{"id":6225,"date":"2014-07-09T14:25:24","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T13:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2014-08-17T23:50:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T22:50:22","slug":"explore-the-score-arnold-schonberg-verklarte-nacht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2014\/07\/09\/explore-the-score-arnold-schonberg-verklarte-nacht\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore the Score- Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg, Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"woocommerce \"><ul class=\"products columns-4\">\n<li class=\"product type-product post-6319 status-publish first instock product_cat-cds product_tag-brahms-2 product_tag-orchestra-of-the-swan-2 product_tag-schoenberg product_tag-verklarte-nacht has-post-thumbnail shipping-taxable purchasable product-type-simple\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/product\/6319\/\" class=\"woocommerce-LoopProduct-link woocommerce-loop-product__link\"><span class=\"et_shop_image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Schoenberg- Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht, Brahms Serenade no. 1- Original Chamber Versions\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1.jpg 902w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1-570x570.jpg 570w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1-380x380.jpg 380w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Somm-0139-Cover-1-285x285.jpg 285w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><span class=\"et_overlay\"><\/span><\/span><h2 class=\"woocommerce-loop-product__title\">Schoenberg- Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht, Brahms Serenade no. 1- Original Chamber Versions<\/h2>\n\t<span class=\"price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\"><bdi><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&pound;<\/span>12.00<\/bdi><\/span><\/span>\n<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2014\/08\/17\/explore-the-score-brahms-serenade-no-1-in-d-major-reconstruction-of-original-version-for-nonet\/\">Click here to Explore the Score <\/a>of the companion work on this CD- Brahms&#8217;s Serenade No. 1 in D major, Original Version for Nonet)<\/p>\n<p>The Brahms-Wagner rivalry was largely an affair of the press, whipped up by critics like the Brahmsian Eduard Hanslick and his pro-Wagnerian rivals. Brahms actually professed great admiration for Wagner\u2019s music on many occasions. Nonetheless, there was a time when the two men were perceived as embodying irreconcilable aesthetic approaches. In the end, it was Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg who succeeded in Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht and the works which followed it, in marrying the joint influences of Wagner and Brahms as no one had before.<\/p>\n<p>Brahms\u2019s music- its density, richness and rigour- had a profound influence on Arnold\u00a0Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s\u00a0development, and his engagement with Brahms\u2019s music continued throughout his career. Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s writings about the music of Brahms, particularly his essay \u201cBrahms the Progressive,\u201d are among the most illuminating analyses of the older composer\u2019s work, and his arrangement of Brahms\u2019s Piano Quartet in G minor for full orchestra has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire. From Brahms, Sch\u00f6nberg learned the creative possibilities of the perpetual manipulation and development of tiny motivic cells, an approach that would eventually form the underpinning of the 12-tone technique. This kind of rigorously detailed approach to composition is already fully developed in\u00a0<em>Verkl\u00e4rte\u00a0Nacht<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Brahms\u2019s favourite technique of \u201cdeveloping variation\u201d (a term coined by Sch\u00f6nberg which refers to the constant development of small musical ideas throughout a piece) is also essential in Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s music. Brahms\u2019s approach to most\u00a0classical forms differs from that of his forerunners in that Brahms\u2019s music is almost never simply expository nor recapitulatory:\u00a0\u00a0the musical material starts to develop and evolve almost as soon as the piece starts, and the process of constant change carries right through to the end.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg- Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht. Ensemble Epomeo and Friends\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-nqwguYbefs?