Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande; Verklärte Nacht in Bloomington, MN

Arnold Schoenberg
's
Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5
, and
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4
, have been paired many times, not just for the love triangle theme that underlies both works (
Verklärte Nacht
, though textless, is inspired by a
Richard Dehmel
poem), but also for their common language, late-late Romantic and ultra-chromatic. In the wrong hands, they can really drag. They may not appeal to all, even in the right ones (it is noticeable how little attention the 150th anniversary of
Schoenberg
's birth attracted from the recording industry), but conductor
Rafael Payare
and the
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal
make an unusually strong case for them.
Payare
's textures in
Pelleas und Melisande
manage the difficult combination of violence and mysterious lightness in
's score (this is what fascinated a bizarrely large range of composers from
Fauré
to
Sibelius
Mel Bonis
, in addition to
). In
,
seems to be taking the music quickly. Actually, at over 29 minutes, he is slightly slower than average, but he gives the score a rare sense of forward motion, with impressive clarity brought to
's dense lines. There are some editorial errors. The second section of
here is the Principal Theme, not the Principle Theme, and since this is an Austrian work, not a French one, Melisande should not have any accent mark; indeed, the fascinating front page of
's score is included in the booklet, with no accent on the name. This is a strong reading of these works from a conductor clearly on the rise. ~ James Manheim