#transfigured night

[zero-zoxx-international]

Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), 1999 by J.G.Wind

[huariqueje]

Transfigured Night  -   Frans Vercoutere , 2016.

Belgian, b. 1955  -  

Acrylic on canvas , 60 x 80 cm.

[books0977]

Hannah Rudd and Dane Hurst in Kim Brandstrup’s Transfigured Night, Rambert, November 2015. © Foteini Christofilopoulou.

As the music sweetens, the woman is replaced by her alternative self (Hannah Rudd), dressed in innocent white. She dances ecstatically with her eager lover (Dane Hurst), who bounds acrobatically around her. She is flown high with no burden of regret to bring her down.

[mikrokosmos]

Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht for string orchestra

Transfigured Night. I’m going to be sappy and personal and say I’ve been going through a bit of a rough time, why I haven’t been posting every day. And in this depression I haven’t been listening to much music, but I did get a bit of a heightened interest for Schoenberg again. I was moved by the passion in his second quartet and so I decided to listen to his earlier chamber work Transfigured Night, since it’s been a while. This piece is basically a tone poem and was written as a string sextet, based off of a poem about a man and a woman, lovers, who are in the woods one night. The woman admits she had an affair with another man and is pregnant, and she is ashamed. But the man forgives her, and admits his love to her and they both commit to each other despite their flaws, and somehow this version of love, this unexpected grace, causes the fetus to become his child. It’s an odd poem, but symbolically it emphasizes a strong love, one of forgiveness and acceptance. That is the kind of love I strive for. The music is basically in two parts, the first part is very anxious and dramatic, the second part reworks the main theme in a major key and is one of reconciliation. I think it is a gorgeous night piece, especially this arrangement for string orchestra. Even when earlier Schoenberg is at his most conventional and Romantic, he STILL faced critics who didn’t like his harmonies. The style is post-Wagnerian chromaticism, and at one point, there is emphasis on an inverted ninth chord. The Vienna Music Society didn’t have such a chord categorized in their writings or whatever so they said it wasn’t allowed. Schoenberg laughed at the idea, and remarked “the work can’t be preformed since one cannot perform that which does not exist”. It’s humorous to see how historically there was so much emphasis on the musicology, what was or wasn’t allowed in writing, instead of letting the music itself pour out its expression through whatever means. 

[galina-ulanova]

Catherine Garratt Fothergill in Transfigured Night (Alabama Ballet, 2015)

[books0977]

Hannah Rudd and Dane Hurst in Transfigured Night, Rambert, October 2015. © Johan Persson.

Transfigured Night is a story about two lovers, threatened by a dark secret yet hoping that love can conquer all. Created by two-time Olivier Award-winning choreographer Kim Brandstrup, it takes its inspiration from the lush, romantic score Verklärte Nacht by Arnold Schoenberg.

[books0977]

Simone Damberg Würtz in Kim Brandstrup’s Transfigured Night, Rambert, November 2015. © Foteini Christofilopoulou. 

In the first scene, the scarlet woman (Würtz) repeatedly reaches for her lover (Miguel Altunaga) imploringly. Hers is the urgency in the music, his its angry recalcitrance. Brandstrup has based his imagery on paintings by Egon Schiele of awkward, conflicted couples, eyes glazed with apprehension.

[galina-ulanova]

David Odenwelder and Catherine Garratt Fothergill in Transfigured Night (Alabama Ballet, 2015)