Introduction:
The Works of Britten and Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg and Benjamin Britten: two of the most important composers of the 20th century and perhaps two of the most disparate. Born as the curtain was being drawn on the German Romanticism of Brahms and Wagner, Schoenberg began his career carrying the Romantic idiom to new heights before developing the expressionistic and highly influential twelve-tone system that he would devote most of his life to. Britten, on the other hand, born three decades after Schoenberg in England, was exposed to the English choral tradition and the pastoral, folk-inspired works of Vaughan Williams. Though he ultimately developed a highly personal and idiosyncratic musical language, Britten’s music always remained firmly rooted in the world of tonality. (He was, however, significantly more aware of Schoenberg’s new system than many of his contemporaries and used a twelve-tone row in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas, albeit rather mockingly.) In spite of this disparity, the two centerpieces of today’s program— Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (1899) and Britten’s Les Illuminations (1939)— are not such strange bedfellows.

Benjamin Britten:
Les Illuminations

Rimbaud writes, “I alone have the key to this savage parade.” This line is sung three times throughout Les Illuminations and Britten considered it a motto for the entire cycle: the artist alone—whether Rimbaud, Britten, or the singer—holds the key to the “parade sauvage” of life. This almost spiritual glorification of the artist as creator is perhaps not so far removed from elements of Richard Dehmel’s poem on which Verklärte Nacht is based. Permeating the text is the idea of almost super- naturally generated new life: a woman bears a child from a man other than the lover who walks beside her, but as the story progresses it is suggested that the union of the two lovers will “transfigure” the child—that this union “holds the key,” as it were, to the creation of a new life. The man says: “A special warmth flickers from you into me, from me into you....You will bear the child for me, as if it were mine; You have brought the glow into me, You have made me like a child myself.” Not only is new life given to the unborn child; the man also experiences a rebirth.

Arthur Rimbaud’s incomplete cycle of prose poems, Illuminations, was probably written during the author’s extended stay in the United Kingdom in the 1870s with his then- lover Paul Verlaine. The forty-two poems in the set, many of which are surrealistic and even hallucinatory, touch on a variety of themes—cities, duality, metamorphosis or change, and nature, among other things. It is perhaps not surprising that Britten, in his mid-twenties and a homosexual living in England, would be affected by Rimbaud’s texts, immediately deciding to develop them into a song cycle. The work’s dedicatee, Sophie Wyss, later recalled that Britten was “so full of this poetry he could not stop talking about it.” Though the texts speak clearly on their own, Britten’s irresistible musical settings give Rimbaud’s rich imagery added character and panache: a brassy opening fanfare; a busy, chaotic, bustling city scene (“Villes”); a tongue-in-cheek picture of royalty (“Royauté”) which Britten described as “pompous and satirical”; a raucous parade. An air of nostalgia permeates the final movement (“Départ”), which finally dissolves into peaceful resignation.

Benjamin Britten:
Three Divertimenti

Written shortly before Les Illuminations, Britten’s Three Diverimenti (1936) are fun, light character pieces for string quartet taken from a planned five-movement suite containing musical portraits of Britten’s boarding-school friends. The Divertimenti are significant revisions of three of these pieces—the first movement was entirely replaced, though the original later made its way into Les Illuminations as part of “Parade.” The work is typical early Britten: the opening March bounces along, at first pointillistically, unsure of where it wants to go, and then with heavier footing; an innocent, flowing Waltz follows, briefly interrupted by more agitated music; the final Burlesque is at turns almost comically wacky and aggressively motoristic. At the end, the music again feels uncertain—will it end with a bang or sneak out quietly?

Arnold Schoenberg:
Verklärte Nacht

Worlds away from Britten’s character studies, the monumental string sextet Verklärte Nacht (composed in just three weeks in 1899 and arranged for string orchestra in 1917 by the composer) is Schoenberg’s earliest and most enduring masterpiece, and, indeed, one of the most important artistic expressions to come out of fin-de-siècle Europe. Although written a decade before Schoenberg fully developed the twelve-tone style which would become his hallmark, Verklärte Nacht already shows incredible inventive- ness in its use of harmony, color, and texture—its musical language seems organically evolved from Wagner’s Romanticism while simultaneously looking ahead at the artistic expanse and possibility of a new century. Viscerally programmatic, harmonically lush, motivically tight, and ultimately profoundly moving, Schoenberg’s work references Dehmel’s text closely throughout. (In 1912, Dehmel wrote to Schoenberg that he was “enthralled” by the work.) Though the piece is structured as one single movement, five separate sections correspond to the five stanzas of the poem (see text and translation below); motivic material comes and goes throughout as Schoenberg paints a musi- cal picture of the lovers’ journey through a moonlit forest.

