In Bed With Schoenberg

In bed with who now? Arnold Schoenberg, 20^th century composer, theorist, and inventor of serialism; a hugely influential figure in the world of modern “classical” music, i.e. music for orchestras. Nope, me neither, but Nicola knows all about him. 

In Bed With Schoenberg is on at Circa. It’s basically a one-man show, with a string quartet for accompaniment. The original actor, Andrew Laing, was unable to continue in the role due to unforeseen circumstances, but Circa stalwart Gavin Rutherford was able to step up and take over. We’ve seen him in numerous productions since we’ve been in New Zealand, and his shuffling, grumpy old man has been played almost to death. It would have been interesting to see someone else do it, but it wasn’t to be. Nevertheless, he gave a spectacular performance as Schoenberg in the evening of 13^th July 1951, the day of his death; recalling his past life, his family, his students and friends, and “the shy country boy”. When “the shy country boy” took power in Germany, Schoenberg moved to the US, and poured contempt upon his countrymen for so enthusiastically embracing Nazism. The show was liberally interspersed with music, as he illustrated not just his own work, but also those of other notable pieces relevant to the story – everything from Mozart to Mahler, Bach to Berg, and all points in between. As one of the early proponents of dissonance, his work was often poorly received, and he was regularly booed when premiering his new pieces. All of this is revealed as he tells his life story - heavily edited, of course – as an unreliable witness. At the end (spoiler alert) he dies, as the quartet play Mahler’s Adagietto from Symphony No.5.

Nicola was on ushering duty so we had to hang around a bit and tidy up afterwards, but we were in good time to get down the road to Capitol, for dinner. We’ve not been there in a while (they’ve had reduced opening due to staff shortages, same as everyone else in the post-apocalypse; but as Bluff oyster season has just begun, I felt a revisit was timely. The standard is, as ever, excellent, and yes, I had a half-dozen Bluff oysters to start, followed by venison. Proper restaurant food! Nicola had the bruschetta to start, followed by tarakihi. All good stuff, and quite rich too – so much so that we didn’t linger for pudding.