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SCHOENBERG / VFO / PAPPANO
Michael Barenboim – Lucas Debargue
Open your musical mind to Schoenberg's alternate universe with Antonio Pappano at the helm of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, joined by soloists Michael Barenboim and Lucas Debargue.
Programme
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
Violin Concerto Op. 36
Piano Concerto Op. 42
‘Verklärte Nacht’ Op. 4
Distribution
- VERBIER FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
- Antonio Pappano conductor
- Michael Barenboim violin
- Lucas Debargue piano
Schoenberg wrote his expressive Violin Concerto between 1934 and 1936. Structurally it’s Neoclassical, consisting of a sonata form allegro, an andante, and a rondo finale. Harmonically it’s 12-tone, but perhaps the violinist’s greatest challenges are technical ones. Jascha Heifetz apparently claimed it required six fingers, before Berg Violin Concerto commissioner Louis Krasner mastered it for the 1940 premiere. The four seamlessly running movements of the Piano Concerto from 1942 are also 12-tone, although with tonal-sounding intervals in its row, and a surprise C major final chord. By contrast, Verklärte Nacht is clearly tonal, albeit highly chromatic. Inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name, this 1899 work portrays a couple walking in the night, whose troubles—the woman is pregnant with another man’s child— are eventually transfigured by their love, and the night’s beauty.