sezession” in Berlin and the “Neue Künstlervereinigung München:" "In Munich the first and only serious representatives of the new ideas were two Russians who had lived there for many years and had worked quietly until some Germans joined them. Along with the founding of the association [Neue Künstlervereinigung] began those beautiful, strange exhibitions that drove critics to despair."
The “Neue Künstlervereinigung München” was founded in 1909 in Schwabing by Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander von Jawlensky, soon afterwards they had numerous international members, including artists from other disciplines. With their “beautiful, strange exhibitions” the association did much to pave the way for “Der Blauer Reiter”. However, the exhibitions were not without their problems, at least since the spring of 1911 there were tensions between two groups, on the one hand with Adolf Erbslöh, on the other hand with Kandinsky and Franz Marc. On 2 December 1911 the “Neue Künstlervereinigung” broke up: the specific cause was the jury’s refusal to exhibit Kandinsky’s Composition V. Upon this, Kandinsky resigned. His long-time companion Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc, Alfred Kubin, Thomas von Hartmann and Henri Le Fauconnier retired too in solidarity.

Idea for the Almanac

Idea for the Almanac "Kandinsky and I [...] have left the association [...] Now it is the two of us who must continue to fight! The Editors of the 'Der Blaue Reiter' will now be the starting point for new exhibitions. [...] We will try to become the center of the modern movement." (Franz Marc to his brother, 3 Decemberg 1911) The first exhibition of the editors of “Der Blaue Reiter” was opened on 18 December 1911 in the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich. The exhibition was later shown in several German cities. The second exhibition of “Der Blaue Reiter” (Drawings and Watercolors) opened in March 1912 at the Galerie Goltz. The almanac “Der Blaue Reiter” appeared in May 1912. The idea to publish a yearbook first came up in June 1911. Already in the first letter in which Kandinsky informed Marc about it, its fundamental characteristics were revealed: "Well, I have a new idea. Piper must be the publisher and the two of us the editors. A kind of almanac (yearbook) with reproductions and articles ... and a chronicle!! that is, reports on exhibitions reviewed by artists, and artists alone. [...] We will put an Egyptian work beside a small Zeh [name of two children], a Chinese work beside a Rousseau, a folk print beside a Picasso, and the like! Eventually we will attract poets and musicians. [...] Don't talk about it. Or only if it could be directly useful to us. In cases like this 'discretion' is most important." (letter to Marc, 19 June 1911)
The first title considered for the almanac was “Die Kette” ("The Chain"), in the summer of 1911 “Der Blaue Reiter” was decided on. Looking back, Kandinsky wrote in 1930: "We invented the name 'Der Blaue Reiter' while sitting at a coffee table in the garden in Sindelsdorf; we both loved blue, Marc liked horses, I riders. So the name came by itself." Much has been written in the secondary literature about the symbolic content of the title; especially in Kandinsky’s period of radical change around 1910 riders and knights are often to be seen, in code up to 1914. “Der Blaue Reiter” synthesizes St. George and St. Martin into a vanquisher of the material and the unspiritual; correspondingly, many pictures of riders from many different times are to be seen in the almanac.

Schönberg and the Almanac

Further planning went on through the summer of 1911 and many contacts were made. On 1 September Kandinsky wrote to Marc: "I received a copy of the manifesto of the Italian Futurists, which gives us some material on the Italian musical movement. Schönberg must write on German music. [...] There should also be a few scores. Schönberg, e.g., has Lieder."
Editorial meetings took place at Kandinsky’s in Murnau and at Marc’s in Sindelsdorf, later also in Munich. Kandinsky was working at this time not only on the concept, but also on his stage composition Der gelbe Klang and its theoretical fundament, the essay Über Bühnenkomposition (On Stage Composition).
During this planning phase, Arnold Schönberg was also nearby, at Berg on Lake Starnberg, and met both editors, Kandinsky and Marc. He must already have been informed about the editors of “Der Blaue Reiter”. In his letters, Kandinsky reports again and again on the work, in particular he wanted to introduce Schönberg to Marc, or even to take him to an already arranged editorial meeting: "next morning (naturally!! if you are so inclined) we go on foot to Sindelsdorf in the vicinity of Lake Kochel, where my good friend Franz Marc (painter) and his wife live, who are very interested in you." (25 August 1911) Franz Marc had already informed the publisher Piper: “We have gained Arnold Schönberg as a colleague (he is coming to Murnau on Wednesday and has promised us his contributions)...” (letter to Piper, 10 September 1911)
On 14 September they met Marc in Murnau. At the end of September a letter arrived from Murnau, signed by Maria Marc, Elisabeth and August Macke, Gabriele Muenter and Kandinsky: “Dear Mr. Schönberg, on the third day of work on Der blaue Reiter, we think again how fine it would be if we could all be together once more - if only for a short time.” Schönberg was repeatedly invited to actively join in the work: “Work on Der blaue Reiter is forging ahead. A mass of work. The printing should be started, so help us! Forge with us, so that the goal is reached.” (letter from Gabriele Münter, 27 September 1911)

