Track Listing

1. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Marsch
2. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Menuett
3. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Variationen
4. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Sonett von Petraca: "O könnt' ich je der Rach' an ihr genesen"
5. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Tanzscene
6. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Lied (ohne Worte)
7. Serenade for baritone & septet, Op. 24: Finale
8. Pieces (5) for orchestra, Op. 16: No. 1, Premonitions
9. Pieces (5) for orchestra, Op. 16: No. 2, The Past
10. Pieces (5) for orchestra, Op. 16: No. 3, Chord-Colours
11. Pieces (5) for orchestra, Op. 16: No. 4, Peripetie (Turning point)
12. Pieces (5) for orchestra, Op. 16: No. 5, The Obbligato Recitative
13. Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, for narrator, piano & strings, Op. 41

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19794 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1993-07-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.com
Schoenberg's Serenade is comparable to Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. Both works are effective modernist parodies of classical genres. But unlike Stravinsky, Schoenberg's treatments of marches and waltzes are never coolly burlesque, but hyper expressive--indeed, expressionist. Pierre Boulez conducts his Ensemble InterContemporain, underlining the music's prickly sonorities and metallic edges. In his interpretation, the expertly separated timbres are the hinge of the composition. Also on the disc is a classic reading of the Five Pieces for Orchestra and the curious Ode to Napoleon, a work for ensemble with narrator. --Joshua Cody

Customer Reviews

A Devastating Five Pieces - A desert island CD
I still remember the first time I heard this recording of Boulez conducting the Five Pieces. I had heard the work before but the degree of electricity here was something that came as a complete shock to me. From the first note to last this Five Pieces is totally devastating. This is a performance that makes Schoenberg's Mahlerian heritage absolutely clear only he is so much more concentrated and focused in his delivery that the results for me are just shattering. The rapport that Boulez enjoyed with the BBC orchestra at this time is something I have always marvelled at but this takes it to another level. Of course the inner movements are also allowed moments of hushed poetic repose but the outer movements really do remind me of what Robert Craft said of the final pages of the last of the Five Pieces - that it was the greatest thing written in the twentieth century. That statement really surprised me and I think maybe it was a spur of the moment outburst but Boulez does a greater job than anybody of convincing me of its truth.

As for the Seranade, I love this performance. Schoenberg always had a great awareness of early music - perhaps inherited from Brahms. Webern of course even wrote his PhD thesis on Heinrich Isaac's Choralis Constantinus and in his writings Schoenberg refers to composers such as Josquin reasonably frequently. It is highly likely he was also familiar with the madrigals of the late Renaissance period, referred to the Seconda Prattica by Monteverdi. Poets such as Petrach and Tasso were popular amongst madrigal composers and the madrigalian feeling is even further accentuated by the use of instruments such as the mandolin for accompaniment making it sound even more like a twentieth century madrigal. It is a charming and enjoyable work, quirky and mercurial.

The final work on this CD is the Ode to Napolean in which Schoenberg spits vitriolic hatred at Hitler. I have always found Schoenberg's command of English language inflections to be less than perfect - you can hear a slight German accent in the Sprechstimme. Musically by this time Schoenberg starts to also sound increasingly more and more like Brahms and the opening statement by the string quartet and piano has a theme vaguely reminiscent of the opening of the finale of the Brahms Opus 25 G minor piano quartet (the one Schoenberg transcribed for orchestra)! Boulez has always been critical of this tendency in the later Schoenberg but I must confess to liking it. The work is a tour de force - fiery and passionate, yet uplifting and hugely appealling such that I am always surprised it is not played more often, especially when it pays such glowing hommage in the closing passages to George Washington.

All in all this is a desert island CD for me - most especially for the Five Pieces, which is one of the greatest performances of anything I have yet to hear.

A convert
I would like to speak in regards to what some reviewers are saying about the works of Schoenberg. I will admit that the first time I heard Schoenberg, I wrote him off as weird music that I would never like and was not worth listening to. In my defense, the first work I heard was "Pierrot Lunaire" which is a very hard work to understand. But I was assigned a paper of the Second Viennese School and its influences for music history and was forced to really listen to these works among others by much more extreme composers like Boulez and Cage (who I have yet to understand, but I am still young!) Once I stopped grumbling about how much I hated serialism and let myself really HEAR the music, I started to understand it and gained a begrudging respect for Schoenberg, which became a genuine liking. So in light of this, I dare anyone who is so willing to bash Schoenberg outright to really listen to his works and the works of those he influenced with an open mind and see if you can't at least respect the music for what it is.

Music for Adults of All Ages
This music like all of Schoenberg's music is meant for people who listen seriously. Those who take the time and make the effort can hardly fail to hear the great charm (Serenade) or passionate depth (Five Pieces)or great moral weight (Ode) of this great and greatly misrepresented composer. Boulez's music making with his own Ensemble InterContemporain or the BBC Symphony are very fine and the recorded sound very clear.