Alban Berg: Lyric Suite

Kronos Quartet (Artist), Dawn Upshaw (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 19, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B0000AN4FJ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,609 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New way to understand a masterpiece, March 1, 2004

By 

Osvaldo Colarusso "Osvaldo Colarusso" (Curitiba, Paraná Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (Audio CD)

The Lyric Suite is , undoubtedly , one of the most important work of chamber music written in 20th century. After the death of the people involved in one obscure affair of the composer's life , we know that this work describes step by step one impossible passion involving the composer and Hanna Fuchs, one rich married woman , sister -in - law of Alma Mahler. George Perle wrote in the seventies one article called " The Secret Program of the Lyric Suite ". As a result of this research , we can understand a lot of things:
I- the serie begins with F and ends with H ( Fuchs Hanna)
II- The numbers 10 and 23 are always together ( the numbers of Berg and Hanna)
III- The Quotation of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
IV- The fast movements always faster , and the slow movements always slower - A consequence of the inevitable separation.
V- The tragedy in the names of the movements : Allegretto GIOVIALLE, Andante AMOROSO, Allegro MISTERIOSO, Adagio APASSIONATO, Presto DELIRANDO and Largo DESOLATO.Etc, Etc.

But the most important of this research is the discovery that the last movement was conceived with a text in mind: One Baudelaire poem, translated by the German poet Stefan Georg. Like The Vine ( Der Wein, the Concert Aria ) , Baudelaire in a german translation. This recording is the first to use this research for the sake to have all the secrets revealed. And one Soprano with a string quartet is a normal ensemble for the Second Viennese School. Schoenberg has his Second Quartet and Webern has some short works for voice and String Quartet. In this sense this is a very important recording. And very, very well played and sang . The only problem , to me, is that it is a little strange to hear the soprano line always doubled by a instrument. In the works quoted above ( By Schoenberg and Webern) the voice is always independent of the instruments. As Berg wrote al notes only for the quartet Perle and the Players did what they though it was correct. The singer must sing with the same notes of the quartet. It sounds strange for me. But I think this is the best we can do in this case. We will never know how it would be a definitive version of this last movement. I prefer to listen the Quartet version. But this is really one important way to know more of a work so crucial . And, as I said before, The Kronos and Upshaw are fantastic. My only regret : why only 32 minutes in a CD. ? It would be perfect with Berg's Quartet opus 3 !

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hot new version of a modern classic!, October 9, 2003

By 

Jeff Abell (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (Audio CD)

Alban Berg's Lyric Suite is one of the real classics of modern music. If anyone thinks that atonal music is dry or academic, this work will convince them otherwise. It's expressive, heart-felt music of great intensity, and filled with surprises (like a quotation from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde!). Some years back, composer George Perle (an expert on Berg's music) discovered that the entire work is a kind of diary of an overwhelming infatuation that the married composer had for another man's wife. Moreover, Berg had sent her a copy of the work in which the final movement included a setting of a German translation of Baudelaire's "De Produndis." This recording with soprano Dawn Upshaw therefore reveals the music's "hidden agenda" of secret amorous admission. Frankly, the work has stood up for 75 years without us knowing that stuff, but it adds a spark to the tinder. Kronos does this work proud. I've heard snotty musician friends diss the Kronos, saying they commission new works because they don't have the chops to play the classics. Lies, I say! I own the Arditti's performance of this work, and I'll take the Kronos version hands down: it's passionate, insightful, richly colored, and dashing. Dawn Upshaw's sometimes a bit out of her range in the vocal part, but still is one of the few singers who can make atonal music for voice actually sound like music. Buy this, it's hot!

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First recording of the vocal part as reconstructed by Perle., March 30, 2005

By 

Gregory Dubinsky (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (Audio CD)

Nonesuch's advertising is in fact correct.

The packaging clearly states, "First recording of the vocal part to the last movement of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, as reconstructed by George Perle, published by Universal Edition."

Vanda Tabery, in the Prazak Quartet recording of the work, does not sing Perle's reconstruction. She certainly does not sing the music published by Universal Edition, which would have been unavaiable to her at the time.

Perle had to make a number of important decisions about register-placement of the vocal line in preparing his edition. A leading Berg scholar as well as a terrific composer, Perle made these decisions based on his profound knowledge of Berg's style and of this score in particular.

Tabery's vocal line differs from Perle's in several respects, and her selection of registers seems at times primarily guided by the compass of her voice. There are registral leaps that break up lines clearly intended by Berg to remain intact. These sorts of details matter just as much as an unmotivated octave displacement in the middle of a Verdian musical line.

So: Perle's research, heard on the Nonesuch recording, is demonstrably superior to Tabery's. From the textual standpoint, the Kronos recording likely stands much closer to Berg's intentions than the Prazak's. Nonesuch, which was well aware of the Prazak/Tabery Lyric Suite, did not engage in false advertising.