Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Pelleas und Melisande / Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
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Composer: Arnold SchoenbergConductor: Herbert von Karajan
Performer: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-03-17
Music Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Soundtracks:
- Verklarte Nacht Op.4: Grave
- Verklarte Nacht Op.4: Molto rallentando
- Verklarte Nacht Op.4: Pesante
- Verklarte Nacht Op.4: Adagio
- Verklarte Nacht Op.4: Adagio
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Die ein wenig bewegt
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Heftig
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Lebhaft
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Sehr rasch
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Ein wenig bewegt
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Langsam
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Ein wenig bewegter
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Sehr langsam
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Etwas bewegt
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: In gehender Bewegung
- Pelleas und Melisande Op.5: Breit
Music reviews of Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Pelleas und Melisande / Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Review: A Transfigured Night Sprinkled with Glittering Stars
Rating: 4 Stars
There are actually supposed to be two Schoenbergs: the early Schoenberg that still adhered to proper tonal music, and the later, all-screws-gone-loose Schoenberg that came up with what many down to the present day have considered plain musical atrocities. I've listened to some samples of the latter, and I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with the critics. :) With respect to the early works, however, such as the two richly melodious pieces found on this CD, the story is a bit different. Interestingly, both are based on love stories which take a dark wood for their initial settings. The focus of the present review would be more on the music itself than on a comparison of Karajan's interpretation of it with that by others -- regarding which I'll just make the observation that the individual instruments seem to come across much more sharply and clearly in Mehta's interpretation of Pelleas and Melisande (which might not necessarily be a good thing).
The Transfigured Night, a 30-minute work composed purely for strings, was inspired by a poem telling of a couple strolling through a dark wood at night when the woman began to reveal to the man all her dark and terrible secrets, mainly that she was pregnant with the child of another. Would the man break up with her in a fit of rage? The music, appropriately enough, starts off with a brooding, mysterious air and builds up dramatic moments of hair-raising fear and tension with the strings almost shrieking. Those who listen to the music without knowing the underlying story can probably be forgiven at this point for thinking that this is a Dracula movie soundtrack. Much to the woman's relief (and ours, too), upon arriving at track 4 of the CD the man dispels her fears with a grand, magnanimous gesture of forgiveness and acceptance -- `Your child will also be my child,' he says effectively -- and the music accordingly calms down and glows with a soothing, reassuring warmth (though occasionally the dark moments reappear briefly). The night is transfigured! There are a couple of dancelike, rocking moments played softer than usual -- `You have made a child of me,' the man said in the poem. The music ends calmly and happily as the couple walk into the `high, bright night' -- the transfiguration of the night is complete. Rich with beautiful melodies, full of compelling moments, the work is simply pure chocolate ice cream in the form of music.
The story of Pelleas and Melisande, alas, is not an equally happy one, both with respect to the story and the music. A slightly later work than the above based on a play about two ill-fated lovers by Maeterlinck (for which Debussy, Faure, Sibelius, Wallace and others have also composed lovely music -- I wonder if any other literary work has enjoyed as much musical treatment as this), this 40-minute symphonic poem for large orchestra does not seem to me as well-conceived as the Transfigured Night in its overall structure. Admittedly it is equally filled with dramatic episodes and lovely melodies (the only thing missing is a wordless chorus), among them the part at the beginning of track 7 where Melisande jumps several feet into the air with shock at the sight of Pelleas' brother Golaud :D, the heroic, stormy Golaud theme which immediately follows, and the eerie, mournful dirge played by the woodwind in a high register at track 15 depicting Melisande's passing. But whereas the themes and melodies in the Transfigured Night flow smoothly into and out of each other, overwrought climaxes and sudden, unexpected changes in excessive amounts tend to mar the music of Pelleas and Melisande. The train of the music just seems to contain too many sharp bends and turns. For example, at the beginning of track 9 a real cute and lovely little `fairy waltz' scherzo played by the woodwind (made slightly tipsy by its chromaticism) just appears in a wholly unexpected way -- shortly after a frenzied moment which was cut short abruptly -- and barely lasts a minute before being nagged to death by the brass and percussion in yet another loud climax, never to appear again until near the end of the entire piece. It just feels... neurotic. There must be some way to make it merge more naturally into the rest of the music. And this is but one example. Also, Golaud seems on the whole to have stolen too much of the limelight from Pelleas.
I think the trouble is that Schoenberg tried to pack too much into too small a space, intending as he did to capture every detail of the story. With a full-length play spanning several acts and scenes, one should either compose a comparably long opera (if one wants to account for all the story's details), as did Debussy, or just short musical depictions of selected scenes and episodes, as did Faure, Sibelius and Wallace. You can't compress a long story in all its detail into a small space -- at least not without making it feel forced and unnatural. But all things considered, if one is prepared to overlook this shortcoming, then I suppose the symphonic poem still has much to offer.
Incidentally, just for the fun of knowing, Schoenberg was actually approached by film producer Irving Thalberg from MGM in 1935 with a request to compose a film score for the film THE GOOD EARTH, based on Pearl S. Buck's well-known novel on peasant life in early 20th-Century China. Eventually nothing came out of this apart from some musical sketches by the composer, though he did read the novel carefully. Being an Asian myself I honestly wonder how the music would have sounded; a musical incarnation of Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan in atonal garb certainly would have made traditional Chinese musicians faint on the spot :D, just as Schoenberg's atonal music caused such controversies in the Western world. From what I found out, though, the sketches all deferred back (thankfully) to good old tonal systems. Perhaps some composer should come along and work the sketches into a `Good Earth Suite' or something like that (just as Alexander Nemtin took up the sketches for the `Mysterium' left behind by Scriabin and `completed' the work for him). Who knows, it might turn out to be something musically akin to the violin concerto THE BUTTERFLY LOVERS -- who in Chinese folklore are yet another pair of ill-fated lovers...
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