Decoda ~ Verklärte Nacht

A sextet of string players now joined the pianist for Clara Schumann’s “Geheimes Flüstern“, in an arrangement by Clara Lyon; this brought forth soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, her voice light and charming.  

Mr. Meglioranza stepped forward again for Gustav Mahler’s “Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald” (arranged by Brad Balliett), expressively sung.

Alma Mahler’s “Licht in der Nacht” was sung by Ms. Fitz-Gibbon in an arrangement by Terry Cook (could this be the Terry Cook, a popular Met Opera basso who sang nearly 200 performances with the Company from 1983 to 2006?), accompanied by the sextet.

During this lieder segment of the program, Ms. Fitz-Gibbon and Mr. Meglioranza did not lend an operatic feeling to their singing, but rather sounded like they were performing among friends at the Schumann’s salon.

[Special note: anyone with an interest in Alma Mahler’s life and work should seek out the film Bride of the Wind.]

From the concluding Alma Mahler song, the music led directly into the Schoenberg masterpiece, Verklärte Nacht; the players were Anna Elashvili and Clara Lyon (violins), James Thompson and George Meyer (violas), and Hannah Collins and Claire Bryant (cellos).

The work was inspired by a collection of poems by Richard Dehmel published in 1896. Entitled Weib und Welt (Woman and the World), the saga speaks of a man and a woman as they walk through the moonlit woods on a frigid but clear winter evening. Guilt leads the woman to admit that, craving motherhood, she had become pregnant by another man before meeting and falling in love with her current amour. The woman stumbles miserably on in the silent darkness; but then the man tells her, “Do not let the child you carry burden your soul.” He pledges that he will love and care for the unborn child as if it were his own. They embrace, and they continue their walk on into the night, their love transfigured thru forgiveness.

Played without break, the score mirrors the five sections of the poem: throughout, Schoenberg continuously transforms themes and motifs into an expressive musical depiction of the poem. The composer travels the road from the opening line of the poem – “Two people walk through bleak, cold woods…” to its marvelous finale: “Two people walk through exalted, shining night….”

The playing by the Decoda artists was nothing less than sublime; as individual voices, and in their harmonizing and phrasing, the sextet summoned all the magic that the composer packed into his writing. Of special note was cellist Hannah Collins, whose rich-toned playing was both poetic and powerful.

Despite what seemed to me a riveting performance thus far, audience distractions during the first half of the program were especially annoying, climaxing with a dropped metal water bottle at a particularly poignant moment in the Schoenberg. Although the second half the program certainly sounded interesting –  a work by four composers featuring all the evening’s artists – I decided to head out, taking the memories of the Schoenberg home with me.