Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht is not only the illustration of an intense text but a tangible reflection of the intense period in Schoenberg’s life during which it was written. Therefore, the inevitable paring-down that it will experience when presented in its piano trio form, as it is here by the Dutch Osiris Quartet, is likely to stop its dramatic impact in its tracks. The piece was arranged a number of times out of its original 1899 string sextet version and it’s unlikely Schoenberg ever even heard this one, made by his friend, the pianist and composer Eduard Steuermann as a present for one of his pupils in 1932. It is very difficult to paint the pictures Schoenberg does so effectively in the original with so many fewer lines. The changes in contrast are so subtle that Steuermann’s arrangement is unable to plough the right resources into the music’s needs. Karl Weigl’s String Trio suffers in a similar way: there is much of the Schoenberg in this piece (barring some very beautiful solo passages in the slow movement) but it is impossible to make the intended comparisons here because the Steuermann lacks the multitudinous dimensions of Schoenberg’s own version.

It would be wrong, though, to believe the failings of the music lie in the performance, for its shortcomings are all in the arrangement itself. The Osiris Quartet go far towards carding out the Cabaret subversiveness that inflates the music into something truly tragic (and slightly creepy), and honour the German high-Romantic ideals that Schoenberg looked back to. But there are subtleties missing here, emasculated from the music by Steuermann, which they cannot simply magic out of nowhere.