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Originally written as a string sextet (for two violins, two violas and two cellos) over just three weeks in 1899, and arranged by the composer in 1917 for large string orchestra,\u00a0<em>Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht<\/em>\u00a0(Transfigured Night) takes its title from a poem by Richard Dehmel, published in the collection\u00a0<em>Weib und Welt (Woman and World)<\/em>\u00a0in 1896. Modern readers might be amused to read that Dehmel was tried for obscenity and blasphemy when\u00a0<em>Weib und Welt<\/em>\u00a0was published. While the acknowledgment and exploration of female sexuality in\u00a0<em>Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht<\/em>\u00a0and some of Dehmel\u2019s other poems might have raised eyebrows, the worldview expressed in them, and the association of female sexuality with shame and guilt, now seems rather conservative and paternalistic. Modern readers may find the poem\u2019s apotheosis, in which \u201cthe man\u201d forgives and accepts \u201cthe woman\u201d in spite of her sexual transgressions both deeply touching and hugely condescending. Nonetheless, Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s inspired reaction to Dehmel\u2019s poetry works its own transfiguration on its literary model, elevating and intensifying the meaning and symbolism of the original. It is hard to overstate Dehmel\u2019s influence on Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s evolution in the late 1890\u2019s. Sch\u00f6nberg had set several poems by Dehmel in 1897, and 1899 is sometimes called his \u201c<em>Dehmeljahr<\/em>,\u201d (\u201cyear of Dehmel\u201d) in which he spent almost the entire year setting poems from\u00a0<em>Weib und Welt<\/em>, culminating in the breakthrough that was Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht. Musicologist Walter Frisch says that Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s \u201cremarkable development that year \u2026grew directly out his search for a musical language approapriate to the poetry\u00a0<em>of Weib und welt,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>inspired by Dehmel\u2019s success in combining erotic sensuality and intensity of expression with clear formal structure.<\/p>\n<p>A work like\u00a0<em>Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht<\/em>\u00a0might seem to be a huge departure from the\u00a0classical forms preferred by Brahms- Webern even described it as a \u201cfree fantasia.\u201d However, although the work is programmatic, with obvious influences of Wagner and Liszt, it is hardly free. Sch\u00f6nberg found in Dehmel\u2019s poem a way to combine elements of two traditional, strict, even Brahmsian, musical forms: the fundamental structure is that of a Rondo (or A-B-A-C-A), incorporating elements of Sonata-Allegro form . The \u201cA\u201d sections set the tone and lay out the narrative of the work (Sch\u00f6nberg described them as \u201cepic\u201d in character), while the \u201cB\u201d section represents the woman\u2019s confession of her illegitimate pregnancy and the \u201cC\u201d section depicts the man\u2019s tender forgiveness and acceptance of her. It\u2019s not only that lucid form in which Brahms\u2019s influence can be felt, but in the way that Sch\u00f6nberg begins the development and transformation of his material in the work\u2019s opening bars and continues the process throughout. The \u201ctransfiguration\u201d of the work\u2019s title is manifest in the way in which the \u201cA\u201d section changes character each time it occurs- beginning with mystery and dread, returning in anguish and desperation and completing its journey in radiant joy. The piece is tonal\u2014beginning in D minor and ending in D major\u2014but also shows Sch\u00f6nberg exploring completely new harmonic territory. In fact, the piece was originally considered unfit for performance because of Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s use of an unresolved \u201cninth\u201d chord. Early listeners may also have been shocked by the intensity and density of Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s counterpoint- passionate and sensuous as the piece is, there is already a strong element of Sch\u00f6nberg-ian \u201cdifficulty\u201d present in the music.\u00a0\u00a0What sets\u00a0<em>Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht<\/em>\u00a0apart from the works which precede it is the extent to which, as successfully as it marries Wagnerian chromaticism and narrative to Brahmsian rigour, the compositional voice is clearly the fully-formed and completely original one belonging to Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg.<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2014\/07\/09\/explore-the-score-arnold-schonberg-verklarte-nacht\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; [Click here to Explore the Score of the companion work on this CD- Brahms&#8217;s Serenade No. 1 in D major, Original Version for Nonet) The Brahms-Wagner rivalry was largely an affair of the press, whipped up by critics like the Brahmsian Eduard Hanslick and his pro-Wagnerian rivals. Brahms actually professed great admiration for Wagner\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[957,327,960,962,959,961,958],"class_list":["post-6225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explore-the-score","tag-arnold-schoenberg","tag-ensemble-epomeo","tag-matthew-sharp","tag-richard-dehmel","tag-somm-records","tag-tom-hankey","tag-verkart-nacht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6365,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions\/6365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}