Collaborative performances can be stimulating and thought-provoking occasions especially when the ear and eye are engaged on equal terms. This venture by the Mullova Ensemble at Turner Sims, entitled Transfigured Night, sought to combine music and dance in what promised to be “an immersive journey into a nocturnal forest, setting the scene for Schoenberg’s profoundly moving ode to love”. Shadowy lighting, video projections and stylised dance movements from the remarkably talented Ching-Ying Chien, choreographed by Joshua Junker, brought considerable fascination as a kind of garnish to servings of Bach, Debussy, Bartók and Janáček. But it was a sovereign performance of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht in its original string sextet version that crowned this tasting menu of a concert.
Inspiration for the evening derived from the emotional and psychological narrative of Richard Dehmel’s eponymous 1896 poem, a work that prompted Schoenberg to fashion his own creative response a few years later. The central figure is a woman who, during a cold moonlit walk, confesses to her lover she is pregnant by another man; he responds that through their love the child will be theirs and thus the night is transfigured. Using this outline, Matthew Barley, cellist and director of the Mullova Ensemble, brought together musical offerings reflecting themes from the poem, interspersing them with ambient electronics – more mushy than musical – from Jasmine Morris.
Moonlit forests were sensitively evoked in a skilful arrangement for two violas of Debussy’s Clair de lune, Nils Mönkemeyer and Kinga Wojdalska adding their own compelling intensity. Two violins, courtesy of Viktoria Mullova and Lisa Rieder, underlined the passions and sorrows within a clutch of Bartók’s 44 Duos for Two Violins, their idiomatic playing mirrored by Chien’s expressive writhing. Intriguingly, the Bartók emerged from the last sighs of a Bach Adagio for solo violin, played with effortless musicianship and making any dance gestures redundant.
However, the movements surrounding two angst-ridden improvisatory passages were a highlight. Especially memorable within Barley’s cello soliloquy was the sudden appearance of Chien standing on the back of his chair, then slipping between the instrument and his bowing arm. Richard Dehmel’s poem is anything but humorous, but this comic interlude was very welcome. Intense feelings returned with the third movement of Janáček’s Second String Quartet, “Intimate Letters”, a 1928 work of expressionistic urgency motivated by the composer’s obsessive love for Kamila Stösslová, outlined in 600 or so letters written to her over an 11-year period. Its emotions, if not the work’s date of composition, neatly anticipated Verklärte Nacht.
The Schoenberg was one of those totally involving performances, given with concentrated intensity, its emotional dramas, internal monologues and private fears vividly conveyed. Schoenberg’s scoring is a miracle of clarity where each instrument is often given lyrical phrases, sometimes echoing the dialogue between the two lovers in the manner of a vocal duet. The players responded to the work’s rapture with demonstrable affection, at one point Mullova and Mönkemeyer playing in unison, exquisitely capturing the moment of reconciliation. Thereafter, the work’s radiant lyricism soared with an unequivocal fervour, the final section now suffused with an iridescent glow, compassion explicit. Alexander Zemlinsky told Schoenberg that it sounded as if he had taken “a still-wet version of the Tristan score and smeared it”. This account brought to the fore the genius of Schoenberg and the exceptional qualities of the Mullova Ensemble. Altogether, an absorbing evening, if one where closed eyes occasionally brought the deepest joy.
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