It's not British, but...Pelléas and Mélisande: Schoenberg and Fauré

The listener needs to know that both these great works are predicated on Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s (1862-1949) five act play, Pelléas et Mélisande. This was completed in 1892 and was premiered the following year. I understand that it is regarded as a highlight of French Symbolist drama. This genre became popular in the late 19th century. It put an emphasis on atmosphere, feeling, and the numinous, using poetic language and abstract settings to explore themes of spirituality, dreams, and the subconscious.

The “plot” involves a love triangle between the three main characters: Pelléas, Mélisande, and a certain Golaud, who is Mélisande’s husband and Pelléas’s half-brother. The backdrop to the action is an imaginary country, during medieval times. Reviewers of the play have explained that Maeterlinck emphasises atmosphere over plot, by creating a “dreamlike fairy tale about the terrifying power of love.”

Over the years, composers have been inspired by the play, including incidental music by Jean Sibelius and the operatic masterpiece by Claude Debussy.

The two works on this disc are hugely different. Gabriel Fauré’s op.80 was originally incidental music for a London performance of the play in 1898 whilst Schoeneberg’s op.5 was a tone-poem written in a full-blown late-Romantic style.

Originally, there were twenty separate numbers of stage music, which Fauré had devised in under a month. His pupil Charles Koechlin produced the orchestral score in time for the play’s London premiere. Three years later, Fauré gathered up various fragments to create the Suite. There were originally three movements: Prélude, Fileuse, and La mort de Mélisande, with the famous Sicilienne being added some years later. This latter piece was originally part of an “uncompleted stage music project.”

The Prélude sets a serious tone, while Fileuse portrays Mélisande’s spinning wheel, creating a filigree of movement. The Sicilienne depicts the lovers’ short-lived happiness: it has a charming melody which is justifiably popular. Finally, La mort de Mélisande leaves the listener in a sad, but thoughtful mood. Overall, Fauré has captured the story’s “mysterious, enchanted, cryptic” tempers. This is aided by sophisticated orchestration and a rich harmonic palette.

I discovered Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, op.5 (1902) several years after having been introduced to his atonal and dodecaphonic music. And it came as a major surprise. Here was a strong, romantic sounding tone poem that sounded more Wagnerian or Straussian than the expressionist sound world of Pierrot Lunaire, the string quartets, or piano pieces with which I was familiar.

Richard Strauss had suggested to the 27-year-old Schoenberg that he should write a work based on Maeterlinck’s play. This was to have been an opera, but finally he decided to craft a tone poem.

The critic Harry Neville summed up the creative process (Sleeve Note Angel 36509): “Unlike the incidental music of Fauré and Sibelius, Schoenberg’s Pelleas is no mere delineation of character and atmosphere; in it the composer attempts not only to narrate musically the action of the drama, but to depict the psychological implications as well – all within the confines of a vast sonata form.”

Pelleas und Melisande is long, lasting for more than forty minutes. It is conceived as a single movement divided up into eleven interrelated sections. Schoenberg wrote that “Aside from a few omissions and minor alterations in the sequence of scenes…I tried to reflect every detail…”  In fact, it is customary to analyse it as a “symphony” rather than a “symphonic poem.” Alban Berg has suggested that “in the four principal sections of this work we can even identify clearly the four movements of a symphony.” The initial sonata form is followed by a scherzo, a slow movement, and a rondo-like finale, that recaps much that has gone before.

The progress of the tone poem is constructed from leitmotifs and themes associated with the individual characters in the play. Also represented by musical tropes are the various external forces at play: jealousy, fate, death, and love. These are often superimposed on each other, with deft contrapuntal skill. Berg categorized twenty themes. Also, instrumental colouring is used to identify the characters – Pelleas, trumpet; Golaud, horn; and Melisande, cor anglais.

The work was completed in 1903 and was premiered at the Musikverein in Vienna on 26 January 1905. This caused great consternation amongst the audience and the critics.

For the listener unacquainted with Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, the stylistic markers are Wagner and Strauss, with hints of Mahler and Brahms. Yet, this is not a pastiche, but a glorious synthesis of the received musical language of the late nineteenth century.

The playing by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi is faultless, the recording is ideal. The booklet with notes by Adam Gellen is essential reading: it is printed in German, English and French.

