The Vienna String Sextet performs Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht

The Vienna String Sextet, legendary for its recordings and performances from 1981 through 2004, was composed of two violinists, two violists, and two cellists. Discover their unique and enduring alchemy in this 1996 classic dedicated to Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) — the same piece with which they closed out their illustrious collaboration together in 2004.

Schoenberg's name can sometimes intimidate music lovers, neophytes and veterans alike, for its association with twelve-tone techniques — but this youthful work, though boldly chromatic, is a more accessible tone poem with shades of post-Romanticism and notes of Brahms and Wagner. Dedicated to Mathilde Zemlinsky, future wife of the composer, this work brims with exultant melodies and ingeniously written treasures, like the sublimely deployed pizzicato in the final measures of the last movement…