Richard Dehmel's Transfigured Night

In 1896, Richard Dehmel released a collection of poems Weib und Welt (Woman and World), causing a prodigious amount of controversy amongst the public for its erotic language. Despite this controversy, Dehmel’s texts influenced German and Austrian composers of the time, such as Richard Strauss, Anton Webern and Alexander von Zemlinsky. Nonetheless, Dehmel had the greatest influence on Arnold Schöenberg, who wrote a letter to Dehmel on 13 December 1917 stating that ‘your poems have had a decisive influence on my development as a composer. They were what first made me try to find a new tone in the lyrical mood’. (Auner & Schöenberg, 2003: 119) As a result of this, Schöenberg retained multiple poems from Dehmel’s Weib und Welt and set the texts to his compositions, one of them being ‘Lieder opus 2’, where three out of the four pieces are inspired by Dehmel: Erwartung, Jesus bettelt and Erhebung. Although, Verklärte Nacht (‘Transfigured Night’), has received the most recognition and is considered to be Schöenberg’s first major work. Composed in 1899, the tone poem was originally arranged for a string sextet: two violins, two violas and
Section B is the woman’s confession of her sins and Section C is the man’s merciful response. Each time Section A reappears it ‘transfigures’ the mood of the scene. The first time it is heard at Sehr langsam, it depicts an anxious character. The second time at Schwer betont it portrays heartbreak and distress, whereas the final time at Sehr ruhig we feel a sense of happiness and relief. This form not set structurally by Schöenberg while he was composing Verklärte Nacht, as when he composed he preferred using the method of developing each variation, where he would develop certain themes and motives to their fullest