Unintentional or not, it is always easy to find links in music. In his ‘Fremde Szenen’, Wolfgang Rihm makes a conscious attempt to restore the bewilderment of Schumann’s first audiences. By transposing certain archetypically Schumannesque motifs into a twentieth-century sound language, he reveals formerly unheard resonances between the old and new. Schoenberg’s ‘Transfigured Night’ also ties in with the composer from Saxony. As in his first piano trio, the work starts gloomy in d minor and ends blissful in D major. Or as the underlying poem by Richard Dehmel puts it: 'above the cold and barren grove shimmers the sublime, luminous night...'
Thomas Dieltjens, piano
Wibert Aerts, violin
Martijn Vink, cello