Schiele: Arnold Schoenberg (1917)

In his breakthrough instrumental piece, written in 1899 and given its premiere in 1902, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) set aside all the vocal music he’d been writing to produce a work of true beauty. Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) was based on a short poem by Richard Dehmel.

While Schoenberg was setting his instrumental work in Vienna, another composer in Berlin, Oskar Fried (1871-1941) was setting the same poem by Dehmel as a work for 2 voices and orchestra. This was Fried’s first orchestral composition.

Richard Dehmel

Dehmel’s poem tells of a couple that is walking through a cold winter night. She tells him that she is pregnant by a stranger she met before she met him. She feels awkward, knowing that this confession could sever her connection with the man she now loves. He reassures her that their love will change the child – it will no longer be the child of a stranger but his own child. Their love makes the child theirs.

The poem is set in 5 stanzas, 1 stanza of narration, her speech of confession, another stanza of narration, his speech, a summary narrative stanza. Each composer honored Dehmel’s stanza structure in his setting.

In Schoenberg’s setting, the opening tempo is dark and unsettled. You can hear the hesitation of the partners, but with a build-up to something emotional.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Grave (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Moderato (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

The woman’s anguished outburst begins with a solo violin passage.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Tempo I (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Poco allegro (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

The narrative section remains emotional and stormy and ends tentative as she awaits his response.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Pesante (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

His reply shows an amazing change of mood. All is tranquil, all is calm. There is no problem. Put aside the emotion of the past and look only to the future. After the turmoil of the first part of the work, this section shows the redemption of the two people as a couple.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Adagio (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Poco adagio (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

The final section depicts the couple moving again through the moonlit wood, now in a mood that is a great distance away from the turmoil of the opening of the work.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 – Adagio (molto tranquillo) (BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

Oskar Fried

Writing about the work 50 years later, Schoenberg spoke of it being influenced by both Wagner (in his model-and-sequence structure) and by Brahms’ technique of developing variation but ended up creating a work that is far different than anything by those two composers.

Originally written for string sextet, Schoenberg arranged it for orchestral in 1917. The work was controversial at its premiere not only for its modern harmonies but also for its use of Richard Dehmel’s poetry. The poem appeared in his 1896 collection Weib und Welt (Women and World). The book was censored by the authorities, with some poems over-stamped in black ink. Verklärte Nacht as a poem was considered immoral for its failure to criticize the woman’s premarital sex, and Schoenberg’s setting of the poem seems to carry implicit acceptance of this in its lush setting.

Dehmel approved of the musical setting, writing to Schoenberg to tell him: ‘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.’

In writing his setting as a vocal work, Oskar Fried took a different path.

We can see Fried’s composition as a kind of post-Wagnerian miniature opera scene. The two voices intertwine as they walk through the winter forest. The tonalities are dark and minor. You can hear the unhappiness and tentativeness not only in the vocal setting but also in the emotions those sounds reveal. Her confession (02: 00), ‘I am bearing a child, and not by you…’ (Ich trag ein Kind, und nicht von Dir…) is exposed and jagged. The orchestra is equally raw. Yet, when he makes his declaration (04:50), ‘The child that you have conceived should not be a burden on your soul…’ (Das Kind, das Du empfangen hast, sei Deiner Seele keine Last….) the music changes to a glorious major. He explains his position and in the final stanza, they walk off together through what is now a ‘brightly shining night.’

Oskar Fried: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 9 (Christine Rice, mezzo-soprano; Stuart Skelton, tenor; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner, cond.)

Fried’s is a shorter and in many ways, simpler setting. By setting the text directly, he had to place the orchestra to the background and so lost the many opportunities Schoenberg had for creating soundscapes that could carry the listener into the scene itself.

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