If Schoenberg's music has at last found a place in audiences' hearts, his tone-poem Verklärte Nacht can take a lot of the credit. His astute decision to arrange his stringent 1902 sextet for string orchestra in 1917 is a major reason why: the effect was to soften its raw intensity with a luxuriant warmth and richness that serves it well.
Even in this form, though, its often exposed textures can be unforgiving, and anything less than total control shows. The arrangement has its full-blooded moments, but Schoenberg retained some of the sextet's immediacy by keeping his textures thin and soloistic. Kent Nagano's restrained approach exacerbated the fragility of these moments rather more than felt comfortable, and this was especially noticeable in the gentle off-beat pizzicato passage after the sudden move to D major, which felt oddly lifeless.
Although it was refreshing to hear the secondary parts in far sharper relief than usual, the effect was slightly disruptive, mainly because they tended to sound garbled. With more rehearsal time, Nagano could probably have got the performance he wanted; as it was, it sounded like work in progress.
Any performance of Schubert's Fifth Symphony stands or falls on the quality of the wind playing. Brought to life, each phrase radiates joy and vitality; flattened out, the whole work simply dies on its feet. It was an ideal showcase for the Hallé wind, who played superbly; even when not playing, they could be seen swaying happily from side to side.
The whole work sounded as effortless as only a really well-crafted performance can. Corners were turned with a grace that does not come by itself - the transition from minuet to trio was especially well done - and the trio itself was miraculous.
Composed a mere 13 years before Verklärte Nacht, Richard Strauss's Tod und Verklärung was clearly Schoenberg's model. The two works share the same close relationship to a programme, the same oppressive, brooding opening mood, the same sudden passionate surges, and the same striving for the light: D major for Schoenberg, C major for Strauss. All of its colours, from the muted death scenes to the gloriously expansive transfiguration theme, were vividly painted.
Dying was, Strauss confided in 1949, exactly as he had composed it 60 years earlier: if this performance was anything to go by, we can all die happy.