This CD presents two wonderfully contrasting explorations of Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Both are a pleasure to listen to.

Track Listing

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Pelleas und Melisande, op.5 (1902)
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Pelléas et Mélisande, op.80 (1898/1901)
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi
rec. October 2012, Alte Oper, Frankfurt (Schoenberg), January 2016 HR Sendesaal, Frankfurt (Fauré)
Alpha Classics Alpha 1058

 

 

It's not British, but...20th Century Middle European Flute Music

This CD features diverse works by four “Middle-European” composers. This can be loosely defined as countries to the west of Russia and to the east of France. The disc includes music by an Austrian of Czech origin, a Czech, a German, and an Austrian. Each of these men share a personal history that is “marked by persecution and emigration.” One, Emil František Burian was a prisoner in three concentration camps.

Born in Vienna on 23 August 1900, Ernst Krenek moved to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. There he taught in several universities. Stylistically, he is hard to pin down: at one time or another, he adopted atonality, serialism, neo-classicism, jazz, and electronics. His later music tended to be more accessible.  

The Suite for flute and piano dates from 1954. Composed in a neo-classical style, it does have a few atonal moments. It makes an attractive introduction to Krenek’s music. Despite being recorded here as a single track, it has four movements: Andante, Allegretto moderato, Andante con moto and Allegro vivace. It was premiered in Santiago, Chile on 5 July 1956. Krenek later arranged it for flute and string orchestra.

Emil František Burian is a new name to me. He was a bit of a polymath. Born in Plzeň in the Czech Republic during 1904, he became actively involved in music, poetry, film making, and the theatre. He was also a journalist, a political activist in the Czech Communist Party and, latterly, a parliamentarian. Burian was interned by the Germans between 1941 and 1945, but survived Theresienstadt, Dachau and Neuengamme.  The present Ztracené Serenády (Lost Serenades) was completed in 1940. It is easy going and presents no problems for the listener. Once again, it is devised in four movements: Cantabile, Na jednu, volně a zpěvně, velmi zpěvně. The last three titles do not translate into idiomatic English - at least on Google! The present recording of this charming Serenade is a World Premiere. I will look out for other compositions by Emil František Burian.

Guernica will ever be remembered for one of the worst atrocities committed during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). The German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria blitzed this defenceless northern Spanish town in support of General Franco’s Nationalists. There were many deaths and injuries. Pablo Picasso was moved to paint his eponymous anti-war masterpiece in 1937.

Hamburg-born composer and conductor Paul Dessau (1894-1979) suffered from persecution by the Nazis. In 1933 he fled Germany, taking refuge first in Paris, then in the United States. After the cessation of hostilities, he eventually returned to East Berlin. His piano solo, Guernica, was produced in 1938. At the time he was living in Paris, so it is possible that he may have seen Picasso’s painting. This piano piece has all the hallmarks of 12-tone music. Yet, there is nothing overtly challenging here. Dessau uses the technique with flexibility, resulting in some lyrical passages as well as harder edged moments.

The major event on this CD is Felix Greissle’s transcription of Arnold Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet, op.26. It has been renamed “Sonate” for flute and piano. At the time, Greissle was a student living at Schoenberg’s house: he would eventually marry his eldest daughter, Trudi.

To be sure, the Quintet is one of “the most abstract, most brittle” of Schoenberg’s compositions. Its long duration of three quarters of an hour, make it quite a trial. Yet, historically, it is deemed to be a “classical work of the twelve-note-technique.”

The Quintet was written between 1923-1924. It is in four movements (Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and Rondo). Despite the use of serialism, there is a profound continuum between classical sonata form and modernism.

When Felix Greissle came to transcribe the Quintet, Schoenberg was adamant that no note of the original should be lost. To this end, every note not played by the flute was to be included in the piano part. I have not seen the score of the Sonate, but it must make it difficult for the pianist. One way or another, Greissle has managed to syntheses all five wind parts for the solo flute.

The opening movement presents themes, developments, recapitulations and even a coda. It may not seem obvious to the listener, though. Equally traditional, at least formally, is the quicksilver Scherzo. It may just be that it outstays its welcome. The heart of the Quintet is the Adagio, which is in “ternary form.” The concluding Rondo is the most congenial part of the work.

