The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Plays Schoenberg

For many years now the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has been presenting outstanding concerts in the Big Apple. Under the current artistic direction of cellist David Finckel (of the Emerson String Quartet) and his wife pianist Wu Han the quality has been raised even higher. Here is a recent performance of the original version of Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). The video includes only the second part but Part One is available on YouTube for music-lovers who are interested. The performers are Arnaud Sussmann and Erin Keefe, violins, David Kim and Teng Li, violas, and David Finckel and Priscilla Lee, cellos. Apart from the beauty and excitement of the performance, this video is also exceptional in providing a translation of the poem by Richard Dehmel which inspired Schoenberg. But more than that, the episodes of the story told in the poem appear on the screen pretty much where they are depicted or expressed in the music. Paul E. Robinson