Arnold — Schoenberg
(Born at Vienna, September 13, 1874)
“Verklärte Nacht” (Radiant Night), Arranged for String Orchestra, Op. 4
Schoenberg’s music, to be enjoyed, does not need either the original verse or the paraphrase. Indeed, it would be better if the argument were not printed for the concertgoer. As it is, he may be too anxious to discover the emancipated woman and the good, easy-going, complaisant man in the music, and be oblivious of the strains of beauty and passion. For this music, on the whole prolix, has beautiful and passionate pages of compelling eloquence. Other pages are a sandy, dreary waste. The impression would be still stronger, the music still more significant, if the composition were much shorter. Whether the music itself gains by the revision and enlargement, is a question that admits of discussion.
This piece, originally a sextet, was published in 1905; the arrangement for string orchestra was published in 1917. The sextet was composed in 1899.
An excerpt from Richard Dehmel’s poem, “Weib und die Welt,” is printed on a flyleaf of the score. When the sextet was first performed in New York by the Kneisel Quartet, Mr. Krehbiel paraphrased this poetic fragment as follows:
“Two mortals walk through a cold, barren grove. The moon sails over the tall oaks, which send their scrawny branches up through the unclouded moonlight. A woman speaks. She confesses a sin to the man at her side: she is with child, and he is not its father. She had lost belief in happiness, and, longing for life’s fullness, for motherhood and mother’s duty, she had surrendered herself, shuddering, to the embraces of a man she knew not. She had thought herself blessed, but now life had avenged itself upon her, by giving her the love of him she walked with. She staggers onward, gazing with lack-lustre eye at the moon which follows her. A man speaks. Let her not burden her soul with thoughts of guilt. See, the moon’s sheen enwraps the universe. Together they are driving over chill waters, but a flame from each warms the other. It, too, will transfigure the little stranger, and she will bear the child to him. For she has inspired the brilliant glow within him and made him too a child. They sink into each other’s arms. Their breaths meet in kisses in the air. Two mortals wander through the wondrous moonlight.”