Hopeless Romantic

How much should we draw lines between the personal lives of artists and the creative innovations in their careers?

Arnold Schoenberg‘s relationship with his first wife Mathilde was one of extremes. They fell in love on holiday, and the composer churned out one of his best-loved pieces, Verklärte Nacht (‘Transfigured Night’), in a matter of days. But the marriage dissolved when Arnold discovered Mathilde’s affair with painter Richard Gerstl—also on holiday—and the artist’s subsequent death by suicide. It is hard not to draw parallels between this complex moment of tragedy and the revolutionary, alien beauty of the String Quartet No. 2.

A companion to the very first episode of Programme Notes, this episode looks at Schoenberg not as an analytical, unemotional theorist but as a Hopeless Romantic.

This episode features the following recordings:

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | Variations for Orchestra, Op 31. Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft. Naxos.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | Verklärte Nacht, Op 4. Performed by the Artemis Quartet featuring members of the Berg quartet. Warner Classics.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | String Quartet No 2, Op 10. Performed by the Fred Sherry String Quartet and Jennifer Welch-Babidge. Naxos.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | “Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm”, 4 Lieder, Op 2 No 2. Performed by Konrad Jarnot and Urs Liska. CapriccioNR.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | String Quartet No 1 in D minor, Op 7. Performed by the Fred Sherry String Quartet. Naxos.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | Chamber Symphony No 1, Op 9. Performed by Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft. Naxos.

• Arnold SCHOENBERG | Gurre-Lieder. Performed by Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft (with Stephen O’Mara, Melanie Diener, Jennifer Lane, David Wilson-Johnson, Martyn Hill, Ernst Haefliger and Simon Joly Corale). Naxos.

• The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets

Written by Dave Armstrong

Presented by Clarissa Dunn

Produced by Elliot Vaughan

This episode was made to accompany CMNZ's "Another Night in Vienna" tour, which has been generously supported by the Chamber Music New Zealand Foundation.

www.chambermusic.co.nz