Schoenberg: Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4

Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4

Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)

For many music-lovers Arnold Schoenberg remains the “bogeyman” of 20^th century music. A century after the appearance of his Verklaerte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”) there are still those who bewail the fact that the composer of such a voluptuous outpouring of romantic feeling seemed to throw everything overboard to pursue an arbitrary and disagreeable “modernism.” Schoenberg was painfully aware of this perception, as is shown in a characteristically ironic comment from 1927: “I usually answer the question why I no longer write as I did at the period of Verklaerte Nacht by saying: ‘I DO, but I can’t help it if people don’t yet recognise the fact.” Ten years later, insisting that his early and later music was really of a piece, he claimed that he was “composing in the same style and in the same way as at the beginning. The difference is only that I do it better now than before; it is more concentrated, more mature.’”

Of course the most direct answer to the question Schoenberg refers to above is simply to declare that any artist remaining true to his creative integrity must move forward into new regions---we forget that in the 1820s many of Beethoven’s contemporaries lamented the fact that he had turned away from his affable early manner (as in the Septet, Op. 20) to “perversely” compose “difficult” works such as the late piano sonatas and string quartets! And, as well, it must be remembered that at first there was fierce opposition to Verklaerte Nacht. Schoenberg never forgot that a concert society rejected the work outright “because of the revolutionary use of one---that is one single uncatalogued dissonant chord!” After the premiere, one critic likened the composition to “the sort of six-legged calf one might see in a side-show!” (Schoenberg, of course, replied that a string sextet would make for a “twelve-legged calf!”)

Arnold Schoenberg was born in Vienna, and in most respects was a self-taught musician. He grew up in a city where one could regularly catch a glimpse of Johannes Brahms taking his morning stroll, and where Gustav Mahler took up his appointment as director of the Vienna Opera in 1897. Brahms was an early influence upon Schoenberg, who became his lifelong champion – Mahler (who, significantly, met Schoenberg for the first time at the premiere of Verklaerte Nacht) would eventually become a close friend and champion of Schoenberg himself. The Vienna of Schoenberg’s youth was still a battleground between the passionate adherents of the work of Wagner and Liszt (Hugo Wolf being a particularly prominent example), and the equally outspoken supporters of the music of Brahms. Significantly, from the beginning Schoenberg’s work showed signs of influences from both rival musical camps.

Composed in September, 1899 (at a time when Schoenberg was employed in a bank!), Verklaerte Nacht marks a striking advancement in the composer’s stylistic development----nothing in the earlier compositions could have prepared listeners for a thirty-minute “tone poem,” composed for a string sextet, inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem, with its echoes of the “Tristan und Isolde” story!

The 1890s were the heyday of the orchestral “tone poems” of Richard Strauss, then at the height of his fame. In his String Sextet Schoenberg seemed to bring together the contradictory elements of chamber music (a clear link with Brahms, and his own splendid string sextets) and the world of Lisztian/Straussian orchestral “program music.” Indeed, the stylistic and technical elements of this new work drew upon a classical (i. e., “Brahmsian”) tradition, wedded to a harmonic language (and emotional atmosphere) powerfully influenced by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This “atmosphere” is especially pronounced in the version for full string orchestra heard on today’s concert, published by the composer in 1917.) The remarkable merging of apparently clashing aesthetic elements was to have consequences throughout Schoenberg’s creative life, as well as for the eventual development of his atonal musical style and the twelve-tone method of composition. Thus it can be argued that, far from being a mere last gasp of late Romantic emotionalism, Verklaerte Nacht, written at the very threshold of the new century, occupies a “Janus-like” position, revealing strong roots in 19^th century musical traditions, while at the same time showing signs of a newly-emerging approach to composition which would have tremendous impact upon composers throughout the 20^th century.

This is quite wonderfully illustrated by a detailed program note on Verklaerte Nacht written (in English) by Arnold Schoenberg in August, 1950, in the last year of his life. After many years in California where he taught, and composed great works using the 12-tone technique, Schoenberg looked back half a century to guide the listener through this early work without a trace of embarrassment or awkwardness in describing its programmatic features and the expressive meaning of the musical elements---taking pleasure in a youthful “ultra-Romantic” style which was often thought to have been disavowed by the composer’s later atonal and 12-tone music. The dear old man clearly was proud of the 25 year-old’s achievement, and he meant what he had said in 1927 and 1937!

In the belief that there is no finer discussion of Verklaerte Nacht, here follows that 1950 article.

(Readers will note the characteristically wry comment in the final paragraph.)