Ensemble 360

A programme of
BARBER Adagio for Strings Op.11
SCHOENBERG Ein Stelldichein for quintet
SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht Op.4 for string sextet

This hour-long lunchtime concert of highly charged music features works of supreme beauty and emotional power. Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht – Transfigured Night – was based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, which tells of a pregnant woman and her lover. She speaks to him of her guilt (the child is not his), but he enfolds her in warmth and love as they walk together through the 'high, bright night'. But Schoenberg also had more personal inspiration for his remarkable work: he was passionately in love with Mathilde von Zemlinsky (they married in 1901) and Verklärte Nacht is a ravishing love song to her. Ein Stelldichein (A Tryst) was also inspired by Dehmel's poetry. Part of Love and War Music in the Round’s Festival of World Class Chamber Music.