@ Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, 455 Fair Oaks St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) sextet fill this program with rich romanticism. Tchaikovsky’s quartet evokes ballet in its fast movements and its famous second movement is sweetly lyrical. Dense with chromaticism, Transfigured Night was written by the young Schoenberg in 1899 before his embrace of atonality. It is romantic writing in the extreme, telling the story of lovers in the night, a dark confession, and a transformative forgiveness.
