OVER DEZE AFLEVERING
Verklärte Nacht ('Transfigured Night') is a piece that sits at a series of divides.
Written at the end of the 19th century and first performed at the beginning of the 20th. Composed by a young Arnold Schoenberg, toast of Vienna, but before he developed his dodecaphonic system that made him the cilantro of composers. Both a piece of Brahms-like formalism and of Wagnerian heart-on-the-sleeve narrative.
We take a close look at Transfigured Night and discover the composer as radically inventive but also a steadfast adherent to the traditions of Germanic composition.
This episode features the following recordings:
Arnold SCHOENBERG | Verklärte Nacht, performed by the Artemis Quartet featuring members of the Berg quartet. Available on Warner Classics. https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/verklarte-nacht
Johannes BRAHMS | String Quartet no 1, performed by the New Zealand String Quartet. Available on Naxos. https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573433
Richard WAGNER | Overture, Tristan und Isolde, Hand Schmidt-Isserstedt and Orchestra national de France. Radio France.
The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets
Written by Hamish Robb
Presented by Clarissa Dunn
Produced by Elliot Vaughan
for Chamber Music New Zealand
www.chambermusic.co.nz
