Transfiguration isn't a word you come across very often.  Well, of course Transfiguration became a whole discipline in the world of Harry Potter.  And although I must confess that I have imagined foregoing laboratory experiments for a Transfiguration class with Professor McGonagall, I'll be going in a slightly different direction today.   Instead, I'm thinking about the more general concept of transfiguration and the poem and string sextet both by the name Verklärte Nacht - Transfiguration Night.  You can find the basic background on Wikipedia - Verklärte Nacht is one of Arnold Schoenberg's early works, and combines Romanticism with something new.  He wrote it in just three weeks in 1899 using Richard Dehmel's poem (1896) and his romantic feelings for his future wife as inspiration.  Richard Dehmel From  Hamburgische Männer und Frauen am Anfang des XX. Jahrhunderts , Hamburg 1905   (see also  Image ,  Zeno.org , ID number  20001864742 ) The poem and the music, whic