As part of my preparation for this review, I listened to the “original” Wind Quintet. Although it is difficult, I did begin to enjoy it. Certainly, I feel that the Sonate version is more approachable, and would serve as a worthy introduction for the stronger meat of the Quintet.

The Duo, featuring Luisa Sello (flute) and Bruno Canino (piano) give commanding performances of these four works, abetted by an excellent recording.

The liner notes by Danilo Prefumo give a good outline of the music and its context. They are a little too long-winded on the definition of “Middle-European” for the interests of most listeners. Suffice to say the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany is a good approximation as a locus. The booklet is printed in Italian and English.

This is a fascinating CD, featuring four composers who are quite different in character but are united in their response to political extremism.

Track Listing:
Ernst Heinrich Krenek (1900-91)
Suite for flute and piano (1954)
Emil František Burian (1904-59)
Ztracené Serenády for flute and piano (1940)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Guernica for piano (1938)
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
“Sonate” for flute and piano (1923-24/1926) arr. Felix Greissle (1894-1982)
Luisa Sello (flute), Bruno Canino (piano)
rec. 3-4 February 2023, Black Mirror Studios, Udine, Italy
Dynamic CDS7995

Its not British, but…Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande and Erwartung

The rule of thumb for enjoying (or at least appreciating) Arnold Schoenberg’s music is to recall that his entire output conveniently falls (or can be forced into) into three discrete periods. First up is Late Romantic where his inspiration was Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms. Works produced at the time include the ‘popular’ Verklärte Nacht, the massive cantata Gurre-Lieder and the present Pelleas. This music was ostensibly tonal, but subject to intense chromaticism. The second period showed increasing tendencies towards the complete abandonment of key towards atonality and the loosening of some formal conventions. Then followed the development of serialism or dodecaphony which involved tone rows created from the 12 notes of the octave and manipulated in a strict manner. Towards the end of his life, Schoenberg appeared to create a synthesis between serialism, tonality, and neo-classicism.

The story of Pelleas and Melisande is well-known. Briefly, it is a tragic love triangle. Golaud discovers the mysterious Melisande in the forest. He takes her back his castle and marries her. Along comes his half-brother Pelleas who immediately falls in love with her. There is a fountain scene with Pelleas where Melisande loses her wedding ring. Golaud is jealous, with his suspicions eventually leading him to murder Pelleas and wounds Melisande. She dies in childbirth, revealing that she loved Pelleas ‘innocently.’ Golaud is tormented by nagging doubts. That’s it!

There have been several attempts at musically representing Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelleas and Melisande. I guess that the best known is Debussy’s one and only completed opera, premiered in 1902. Gabriel Fauré wrote his incidental music in 1898 followed by a derived suite. This has remained popular with the ‘Sicilienne’ being oft recorded separately. Enthusiasts of Jean Sibelius will recall that he composed incidental music for the play in 1905. That same year he extracted an orchestral suite from this music. Several recordings have been made of the latter, but I understand there is only a single edition of the complete incidental music.

Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande was written between 1902 and 1903 and premiered in Vienna on 26 January 1905. It is a long work, lasting for nearly three quarters of an hour. Despite its designation as a ‘symphonic poem’ most commentators (following Alban Berg) have suggested that in ‘the four principal sections of this work we can even identify clearly the four movements of a symphony’. This is exemplified by the opening movement in sonata form, a ‘minuet and trio’ creating what could be a ‘scherzo’, a broad ‘adagio’ followed by a finale that establishes a reprise of what has passed rather than a ‘traditional’ rondo. Onto this four-part formal construction, the composer has overlain the various programmatic events derived from Maurice Maeterlinck’s play. The symphonic poem largely follows the story outlined above.

Schoenberg’s Pelleas has been subject to much detailed analysis, both from a musical and a psychological perspective, including by Egon Wellesz and Alban Berg. On the other hand, the composer was keen to point out that the score was inspired directly by Maeterlinck’s drama. He wrote that he ‘tried to mirror every detail of it, with only a few omissions and slight changes of the order of the scenes.’ Schoenberg created some twenty thematic statements that could be termed Wagnerian leitmotifs but are used as part of the symphonic development.

