Het Collectief: Transfigurations: Schönberg-Berg
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On previous recordings, Het Collectief—Wibert Aerts (violin), Julien Hervé (clarinet), Thomas Dieltjens (piano), Toon Fret (flute), and Martijn Vink (cello)—directed attention to works by Janacek and Mahler; on Transfigurations the Brussels-founded chamber quintet focuses on the Second Viennese School and two of its central figures, Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) and Alban Berg (1885-1935). As the prime mover behind dodecaphony, the former is justifiably seen as a revolutionary, and Berg was no slouch in that department either. But anyone who in 2023 still regards the music of the Second Viennese School as daunting can relax. Transfigurations presents their music at its most welcoming; of all Schönberg's works, none, for example, connects with more immediacy than Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”).

He viewed himself as a composer carrying on traditions established by his predecessors as opposed to someone making a complete break from them. Verklärte Nacht certainly makes a compelling argument for Schönberg's position when echoes of Brahms and Wagner hover faintly in the distance, and the transcription by pianist Eduard Steuermann feels so natural, you could be forgiven for imagining Schönberg wrote it for piano trio rather than strings. Inspired by a Richard Dehmel poem in which a husband learns that his wife has been impregnated by another (he later forgives her and accepts the child), the work mirrors the dramatic trajectory of the text; if anything, the work seems even more suited to Steuermann's masterful arrangement when exchanges between the married partners are suggested by the interplay of cello and violin. Assuming the character of a symphonic tone poem, Het Collectief's treatment is distinguished by intimacy and sensitivity to texture and timbre. After a brooding intro, the music blossoms into outpourings that grow ever more tempestuous, so much so that it's easy to visualize the passionate to-and-fro between the partners. While some passages are marked by emotional turbulence, others are serene, perhaps intimating forgiveness and acceptance on the husband's part, and even rapturous (witness the intensifying dialogue between the string soloists during “Sehr Breit Und Langsam”). Taken on purely musical terms, the work remains a thing of enduring beauty, no matter the arrangement deployed.

Anton Webern, Schönberg's other famous protégé, is credited with the arrangement Het Collectief performs of Kammersymphonie, which shows a pronounced development in the composer's writing when heard in the company of Verklärte Nacht. In its full arrangement, the polyphonic work involves fifteen soloists; for his version, Webern used the same instrumentation as in Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire: two wind instruments, two string instruments, and piano. While four movements are distilled into one in the work proper, Het Collectief's recorded treatment advances through five indexed parts. Opening spiritedly, the work fluidly advances through contrasting episodes, some dramatic and agitated and others lyrical and wistful. The work's engaging on its own terms, even more so when given such an inspired reading by the quintet.

Transfigurations concludes memorably with two single-movement works by Berg. Het Collectief commissioned composer Tim Mulleman to create a chamber transcription of the Piano Sonata in B Minor using the same instrumentation as in the Kammersymphonie. The joyful exuberance of the latter is supplanted by the introspective, angst-ridden probing of the sonata, though common to both works is the enriching, multi-hued counterpoint of the instruments. The set ends with Berg's own arrangement of the "Adagio" from his Kammerkonzert, which, interestingly, was conceived as something of a musical homage to the Second Viennese School as the composer incorporated the names of its three central figures into the tone rows and presented the work to Schönberg for his fiftieth birthday. In its original form, Kammerkonzert accompanies piano and violin with thirteen wind instruments; in Het Collectief's hands, interactions between the instruments are marked by clarity and transparency when fewer voices are involved. While balance is achieved between the instruments, it's hard not to notice Aerts when his violin playing imposes itself so strongly on the performance. That said, one could make the claim just as easily about Dieltjens and Hervé. Again passages of lyrical introspection alternate with impassioned expressions, though here a palindromic design has been used so artfully one would likely remain unaware of it without being informed otherwise.

April 2023