During the Romantic era, absolute music and literary-inspired compositions clashed. Brahms' melancholic First String Sextet and Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht come together in a unique collaboration.
While a literal war was being fought for German unification, the German Romantics were embroiled in a figurative battle. The conservative circle around Johannes Brahms followed an aesthetic of absolute music, whereas Franz Liszt and the New German School were oriented towards literature. Arnold Schönberg’s early works still followed Brahms’ example, but he was seduced by the theatricality of Wagner. Verklärte Nacht for six stringed instruments, inspired by poetry, marks this transition. The addition of a viola and a cello to the string quartet creates a warm, often melancholic basis and offers greater possibilities for counterpoint. Forty years previously, Brahms had revived the genre with his First Sextet. In this clash of composers, Simply Quartet and Leonkoro Quartet swap their musicians.
