Studio 10
Brooklyn, NY
December 2, 2013
David Schafer performed the third in a trilogy of electronically processed Schoenberg compositions. This performance references Arnold Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nachte” from 1899. Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4, is a string sextet in one movement; a composition inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name along with Schoenberg’s strong feelings upon meeting his future wife Mathilde von Zemlinsky (the sister of his teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky). Dehmel’s poem describes a man and a woman walking through a dark forest on a moonlit night, wherein she reveals to her new lover that she bears the child of another man. The stages of the poem are mirrored throughout the composition, beginning with the sadness of the woman’s confession, a neutral interlude wherein he reflects upon the confession, and a finale, in which he forgives her and accepts the child as his own.
https://soundcloud.com/muzakspeed/schoenberg-verklarte-nacht
David Schafer 