What does Schoenberg’s Pelleas sound like? It is a powerful synthesis of Wagner and Brahms with input from Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Basically, it is a post-Tristan tone poem.

Finally, it is important to recall that when Schoenberg began this score, he was unaware that Claude Debussy was writing his opera, which was premiered in 1902.

Erwartung (Expectation), op.17 was composed rapidly between 27 August and 12 September 1909, with the orchestral score complete by 4 October. Schoenberg created his own monodrama text from a libretto devised for him by Marie Pappenheim. This work had to wait for several years before being premiered in Prague on 9 June 1924 during that year’s Festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music.

The rather gruesome ‘plot’ is straightforward. A woman wanders through a dark forest. She is trying to find her deceitful lover. Perversely, she suddenly stumbles across his murdered corpse. Did she murder him? That is not affirmed or denied explicitly. Erwartung can be interpreted as a hysterical dream or nightmare (aka Freud) rather than a ‘realistic story.’ Pappenheim was a psychiatrist. The impetus for this tale of love and jealousy may have been anchored in ‘history’. Schoenberg’s wife Mathilde had an affair with the artist Richard Gerstl. Gerstl was later to commit suicide by hanging himself and self-stabbing. Schoenberg was distraught until Mathilde returned to him.

The ethos of Schoenberg’s interpretation is well summed up in his own words: ‘the slow representation of things that go through the mind in a moment of great anxiety.’ The progress of the work involves the woman’s singing ‘interleav[ing] straight description with interpretation’.

Artistically, this music defies all convention. It is mono-thematic: in other words, there is no repetition of themes, subjects, motives of harmonic sequences. It is ‘stream of consciousness’ music, although some musicologists have identified certain themes giving continuity.

The performance of these two diverse works is stunning. I especially enjoyed soprano Sara Jakubiak’s dramatic and often moving rendition of Erwartung. She brilliantly communicates the intensely varied emotional responses required in this ghastly monologue which include ‘fear, horror, loathing and compassion, all balanced with some rationality and the inevitable madness.'  Equally important in this work is the orchestral ‘accompaniment’ with its ever-creative resources of ‘colourful voices’ involved in ‘multifarious entanglement[s]’. Erwartung is one of the three great Germanic songfests which also included Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder and Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

On the other hand, Pelleas presents all the challenges of a huge romantic symphonic tone poem. Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra succeeded in giving structure to this massive work. The recording of both works is ideal.

I appreciated the liner notes by Paul Griffiths for their succinctness. It would be so easy to write a long, learned and ultimately obscure essay on this music. Both works are supported by a detailed analysis and contextualisation, but they never demand a degree in the Second Viennese School of Music for their utility. I was surprised that an English text of Erwartung was not included. My German is not quite up to understanding and appreciating the complex literary notions in Marie Pappenheim libretto. I think it must be copyright reasons. The booklet contains lots of photographs of the performers, one of the composer and Mathilde and none of Maeterlinck or Pappenheim. I was a bit disappointed with the cover design, which seems remarkably boring: I concede that it represents a wood or a forest which is the locus of both these masterpieces.

Listening to these two works back to back, it is hard to imagine that they were composed by the same person and only four or five years apart. Pelleas und Melisande is often regarded as the last major high point of romanticism but also subtly pointing to the future development of music and Erwartung is one of the great icons of musical expressionism. Not everyone will agree with this assessment, but it might be a fair starting point for an appreciation and assessment of these two works.

Track Listing:

Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)

Pelleas und Melisande: symphonic poem for orchestra after the play by Maurice Maeterlinck op.5 (1902-3)

Erwartung, op.17, monodrama in one act for soprano and orchestra (1909)

Sara Jakubiak (soprano), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner

Rec. Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway,11-14 June 2019

CHANDOS CHSA 5198

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.

Two Arnolds: Schoenberg & Bax and English Music – An Anecdote from 1931

A short piece featured in the Lancashire Daily Post, Saturday, 10 January 1931 is well worth recalling. It is interesting that the Austrian master did not include Holst or Delius in his list of modern English composers.

