Customer Reviews

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht; Chamber Symphony; Variations; 5 Pieces; 6 Songs; Erwartung

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Here's a great collection of essential Schoenberg. The conductors, Mehta and Dohnanyi, are totally in their element here, and the playing (by 3 great orchestras) and sound are excellent throughout.

Some highlights: "Verklaerte Nacht," one of my all-time favorite sonic wallows, is given a slow, luxurious treatment, like a full-body massage. The thorny, hyper-modernist Variations Op. 31 sound romantic and colorful in Mehta's performance, with many layers of detail coming to the surface. The 5 Pieces Op. 16 also display a razor-sharp attention to detail within a pleasing, continuously evolving sound-picture. There's not a weak performance in the bunch. Far from sounding clinical, Schoenberg's lurid genius comes across with a passion that makes Mahler sound almost restrained.

As the other two reviewers point out, this is a matchless bargain, containing as it does some famous Decca recordings that either have been out of print or were attached to larger productions (the Anja Silja vocal works were a supplement to Dohnanyi's Wozzeck). The Mehta contributions date from almost 40 years ago but are in remarkably voluptuous, up-close sound, even by current standards. Mehta is what the British would call a "positive" conductor, meaning that he eschews tragedy, I suppose. His three contributions are almost sunny, in fact, and I doubt anyone has made a Verklarte Nacht with less angst and more sensuality--it's a knockout. Karajan has more to say in the Variations, but Mehta's surface sheen is easier to listen to.

Dohnanyi's approach to Schoenberg is cooler, more detached, and carefully detailed. You don't sense Mehta's ebullience, but Dohnanyi is to the manner born in any music from the Second Viennese School, and there's no doubt, either, that the Cleveland Orch. plays with much greater finesse than the Los Angeles Phil. As far as sound goes, Decca's engineers come through again with ultra-detailed, if somewhat distant recordings. Silja isn't in smooth voice, but she makes a strong dramatic impression in the gorgeously orchestrated post-Mahlerian songs. She is equally expressive in Erwartung, which ranks as possibly the best performance I've come across. IN all, this bargain two-fer has everything to recommend it.