Memory of Oskar Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka, the “Arnold Schönberg of painting,” (Frankfurter Zeitung, 19 February 1911), met the composer Arnold Schönberg in 1907 or 1908. Schönberg received an invitation to a Kokoschka matinee in 1909. A postcard from Kokoschka that same year implies plans to write a stage work. Possibly stimulated by Kokoschka and his theater text Mörder Hoffnung der Frauen, Schönberg felt the desire to write something for the theater in 1909 (the libretto for the drama with music Die glückliche Hand). In Kokoschka, Schönberg saw “one of those incisive individuals who can afford to express themselves, knowing that in doing so they make their contribution to that which expresses all, the universe and everything in it.” (Arnold Schönberg, To Oskar Kokoschka, 1930) Kokoschka painted a portrait of Schönberg on the occasion of the latter’s 50th birthday in 1924.