Sounds that Speak – Arnold Schönberg 150

Arnold Schönberg 150

Conductor: Kaspar Mänd
Soloist: Kristel Pärtna (soprano)
Estonian National Opera Orchestra

PROGRAMME
String sextet “Verklärte Nacht”
“Vier Lieder” Op. 2 and “Cabaret Songs”
Chamber Symphony No. 1

“Verklärte Nacht” Op. 4 (“Transfigured Night”, 1899), a sexted for string instruments dates from the composer’s early creative period and precedes his atonal works. Its fascinatingly expressive music is inspired by Richard Dehmel’s eponymous psychological love poem, where the five stanzas recount the following story: a man and a woman walk in a moonlit forest; the woman confesses to her fiancé that she is expecting a child from a man she does not love; the man’s consoling forgiveness; love duet; a culminating finale depicting a transfigured night.

Kristel Pärtna will perform Schönberg’s “Four Songs” Op. 2 (“Vier Lieder”, 1899) and “Cabaret Songs” (“Brettl Lieder”, 1901). “Four Songs” are based on Richard Dehmel’s and Johannes Schlaf’s texts and is influenced by the romanticism of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. Richard Dehmel was one of Schönberg’s favourite poets, whose verses also inspired “Verklärte Nacht” and whose writing most precisely captured the essence of the era. “Cabaret Songs” are a collection of eight songs that abound with humour of every shade and well depict the legendary polarities of Viennese society at the beginning of the 20th century.  

The Chamber Symphony No. 1 is a landmark at a distinctly pivotal moment in the history of classical music when composers departed from tradition and turned to atonal music. When Schönberg completed the Chamber Symphony No. 1 in 1906, he told his friends: “Now I have established my style. Now I know how I have to compose.” In this piece there are only 15 players on the stage, but the expressive range and intensity still sounds remarkably like a full orchestra. Even though the symphony is listed as one movement, the form can be considered as subdivided into as many as five continuous movements.

Born in Vienna in 1874, he spent his early career in Berlin, until the rise to power of Hitler made it necessary to leave Germany and find safety in America, where he died in 1951. With his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg, he represents a group of composers known as the Second Viennese School.