勳伯格給眾人的第一感覺是難懂,不好聽.
其實在他開拓無調性音樂之前,在25歲時就完成了這部不朽的六重奏.這是浪漫派後期的最佳作之一.
他大概是在那時感到古典音樂架構已達到了完整境界,需要通過本質言語的突破才能表現新意.
勳伯格的六重奏深受德國詩人Dehmer同名詩的影響.描述了一個動人的愛的升華故事.
Arnold Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht
From Julian Ribke (translation: Mary Whittall)
Schönberg
found the inspiration for his string sextet in Richard Dehmel's poem
'Verklärte Nacht', which was first published in the collection 'Weib
und Welt' and later incorporated in Dehmel's novel 'Zwei Menschen'.
Although Schönberg expressly uses the term "programme music", in the
note he wrote on the work in 1950 he makes a careful distinction: "My
composition was, perhaps, somewhat different from other illustrative
compositions, firstly, by not being for orchestra but for a chamber
group and secondly, because it does not illustrate any action or drama,
but was restricted to portray nature and express human feelings... in
other words, it offers the possibility to be appreciated as 'pure'
music."
Richard Dehmel confirms the effect the sextet makes as
autonomous music in a letter to Schönberg (12 December 1912):
"Yesterday evening I heard Transfigured Night, and I would consider it
a sin of omission if I did not say a word of thanks to you for your
wonderful sextet. I had intended to follow the motives of my text in
your composition, but I soon forgot to do so, I was so enraptured by
the music." Schönberg wrote back (13 December 1912) that he was
"reflecting in music" what Dehmel's poetry "stirred up" in him.
Schönberg
follows Dehmel's poem in the structure of the sextet: he divides the
single-move-ment work into five sections of differing expressive
character. Parts 1, 3 and 5, describing the two people and the
atmosphere of their surroundings as they walk through the moonlit wood,
frame two episodes, the woman's confession and the man's reply. But in
spite of these divisions, the form can be understood in more ways than
one. 'Transfigured night' prefigures a form of construction which
Schönberg was to perfect in his succeeding instrumental works: 'Pelleas
and Melisande' op.5, the D minor Quartet op.7 and the Chamber Symphony
op.9. Each of these single-movement works can be regarded with equally
good reason as an expanded first-movement sonata form, or as a complete
symphony in which the movements are connected. In the sextet, too, the
statement of themes is followed by complex developmental working, and
in the fifth section the thematic complexes which have programmatic
significance are brought together, so that this part of the work
assumes the general character of a recapitulation. Again, the second
section of the work, where the woman speaks and which itself falls into
five parts, can be interpreted as the principal movement of a cyclic
work; in turn the man's reply can be seen as performing the function of
the slow movement in a symphony. It would be amiss, however, to
interpret the form overall as a rondo with recurring refrains: although
the theme from the introduction permeates all three of the "moonlit
wood" sections, they are transformed in expression and function as they
absorb and prolong the emotional atmosphere of the episodes. After the
woman's excited outburst the theme from the introduction returns
'fortissimo' and marked "schwer betont" (with heavy emphasis), and
rising quaver (eighth-note) figures make it more urgent, until the
music gradually calms down and the third section dies away on sustained
E flat minor chords. In the final section the theme floats radiantly in
gentle 'pianissimo' above the arpeggios of the second violin: in the
poem the surroundings have been transformed from a "bare, cold wood" to
"high, bright night".
There is an abundance of thematic material in
part 2, the woman's confession. One group after another builds up to a
climax of intensity: a virtuoso display by Schönberg of Brahms's
technique of developing variation. This section ends with an expressive
recitative-like passage which leads without a break into the "moonlit
wood" theme and the third section. Although there are thematic links
with what has gone before, the second episode, the man's answer, is
also complete in itself. After the anxious E flat minor ending of the
third section, the establishment of D major and the powerful,
introductory cello cantilena have a liberating effect. A further change
in mood is created by muted F sharp major harmonics, ornamented with
rapid semiquaver (16th-note) figurations, which, Schönberg wrote,
"express the beauty of the moonlight" which suffuses the man's
comforting words. The significance given to thematic working and the
interweaving of the sections is reminiscent of Wagnerian leitmotive
technique. That, and the serious engagement with the Lisztian precedent
of symphonic single-movement form, show the influence that the legacy
of the New German movement had on Schönberg. In the article "My
Evolution" (1949) he explained which where the Wagnerian and Brahmsian
elements he had incorporated in his own style in 'Transfigured Night':
"The
thematic construction is based on Wagnerian 'model and sequence' above
a roving harmony on the one hand, and on Brahms's technique of
developing variation - as I call it - on the other. Also to Brahms must
be ascribed the imparity of measures ... But the treatment of the
instruments, the manner of composition, and much of the sonority were
stricly Wagnerian. I think there were also some Schönbergian elements
to be found in the breadth of the melodies...in contrapuntal and
motivic combinations, and in the semi-contrapuntal movement of the
harmony and its basses against the melody. Finally, there were already
some passages of unfixed tonality which may be considered premonitions
of the future".