I was looking for something else on the web when I came across a bit of information which would make a great question in a specialised musical pub quiz: where did the world premier of the orchestral version of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht take place?
Vienna? Paris? Berlin? London? ...Actually is was in Newcastle! It was conducted by Edward Clarke, later to be contemporary music adviser to the BBC and the main UK champion of the composer's music.
Now it is no disrespect to Newcastle to say that it is not the first place that one would associate with the music of Schoenberg. But in fact the UK was an important centre of early Schoenberg performances, most famously Henry Wood's performance of the 5 Orchestral Pieces at the Proms in 1912 Stick to it gentlemen: this is nothing to what you will have to play in 25 year's time!
I spent some time studying Verklärte Nacht at university and always retain an affection for it. The beginning and the end are magical , though I do think that it does get bogged down in places in the middle. Some of it dangerously approaches Kitch.........
I still have a very sketchy knowledge of Schoenberg's music - I must have heard most of it at some time or another but I don't really have any strong memories or impressions of it. As far as I remember I've never played any Schoenberg in the orchestra , though I did learn some of the easier piano pieces as a student.
One final memory is of one of our lecturers saying, almost in a confidential whisper, that after years of study and efforts s/he had reached the conclusion that Schoenberg was actually unmusical! This lecturer was by no means an anti-modernist and had very broad taste, but could just not get on Schoenberg's wavelength! In the 1970s, when total serialism was very much in vogue, this amounted to heresy - which is why I am protecting identities!
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