Schoenberg's Transfigured Night

The relationship between poetry and music is often quite close, both in popular music (would a hit be as effective if the words weren’t tied to the music?) and in classical.

Love has always been a favorite subject for all manner of artistic endeavor, and Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night remains one of the most eloquent manifestations of this. In the summer of 1899, when the composer was not quite 25, he met Mathilde Zemlinsky, sister of his friend Alexander (also a composer). In less than three weeks, he composed his Transfigured Night for her. The work is steeped in romanticism, both in its subject matter and in its handling of musical material. Although Schoenberg was eventually to banish tonality in his pursuit of dodecaphony (a system wherein each of the twelve tones of the scale is allotted equal importance in lieu of an hierarchy based on tonic, dominant and the like), we find in his youthful Transfigured Night a distinct Wagnerian influence. (Listen to this composer’s Siegfried Idyll and especially the Wesendonck Lieder.)

Transfigured Night is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, another of Schoenberg’s friends. It comes from a collection called Weib und Welt (Woman and World). A couple in love are taking an apparently casual stroll through the moonlit forest. The woman confesses that she is with child but not by him. Nevertheless, he assures her that the child will be no burden; his true and deep love for the woman will make the child as his own. The two mortals continue walking in the exalted brightness of the transfigured night. 

The decision to incorporate a narrative program (the poem) into a chamber-music composition (the work was originally scored for string sextet) was a bold move on Schoenberg’s part. Nevertheless, while the text serves as inspiration for the musical work, Schoenberg tells the story in essentially musical terms. Each listener can decide for him- or herself just what is happening in the narrative at each moment of the music. Unlike Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, for example, where the howl of the wind or the call of a bird is rendered in graphic terms, Schoenberg is concerned more with feelings and moods: fear, doubt, tenderness, forgiveness, intimacy and ecstasy. Violins in their high range attempt to evoke restlessness while violas seem to be almost serious and devoid of emotion. Cellos would appear to be witnesses to the unfolding storyline. Dehmel himself, after hearing Schoenberg’s music, declared: “I had intended to follow motifs of my text in your composition, but I soon forgot all about that, so much was I under the spell of the music.”

The layout of the score includes three passages of “walking music” (the first, third and fifth sections) that alternate with “speaking music” (the second section for the woman as she explains her plight, the fourth section for the man as he assures her he will accept the child as his own).

 

In The Classroom...

Activity 1 (Literature)

This activity is appropriate for students at all grades.

Students analyze, compare and exchange ideas about the various sources of inspiration, the use of texts and the images they arouse. They then write a poem inspired by a given passage from Transfigured Night.

Review what you have learned about Transfigured Night (see above). Ask the students to exchange ideas on different sources of inspiration upon which the artist, author, composer, or they themselves might draw to write a poem, song or musical composition. Do research on the Internet to learn if other composers have been inspired by their feelings of love to compose something. (You might start with Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’été, Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder).

How might you communicate a personal experience to a listener? List some examples of personal experiences from your adolescent years: getting a bad grade in school, not being invited to a party by your team, an argument with your parents, etc. How could you render this experience in general terms so as to make it interesting to a listener? What kind of music would be best suited to convey your message? To what degree did Schoenberg succeed in conveying the expressive content of Dehmel’s poem? How did he do so? What images come to mind in the different passages of the music?

Choose one section of the music and write a poem in free verse based on whatever emotions the music arouses in you as you listen.

 

Activity 2 (Visual Arts)

This activity is appropriate for students at all grades.

Richard Dehmel was an important poet of the German Symbolist movement. Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Kurt Weill and Alma Mahler were also drawn to his poetry for their compositions.
 

Some commentators also find parallels between the poem Schoenberg used and the painting by Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (1907-08), probably his most famous work. The background is pale and has a somewhat metallic, bronze-like appearance with pinpoints of light that might be stars. A line in the poem seems to correspond to this image: “How brilliantly the universe shines!” Into that line one might also read transfiguration (or transformation or metamorphosis) of the night. The man is austerely clothed in black and white rectangles while the woman is bathed in color.

It might also be suggested to the students that they create a visual representation (sketch, painting, collage, sculpture) of a passage from Transfigured Night. The work might also serve as a sound track for a PowerPoint presentation of selected paintings.