* BERG: Seven Early Songs, Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite; WEBERN: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30; SCHOENBERG: String Quartet (Orchestral version) – Claudia Barainsky, soprano/ Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur/ Jac van Steen – D&G

by | Jan 18, 2007 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

BERG: Seven Early Songs, Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite (Orchestral version); WEBERN: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30; SCHOENBERG: String Quartet, Op. 10, No. 2 (Orchestral version) – Claudia Barainsky, soprano/ Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur/ Jac van Steen, conductor – MDG Multichannel SACD 5.1 901 1425-6, 70:01 *****:

I once had a conducting teacher (a pupil of Joseph Krips, very German) who was in love with the so called Second Viennese School. Or at least he was in love with Berg, whom he called (with a wickedly knowing shift of the brow) the “real genius of those three”. Popularly speaking, it would be difficult to argue with him, as history has probably proved him right, at least in the public mind. Many people will attend a concert with Berg on it while maintaining a safe distance from any program bill labeled “Schoenberg”. This is of course not exactly fair, as Berg wrote some thorny music while Schoenberg reveled in grand post-Romantic expression in not a few compositions. Webern, the least sought after, is too often smeared as indecipherable or completely esoteric, mainly by people who spend too much time trying to figure out his “system”, and too little time just plain listening.

In this album we are given a chance to listen carefully in beautifully recorded sound–true 100% 5.1 Super Audio–and it is used to superb effect. I have always felt that modern recordings of the Second School would serve them best in SA, and this release proves that point. Berg’s Seven Early Songs were composed while he was still a student with Schoenberg, and published years later in piano and orchestral guise when the success of Wozzeck prompted a demand for more of his music. They are not recorded that often, but they are every bit as affecting as the Strauss Four Last Songs, and certainly more substantial than Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. If that sort of high calorie diet is your cup of tea, you simply must avail yourself of this delicious album, where Berg’s intense harmonies and soaring melodies are sung to perfection by Claudia Barainsky. The three pieces from his Lyric Suite (originally for string quartet in six movements) inspired by his love-affair correspondence with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin reached paper in 1928, and has been a hit ever since, perhaps a little more prickly than the songs, but gorgeous nonetheless.

I don’t know if anyone will ever top the miraculously resonant reading of Webern’s late great Variations as recorded by Dohnanyi and Cleveland, but even that stunning account does not have the pristine clarity and wonderfully radiant tone quality that the SA sound gives us here. Nor do the Boulez readings have quite the translucence of this one. This is one of those works that you must simply let roll over you, and avoid labels or preconceptions of any kind. It will repay your efforts.

Schoenberg’s second quartet, composed in 1908 and orchestrated eleven years later, marked a decisive break with traditional tonality, and as such was rather firmly rejected at its premiere where the soprano, Maria Gutheil-Schoder, had to literally sing through tears to complete the performance. Whether it was the idea of a quartet with soprano, or whether the absence of any concrete tonal center upset the studied patrons of that evening’s concert we will never know for sure. But what we can be sure of is that this music is hardly unfriendly or hostile to the ears. In fact, it is chock full of post-Romantic juices that to our numbed ears can actually seem like a pleasant balm. There is nothing here that will shock anyone, and plenty of wonderful moments that show the composer at his considerable best. The final two movements, full of melancholy and not a little defiance, are works of pure genius, sung in splendor by Barainsky.

The only caveat in this production is the shameful absence of translations, essential in a release like this. The 50 musicians of the orchestra are excellent (and the band has a long history with these composers), and the sound is stunning, captured with great skill and intelligence. If you despise this sort of music, I am not going to recommend it to you; but if you love it, or have only been cursorily exposed to it, this will either confirm or convert you!

— Steven Ritter 

    
 

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