Join us for a rare performance with this outstanding group of musicians

 David Marks  violin          Regi Papa  violin
Luke Flemming  viola         Andy Lin  viola
Jing Li  cello           Nan-Cheng Chen  cello
Read more about the musicians

Tickets in advance $20
Tickets at the door $25

Arnold Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht
(Transfigured Night) Op. 4, is a string sextet in one movement composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1899. Composed in just three weeks, it is considered his earliest important work. It was inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name, combined with the influence of Schoenberg’s strong feelings upon meeting Mathilde von Zemlinsky (the sister of his teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky), whom he would later marry. The movement can be divided into five distinct sections which refer to the five stanzas of Dehmel’s poem.

Dehmel’s poem describes a man and woman walking through a dark forest on a moonlit night. The woman shares a dark secret with her new lover: she bears the child of another man. The stages of Dehmel’s poem are reflected throughout the composition, beginning with the sadness of the woman’s confession, a neutral interlude wherein the man reflects upon the confession, and a finale reflecting the man’s bright acceptance (and forgiveness) of the woman: O sieh, wie klar das Weltall schimmert! Es ist ein Glanz um Alles her (See how brightly the universe gleams! There is a radiance on everything).

The second half brings Tchaikovsky’s, Souvenir de Florence. The String Sextet in D minor “Souvenir de Florence”, Op. 70, is a string sextet scored for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos composed in the European summer of 1890 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society in response to his becoming an Honorary Member. The work, in the traditional four-movement form, was titled “Souvenir de Florence” because the composer sketched one of the work’s principal themes while visiting Florence, Italy, where he composed The Queen of Spades. The work was revised between December 1891 and January 1892, before being premiered in 1892.

Doors open at 6:30 pm,
concert begins promptly at 7pm