Verklärte Nacht
[4][5][6] The work was premiered on 18 March 1902 in the Vienna Musikverein by the Rosé Quartet with Arnold Rosé and Albert Bachrich (violins), Anton Ruzitska (viola), and Friedrich Buxbaum (cello), extended by Franz Jelinek (second Viola) and Franz Schmidt (second cello).
[7] It was played by the London String Quartet: Albert Sammons, Thomas Petre, Harry Waldo Warner and Warwick Evans, who were joined by James Lockyer on viola and Cedric Sharpe on cello.
[8] The composer's first version for string orchestra received its premiere on 29 November 1916 in Prague, under the direction of Alexander von Zemlinsky.
[9] It received its British premiere in Newcastle upon Tyne in December 1924, conducted by Schoenberg's champion and former student Edward Clark.
Zwei Menschen gehn durch kahlen, kalten Hain; der Mond läuft mit, sie schaun hinein.
Ich glaubte nicht mehr an ein Glück und hatte doch ein schwer Verlangen nach Lebensinhalt, nach Mutterglück und Pflicht; da hab ich mich erfrecht, da ließ ich schaudernd mein Geschlecht von einem fremden Mann umfangen, und hab mich noch dafür gesegnet.
Es ist ein Glanz um alles her; Du treibst mit mir auf kaltem Meer, doch eine eigne Wärme flimmert von Dir in mich, von mir in Dich.
The Moon moves along above tall oak trees, there is no wisp of cloud to obscure the radiance to which the black, jagged tips reach up.
I despaired of happiness, and yet I still felt a grievous longing for life's fullness, for a mother's joys and duties; and so I sinned, and so I yielded, shuddering, my sex to the embrace of a stranger, and even thought myself blessed.
Like his teacher Zemlinsky, Schoenberg was influenced by both Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner and sought to combine the former's structural logic with the latter's harmonic language, evidenced in the work's rich chromaticism (deriving from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde) and frequent use of musical phrases which serve to undermine the metrical boundaries.
A particular point of controversy was the use of a single 'nonexistent' (that is, uncategorized and therefore unpermitted) inverted ninth chord, which resulted in its rejection by the Vienna Music Society.
[18] Some unfavorable reaction was also due to the use of Dehmel's poem as inspiration, questioning the viability of setting its themes to music, or being concerned about the situation of the woman in the story.
[19] The poem's content was considered improper for its failure to criticize (and possibly even its glorification of) premarital sex, and Schoenberg's lush harmonic treatment of the material further brought the work towards indecency in the minds of the Viennese.
[20] Richard Dehmel himself was favorably impressed by Schoenberg's treatment of the poem, writing, "I had intended to follow the motives of my text in your composition, but soon forgot to do so, I was so enthralled by the music.