Herr Arnold Schoenberg, the well-known modern composer, who came to England specially to conduct a programme of his works, and which was broadcast by the BBC last night, [1] explained some of his ultra-modern views today:

‘Some people,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘condemn us modernists and say that our works are not music, but we cannot stand still. The music of the old masters – Bach, Beethoven, Brahms – is glorious, and will live forever. No one could be a greater admirer of the masters than I, but we cannot stay at their point of view for ever.

‘Life has changed considerably and we must keep pace with it. We have now at our disposal far more material than they had, and we must use it. That is why I have arranged some of Bach’s preludes and fugues for modern orchestra, [2] because I feel that if he had a modern orchestra at his disposal he would certainly have written for it, and I hope and believe that my arrangement of his work played last night was as he himself would have conceived it in modern times.

‘It is said that modern music is too complicated - it cannot always remain simple. We have exhausted the 2 and 2 make 4, and the 3 and 3 make six styles, and have now reached 7 and 7. It is only natural evolution. It is not a doing away of the old but merely a building up on it. We could not possibly do without the old forms. They are the solid basis upon which it is possible to build a new form.’

At the mention of jazz, Herr Schoenberg smiled, ‘Jazz is amusing’, he declared. ‘I like it in some moods, and I think it has its place. But it is dying, and though I think it may influence music of the future to some extent I do not think it will do so seriously. I know that it has not done in my own case except perhaps, in a very minor degree.’ [3]

As regards his own work he said, ‘I have an opera in my mind, [4] though so far it is only there. But I am tremendously busy conducting and composing and arranging. Arranging works like Bach’s preludes and fugues is perhaps the hardest work of all and takes me far longer than writing an entirely original composition.

‘I do admire the works of the modern English composers very much indeed, particularly [Edward] Elgar, [Arnold] Bax, [Eugene] Goossens, [Arthur] Bliss, and I admire the English audiences. I wish I spoke the language better. As it is’ smiling across at his…wife, ‘I have to leave most of my talking and interpretation to my wife.’

The Lancashire Daily Post, Saturday, 10 January 1931.

Notes:

[1] The Concert of Contemporary Music was broadcast at 9.35 pm on 9 January 1931. It was the Fifth Season of these event. There were two works: The Prelude and Fugue in E flat for organ (St Ann) transcribed for full orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg (1928). The second work was Erwartung (Expectation): a monologue, op.17 (1909). The text was by Marie Pappenheim. The soprano soloist was Margot Hinneberg-Lefebre and the BBC Orchestra was conducted by Schoenberg.

[2] Details of Arnold Schoenberg’s Bach Transcriptions: Chorale prelude on ‘Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele’, BWV 654 (arr. 1922: orchestra); Chorale prelude on ‘Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist’, BWV 631 (arr. 1922: orchestra) Prelude and fugue in E flat major ‘St Anne’, BWV 552 (arr. 1928: orchestra)

[3] Clearly, Arnold Schoenberg’s prediction about the imminent demise of jazz was wide of the mark. To be fair, Jazz/Classical fusion was never quite as popular as it could have been. Some of Schoenberg’s theoretical procedures such as the 12-tone (serialism) did have an impact on some ‘contemporary jazz.’

[4] This would probably have been the unfinished opera Moses and Aaron (1930-32).

It's not Britsh but...Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Busoni (Association for Private Musical Performances)

In 1918, Arnold Schoenberg and several colleagues, founded the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen

(Association for Private Musical Performances). This organisation, born in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, was a bold and largely successful attempt to enable composers to gain well-rehearsed performances of works that may otherwise have gone unheard. In many cases they produced arrangements of each other’s music to meet budget limitations.

Grove Music Online (entry for ‘Schoenberg’) notes that ‘between February 1919 and the end of 1921, when inflation put an end to the society’s activities, 353 performances of 154 works were given in 117 concerts.’ It was a sterling achievement.

A good example of this scale of economy is the opening work by Arnold Schoenberg: the Kammersymphonie, op.9. The Society was unable to afford the cost of hiring 15 players to present this work in its original ‘chamber’ form. So, Anton Webern rescored it for a smaller ensemble: flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. The Kammersymphonie was originally composed in 1906: as noted, it was devised for 15 solo instruments and conductor. In 1923 Schoenberg arranged it for full orchestra. It was further revised in the United States during 1935.

