Musical Sunday

No, there will be no unrest and fistfights as there once were at the premiere. But Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (1899) still raises exciting questions: Is it possible to tell a story in sound? What is lost in comparison to a text, what is gained? After all, Schoenberg made an attempt here to “translate” a poem by Richard Dehmel into music – and he did so with extremely reduced means, namely with string instruments alone. Moreover, this op. 4 is harmonically on the threshold of modernity; by expanding the traditional major-minor system, the composer was able to draw from a color palette of immense richness. A work of an epoch!

Herrmann and Imbsweiler are joined by two enthusiasts: Timo Jouko Herrmann, composer, violinist and guest conductor of the Heidelberger Sinfoniker, and Marcus Imbsweiler, writer and musicologist.