Transfigured

The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, here a string sextet, build a ravishing turn-of-the-20th-century Viennese programme around Schoenberg’s haunting Verklärte Nacht, inspired by a Richard Dehmel poem that describes a couple walking at dusk. The woman confesses she is pregnant by another man, but their love transfigures what could have torn them apart into something powerfully uniting. The rich textures are woven together by these superb chamber musicians with faultless emotional engagement: the climactic “Sehr ruhig” is truly heartbreaking. The album opens with Zemlinsky’s passionate Maiblumen blühten überall (May flowers bloomed everywhere) setting another Dehmel verse, and featuring soprano Francesca Chiejina. Webern’s lush, almost Brahmsian Piano Quintet (with Tom Poster superb at the keyboard) leads to four songs by Alma Mahler, two to words by Dehmel, and again sung with exquisite sensitivity by Chiejina.