I have always enjoyed Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie in its orchestral adaptation. I think that it is a splendid entry point to the complex and challenging music of the composer. 

Arguments can, and have been made, suggesting that Webern’s transcription for five soloists is more a re-presentation of the work rather than simply an arrangement. However, I enjoyed this ‘reduction’ and realise that, much as I appreciate the original, the clarity of texture and basic atmosphere of the work is apparent in Webern’s version. The performance by the Linos Ensemble is satisfying at every bar.

Finally, it is possible to spend time analysing the Wagnerian/Tristanesque element of this work, and to ponder the nods towards Schoenberg’s later atonality. Robert Craft once wisely advised that listeners concentrate on the Kammersymphonie as it exists, and not attempt to muse about ‘where the composer once was and where he is going.’

Alexander Zemlinsky Sechs Gesänge were originally composed between 1910 and 1913 as songs for soloist and piano. They are based on texts from the Symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck’s (1862-1949) book Fifteen Songs (1906). Sechs Gesänge follow a trajectory between the rich Romantic sound of Richard Wagner and the emerging modernism of Arnold Schoenberg. If anything, these gorgeous songs lie nearer to Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder and the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss. They are generally regarded as being one of the composer’s masterpieces.  The themes of the poems are the premonition of death and, surprisingly, a longing for death.  Zemlinsky orchestrated these songs in 1924.

The chamber version devised by Erwin Stein and Andreas Tarkmann recorded on this CD is excellent. It may not have the lushness and interest of the orchestral incarnation which is probably best-known. This is made up for by the lucidity of the parts in the accompaniment and their detailed interaction with the soloist.

I was seriously impressed with the wonderful singing by mezzo-soprano Zoryana Kushpler.

I do prefer the orchestral version of Ferruccio Busoni’s melancholic Berceuse Élégiaque op.42 which was composed in 1909 based on a piano piece from two years earlier. That said, Erwin Stein’s reworking of this music for the limited forces of a chamber ensemble, including piano and harmonium is typically effective.

Busoni encountered considerable personal tragedy around this time, losing both his mother and his father. The ‘programme’ for this heart-breakingly beautiful work is of ‘a man’s lullaby at his mother’s coffin.’ I confess that I put this image out of my mind when listening to this piece.  

I find that Stein’s reworking is just a little bit harsh on the ear: it does not always have the quiet sustained magic of the orchestral version (or the original piano piece). This is especially so with the penetrating woodwind (on this recording) sometimes providing a discordant note.

The premiere of the orchestral Berceuse was given in New York on 21 February 1911, with Gustav Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic. I understand that it was the final concert that he conducted before his death.

I was a little disappointed at the parsimonious duration of this CD. At 47 minutes it does suggest that the Linos ensemble could have found another number or two from the 154-works presented at the Association for Private Musical Performances concerts. 

The liner notes, by Christian Heindl, are comprehensive and are presented in German and English. It would have been good to have included translations of Maeterlinck’s poems. Helpful details are provided about Zoryana Kushpler and the ensemble.

All in all, this is an impressive project. If I am honest, I will not be swayed away from the orchestral versions of these pieces. On the other hand, this an important historical document which present arrangements of works that were made for a social and economic reason: the possibility of performance. Over and above this, as already noted, the reduced forces of the chamber ensemble can reveal details and bring clarity to the music that is denied to the denser originals.

Track Listings:

Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951) Kammersymphonie, no.1, op.9 (arranged for chamber orchestra by Anton WEBERN (1883-1945) (1906/1923)

Alexander ZEMLINSKY (1871-1942) Sechs Gesänge, op.13 ‘Maeterlinck-Gesänge’ (arranged for voice and chamber ensemble by Erwin STEIN (1885-1958) nos. 2&5 (1910-14/1921); Andreas TARKMANN (b.1956) nos.1, 3, 4 & 6) 1910-14/?)

Ferruccio BUSONI (1866-1924) Berceuse Élégiaque, op.42 (arranged for chamber ensemble by Erwin STEIN) (1909/1921)

Zoryana Kushpler (mezzo-soprano); Linos Ensemble

Rec. Deutschlandfunk Köln, Kammermusiksaal October 2011

CAPRICCIO C5138 [47:50]

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.