However, Schönberg had other problems: for him, the stay in Berg was a sort of “exile” - in a letter to Ferruccio Busoni (29 August 1911) he mentions the particular circumstances: "A monster living in the same house with me in Vienna, who is obviously insane [...], imagines that he must kill me. The reason for his fury is founded upon lies, but even these are of too little consequence to justify this rage that threatens my life. Because of the danger either of being killed or of being imprisoned for exceeding the bounds of self-defense [...] I was forced on 4 August temporarily to flee with my family. Which is why I am here. Now I had hoped to bring an end to the matter through my lawyer, but after much writing back and forth, I see little chance of getting this raving madman, who meanwhile is still raving !!!, off my back. And thus I cannot return to Vienna !!"
In the autumn of 1911 Schönberg thus had principally to organise his move to Berlin, and the start of a new existence. For this reason, he did not seem to be very interested in active cooperation in the almanac. A letter of November 1911 to Kandinsky sounds rather neutral: "I am already very curious about 'Der blaue Reiter.' When will it finally appear then? Or have you not yet reached that point? I have still not found the time to write you an essay for the second number, but perhaps I will get to it soon." (11 November 1911)
In the summer of 1911 the table of contents of the almanac was rearranged several times. In the "provisional table of contents" [page 1 2] of September 1911 (Marc to the publisher Piper), Schönberg was represented with an essay "Neue Musik" ("New Music") and a text “Über 'Glückliche Hand'” ("On the 'Lucky Hand'") in the theatre section. Kandinsky’s “Über Bühnenkomposition” is mentioned, which was then printed as an introduction to “Der Gelbe Klang”.
In a publisher's notice [page 1 2] issued somewhat later (in Kandinsky’s Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), October 1911), Schönberg is represented with a text "Der Stilfrage" ("The Question of Style"). For a time, it was in doubt whether there would be a contribution from Schönberg, Kandinsky had to remind him repeatedly: "Now, the Blaue Reiter! It will not appear before the middle of January, perhaps even at the end. And therefore you have more than a month for your article. First number without Schönberg! No, I won’t have it." (16 November 1911)
Finally, shortly before the publication went to press, Schönberg sent his essay Das Verhältnis zum Text (The Relationship to the Text) and the composition Herzgewächse op. 20.

The Almanac

The almanac appeared in May 1912, published by Piper in Munich. The text included 19 articles, 141 reproductions and three music supplements. Kandinsky was represented with the essays Über die Formfrage and Über Bühnenkomposition and the stage production Der gelbe Klang. Schönberg delivered, after many deliberations - for example he considered reworking one of his lectures at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin - the article Das Verhältnis zum Text.
Illustrations were old German woodcuts, Bavarian glass pictures, African and Asiatic art, and pictures by Cezanne, van Gogh, Rousseau, Picasso, Delaunay, Macke, Kubin, Klee, Muenter, Kirchner, Heckel, Pechstein, Nolde, Kokoschka, Arp, Matisse, Le Fauconnier, Marc and Schönberg. Of the four pictures by Schönberg hung in the "Der Blaue Reiter" exhibition, a Selbstportrait (Self-Portrait) and the Gehende Selbstportrait (Self-Portrait, walking) were reproduced, both close to texts from Kandinsky. In addition, Schönberg’s composition Herzgewächse op. 20 (for soprano, harmonium, celeste and harp, after a text by Maurice Maeterlinck) was included, also his one-time students Anton Webern and Alban Berg were represented with two Lieder (Ihr tratet zu dem herde after a text by Stefan George, and Warm die Lüfte after a text by Alfred Mombert).

Further Projects

As can be seen from the Kandinsky–Schönberg correspondence, further numbers of the “Blauer Reiter” were planned from the very beginning, but were never issued. Besides other plans, together with Hugo Ball (dramaturgist at the Munich Kammerspiele) a project for expressionist theatre was put in hand in 1914. A book was to be produced in collaboration with Kandinsky, Marc, Hartmann and Fokin with the title: Das neue Theater. “It was intended to put together a repertoire which should point to the future and be in the present, to find pieces which were not only ‘drama’, but would represent the very beginning of all dramatic life, and would burst forth from the roots with dance, color, mimic, music and words. The emphasis is on 'bursting forth,' which points to the origin of the idea - expressionism.” (Hugo Ball, Das Münchner Kuenstlertheater)
Schönberg’s collaboration was also considered. Marc asks, in a letter to Kandinsky: “Please write as soon as possible and let me know Schönberg’s present address. The theatre thing interests me very much. [...] I hope to get music for it from Schönberg, or probably of course from Webern or Alban Berg.” (letter of 9 April 1914)
In a long letter Marc informed Schönberg about the aims of the project, whereby he also proposed a performance of the Die glückliche Hand (The Lucky Hand): “We hope to present principally the few new pieces (der gelbe Klang, Kokoschka, ‘die glückliche Hand’, Claudel, something Russian, and so on); such performances should already be prepared in the brochure. The drama of today has not yet been written. [...] You have got the right idea, as far as I understand it, with your remark (glückliche Hand) that the scenery should not be an imitation of nature, but a free combination of colors corresponding to the mood, of colors and forms! In the spirit of our pictures and of us as a whole, of abstract thinking. [...] Can you not imagine an enjoyable collaboration?"
Marc himself wanted to produce Shakespeare’s drama “The Tempest,” and invited Schönberg to collaborate. Details were to be discussed during Schönberg’s Bavarian holiday in the summer of 1914. The project came to nothing because of the outbreak of the First World War. It would probably have led to a direct artistic stage co-operation between the two “Der Blaue Reiter” editors Kandinsky and Marc and Schönberg.

Texts from the Almanac: