"Sensuality and Decay"

I just received word of a Schoenberg recital in New York on February 20th featuring soprano Claudia Friedlander, tenor Matthew Tuell, and pianist Lloyd Arriola.  The recital is titled "Arnold Schoenberg: Sensuality and Decay." On her blog, The Liberated Voice, Ms. Friedlander writes:

While I enjoy an extremely wide and varied musical appetite, Arnold Schoenberg's pre-twelve tone works have a visceral impact on me that is completely unlike anything else I've ever heard or performed. Schoenberg's early tonal compositions and his free atonal works evoke complex psychological and emotional states with such beauty – at moments luxuriously ecstatic, at others intolerably painful…and frequently both at the same time.

On Sunday, February 20 at 3pm, tenor Matthew Tuell and pianist Lloyd Arriola will join me for a program featuring two of Schoenberg's major song cycles. Matthew will perform the 8 Lieder Op. 6, and I will sing Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (The Book of the Hanging Gardens). If you're in the New York area, I hope you'll join us and and see for yourself why I love this music so much. 

Please go to Ms. Friedlander's blog for more information and venue location.

Anyone who attends this recital is encouraged to return to this post afterward and leave your impressions of the music and performance in the Schoenberg blog's Comment section.