Human and Divine

The two composers that we’ll hear today draw on very different textual materials for their work. Nicolaus Bruhns, a seventeenth century German composer, set Biblical Psalms in his two sacred concerti. Arnold Schoenberg’s string sextet Verklärte Nacht, or “Transfigured Night,” is based on a poem which describes a man and woman talking in moonlit woods. Containing daring erotic and social themes, it was considered risqué even to the modernist circles in turn-of-the century Vienna. Yet despite...