Track Listing

1. No. 1, Premonitions
2. No. 2, The Past
3. No. 3, Chord-Colours
4. No. 4, Peripetie (Turning point)
5. No. 5, The Obbligato Recitative
6. No. 1, Leicht, zart
7. No 2, Langsam
8. No. 3, Sehr langsam
9. No. 4, Rasch, aber leicht
10. No. 5, Etwas rasch
11. No. 6, Sehr langsam
12. No. 1, Massig-Langsam
13. No. 2, Sehr langsam
14. No. 3, Sehr rasch (w/Landler as Trio)
15. No. 4, Langsam
16. No. 1, Langsam in G major
17. No. 2, Langsam in F major
18. Sehr m�ssig (at a very moderate speed)
19. Sehr schell (very quickly)
20. Ruhig flie�end (calm, flowing)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #377141 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-26
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

An enjoyable miscellany
This is the second of two discs recorded by Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony Chamber Players and devoted to the music of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern). The first disc was focused around Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments and Schoenberg's rarely-recorded Wind Quintet; this disc concentrates primarily on shorter works.

We hear Schoenberg's seminal Five Pieces for Orchestra, written in 1909, in a version for chamber orchestra by Felix Greissle. Despite the reduced scoring (the original calls for a large orchestra, though often used in a chamber-music-like manner), much of this work survives the transition well even if the last two movements feel somewhat denuded. This reading is sympathetic and well-attuned to the idiom (I particularly like Eschenbach's impressively broad reading of the second piece) and although this version of the work is very much a curiosity, it is one that Schoenberg fans will be glad to hear.

Eschenbach switches to the piano for the rest of the program. Schoenberg's Six Little Piano Pieces from 1911 receive an usually slow reading, but one that brings out the restrained colours and moods of these masterly atonal miniatures well. Less subdued are Berg's Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, from 1913. Schoenberg's withering criticism of these pieces--he felt they were too short and too Schoenbergian--may have been partly right, but Berg's own lyricism is only too obvious, particularly in the slow final piece. The performance here is good without being outstanding.

Continuing with the world of concision, Webern's unpublished 1914 Cello Sonata lasts a whole two minutes. It is very typical of the composer's style at that point, with its sudden, violent changes of mood and dramatic use of silences. By contrast, the Two Pieces for Cello Sonata, written in 1899, when the composer was 16, are essentially high-quality salon music.

Berg's Chamber Concerto is generally considered to be one of his thorniest works, and perhaps one of the reasons for arranging the Adagio for piano, violin and clarinet was to clarify the lyricism that in poorer performances gets lost in a mass of detail. Certainly, the atonally melodic nature of this work comes over very clearly in this fine performance.

Eschenbach closes the disc with the only serial work on it, Webern's Variations for Piano, written in 1936. This work isn't really a variation set--only the last of the three movements is in variation form, coming as it does after a rather ambivalent opening and a witty second movement complete with off-centre accents. This rather low-voltage performance, unfortunately, doesn't measure up to the classic readings of Rosen, Pollini and others.

This disc is unlikely to appeal to those not already fans of the music of this Viennese trio. Those already admirers of the three composers, though, will find much to enjoy here.

Dissonant bliss
I was looking for a variety of atonal miniatures and I found it on this recording. None of the pieces are cheery, all are mysterious and forlorn sounding. Excellent CD to keep you company on a cold, lonely night camping in the middle of nowhere. TT 68:23