For my first show this January, I plan to play Schöenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, in the original Sextet form. (I detest attempts to play it with a string orchestra. I know Schöenberg did the arrangement himself, but it is far less colorful and emotional in that form.)
This work precedes Schöenberg’s twelve tone period, but for me, it explains exactly why he made such a remarkable change to his compositional style. Schubert started it, with an ease of harmonic transposition that unsettled many of his contemporaries. You never know how or when Schubert will sneak into some other key, but we are used to him, and we usually love his digressions.
Schöenberg’s mastery of harmony is awesome, and he shows in this piece that one can compose every imaginable harmonic sequence at almost any time; there is no restriction, no further constraint in harmony.
Now there used to be a lot of constraint in harmony, and the ways that composers battled those constraints, from Bach to Rachmaninoff, fill us with pleasure. Romantic music is comprised of melodic elements, harmonies,and emotion. And Schöenberg demonstrates here that one of these three props of classical music is gone. There are still constraints regarding what one can accept as melody; there are emotional extremes that are difficult to invoke; but here, in the early 20th century, harmony can be anything.
Many of Schöenberg’s contemporaries adjusted to this new world by digging ever deeper into displays of emotion. Mahler is one of those composers, and Schöenberg did not always admire him for it. Schöenberg chose a different approach, to adopt the constraints of his own invented twelve-tone-ism. He opened a new school of composition that flowered for more than fifty years, an approach that, today, we tend to regard with distrust.
Schöenberg did not think that anything more of value could be extracted from traditional, or even untraditional harmony. Those of you who follow Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries know that Schöenberg was not exactly right. Classical harmony flourished alongside all the 20th century experiments, and once again, reigns today, in hundreds of inventive forms.
As you listen to Verklärte Nacht, please try to be sympathetic to Schöenberg’s plight. This extraordinary piece of music displays the hand of a compositional master, searching desperately for new mountains to conquer.
The piece is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel. Wikipedia has the poem, and a translation, here.

NOTE: You can find my recent WPRB playlists at my personal blog, Precision Blogging.