BACKGROUND TO…

Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht

Composed in three weeks while holidaying at an Austrian lake resort in 1899 with Mathilde von Zemlinsky, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) was written for string sextet. Inspiration came from a controversial Romantic poem by Richard Dehmal, and his burgeoning feelings for Mathilde. The work divided opinion when it premiered at Vienna’s Musikverein. It was also rejected by the city’s Music Society for its use of an unauthorised chord – an ultra-modern inverted ninth. The work was arranged for string orchestra in 1917 and further revised in the 1940s.