The work begins with a low drone, as if in complete darkness. Gradually, the instruments join one by one with a gently cascading melody that ebbs and flows—and which will return again and again through the work, each time somehow transformed. The music continually surges and recedes, sometimes violently and sometimes pleadingly, sometimes passionately and sometimes innocently. The second section, marked by an ecstatic arrival in E major, illustrates the woman’s confession to her lover, as the music becomes, at turns, tender and agitated. A devastating return, in the third section, to the opening motive gives way to perhaps the emotional heart of the work—the fourth section—in which the man responds: “May the child you conceived be no burden to your soul. Just see how brightly the universe is gleaming!”—and, indeed, the music glows. The fifth and final section’s fortissimo climax is perhaps as close as music comes to expressing pure, unrestrained passion—but it is the work’s spectacular final minute that expresses love’s truest, quietest intimacy and leaves performers and audiences transfixed and transfigured.

—Notes by Giancarlo Latta (2016)

Verklärte Nacht

Zwei Menschen gehn durch kahlen, kalten Hain;
der Mond läuft mit, sie schaun hinein.
Der Mond läuft über hohe Eichen;
kein Wölkchen trübt das Himmelslicht,
in das die schwarzen Zacken reichen.
Die Stimme eines Weibes spricht:

"Ich trag ein Kind, und nit von Dir,
ich geh in Sünde neben Dir.
Ich hab mich schwer an mir vergangen.
Ich glaubte nicht mehr an ein Glück
und hatte doch ein schwer Verlangen
nach Lebensinhalt, nach Mutterglück

und Pflicht; da hab ich mich erfrecht,
da ließ ich schaudernd mein Geschlecht
von einem fremden Mann umfangen,
und hab mich noch dafür gesegnet.
Nun hat das Leben sich gerächt:
nun bin ich Dir, o Dir, begegnet."

Sie geht mit ungelenkem Schritt.
Sie schaut empor; der Mond läuft mit.
Ihr dunkler Blick ertrinkt in Licht.
Die Stimme eines Mannes spricht:

"Das Kind, das Du empfangen hast,
sei Deiner Seele keine Last,
o sieh, wie klar das Weltall schimmert!
Es ist ein Glanz um alles her;
Du treibst mit mir auf kaltem Meer,
doch eine eigne Wärme flimmert
von Dir in mich, von mir in Dich.

Die wird das fremde Kind verklären,
Du wirst es mir, von mir gebären;
Du hast den Glanz in mich gebracht,
Du hast mich selbst zum Kind gemacht."
Er faßt sie um die starken Hüften.
Ihr Atem küßt sich in den Lüften.
Zwei Menschen gehn durch hohe, helle Nacht.

— Richard Dehmel

Transfigured Night

Two people are walking through a bare, cold wood;
the moon keeps pace with them and draws their gaze.
The moon moves along above tall oak trees,
there is no wisp of cloud to obscure the radiance
to which the black, jagged tips reach up.
A woman's voice speaks:

"I am carrying a child, and not by you.
I am walking here with you in a state of sin.
I have offended grievously against myself.
I despaired of happiness,
and yet I still felt a grievous longing
for life's fullness, for a mother's joys

and duties; and so I sinned,
and so I yielded, shuddering, my sex
to the embrace of a stranger,
and even thought myself blessed.
Now life has taken its revenge,
and I have met you, met you."

She walks on, stumbling.
She looks up; the moon keeps pace.
Her dark gaze drowns in light.
A man's voice speaks:

"Do not let the child you have conceived
be a burden on your soul.
Look, how brightly the universe shines!
Splendour falls on everything around,
you are voyaging with me on a cold sea,
but there is the glow of an inner warmth
from you in me, from me in you.

That warmth will transfigure the stranger's child,
and you bear it me, begot by me.
You have transfused me with splendour,
you have made a child of me.
"He puts an arm about her strong hips.
Their breath embraces in the air.
Two people walk on through the high, bright night.

(English translation by Mary Whittall)

Karim Al-Zand:
Luctus Profugis

Luctus Profugis is a lament that reflects on the current European refugee crisis. The title translates roughly from the Latin as “Grief for the Displaced.” The word “profugus” has a connection to the opening lines of Virgil’s “Aeneid,” which describes one of the earliest refugees: Aeneas fleeing the Trojan war to the shores of Italy. The percussionist at the heart of the ensemble plays a simple three-note motive that repeats for the duration of the piece. Its persistence symbolizes for me the refugees’ journey, their tenacity, courage and resilience.

The current European refugee crisis began in 2015, when tens of thousands of migrants began fleeing their war ravaged homes to seek asylum in the West. Displaced families, primarily from Syria and other areas of conflict, endured perilous journeys to reach safe destinations in the EU. The most dangerous routes have included crossings of the Eastern Mediterranean to ports in Greece and Italy. Thousands of migrants are estimated to have perished at sea. In the United States, which arguably has played the largest role in catalyzing the migration, the reaction to the crisis has been characterized politically by inaction and fear-mongering. Governors in 26 states (including Texas) have refused to settle Syrian asylum seekers. To date, the US has settled 0.05% of the total number of refugees. Canada and Germany have settled over 19 times that number. It is my hope that “Luctus Profugis” serves as not only an elegy, but also a call to action.”

—Original note by composer