Berg: Violin Concerto / Schoenberg: Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto ~ Kubelik

Alban Berg (Composer), Arnold Schoenberg (Composer), Rafael Kubelik (Conductor), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra), Alfred Brendel (Performer), Henryk Szeryng (Performer), Zui Zeitlin (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Alfred Brendel, Henryk Szeryng, Zui Zeitlin
• Orchestra: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Rafael Kubelik
• Composer: Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg
• Audio CD (January 13, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Umvd Labels / Universal Classics
• ASIN: B00016XN16
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,196 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Violin Concerto: Andante - Allegretto

2. Violin Concerto: Allegro ma sempre rubato, frei wie eine kadenz - Adagio

3. Piano Concerto, Op. 42: Andante

4. Piano Concerto, Op. 42: Molto allegro

5. Piano Concerto, Op. 42: Adagio

6. Piano Concerto, Op. 42: Giocoso (moderato)

7. Violin Concerto, Op. 36: Poco Allegro

8. Violin Concerto, Op. 36: Andante grazioso

9. Violin Concerto, Op. 36: Finale. Allegro

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Reissue at a Great Price!, January 30, 2005

By 

Sébastien Melmoth (Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Berg: Violin Concerto / Schoenberg: Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto ~ Kubelik (Audio CD)

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This is an excellent disc--a reissue from the '70s--and as a bonus, it's at a great price.

The Berg Concerto is great, and almost too popular: it's available in several performances.

The Schoenberg Piano Concerto is also available in serveral realizations (e.g., Uchida; Brendel; Gould). It's one of the unpopular Schoenberg's most "popular" works because, though 12-tone in form, the row used is ambigously tonal.

But the real star of this disc is the Schoenberg Violin Concerto. This is one of Schoenberg's most virtuosic pieces: it's stunningly well orchestrated, and the violin cadenzas are spectacular.
It's a 12-tone piece, but makes no consessions to older tonalities. This is such a great piece that I often wonder why some of the great violinists of our time don't play it: Perlman, for example; or Mutter--who plays the heck out of the Berg Concerto. Too difficult perhaps, for Schoenberg joked that the soloist should have a sixth finger on his/her left hand to realize the piece!

May 2008: STOP THE PRESSES...NEWS FLASH: Hilary Hahn shreds Schönberg's Violin Concerto! After working on this piece for about a decade, Ms. Hahn knows this work inside and out. Her brilliant realization is a new star in the firmament.
Schoenberg Violin Concerto Op.36/Sibelius Violin Concerto Op.47
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A historic CD, September 11, 2006

By 

Helmut Moritz (Graz, Austria) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Berg: Violin Concerto / Schoenberg: Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto ~ Kubelik (Audio CD)

This CD is containing the three most important concertos of the "Second Vienna School" founded by Schoenberg in the first half of the 20th Century.
The Violin Concerto by Alban Berg (1936) is certainly the best-known and the most often heard of the three. It is a remarkable synthesis of the classical harmonic style and the new twelve-tone style. It effortlessly merges quotations from Bach and Austrian tunes with the basically atonal structure into a beautiful and moving piece (a noble swan song indeed).
The Schoenberg concertos are more difficult. Let us start with the Violin Concerto (1936) which is very seldom played and has a reputation of being abstract and inaccessible. If you do not yet know it, just listen to it a few times. The first time it may appear to be not much more than interesting noise. The second time you may catch one or two striking phrases or even melodies. The third and forth time the interesting phrases become more and more numerous and you start thinking that the piece may not be so bad at all. The fifth time you catch the structure, the melodies and harmonies, and the noise is gone. Wonderful music has remained.
The same procedure applies to the Piano Concerto (1942), only that it is easier. Don't worry about twelve-tone music and atonality, just try listen to it as a normal piece of classical music.
You will find that all three concertos are very fine pieces, basically in the romantic tradition, not much more difficult than, say, Mahler. The problem with "modern" music (the concertos have been written more than 60 years ago!) is that they are rarely played and (as all music) can be appreciated only after repeated listening. This is why this CD is so important.
In fact, I already have the early vinyl recordings of the Piano Concerto by Glenn Gould, and of the Berg and Schoenberg Violin Concerto by Louis Krasner, who was the first to overcome the tremendous difficulties of the latter (Jascha Heifetz had returned the piece as unplayable!).
The violinists of the present record (Henryk Szeryng and Zvi Zeitlin) are very fine musicians. The pianist, Alfred Brendel, lives up to his reputation as a poetic performer of romantic music, from Schubert to Liszt. Listening to their play, you will forget about virtuosity and hear only music of exquisite beauty.
The orchestral colours are essential to this music. Rafael Kubelik is an inspiring conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
This record is unique.

Helmut Moritz, Graz (Austria)

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Budget Buy, February 29, 2004

By 

Michael B. Richman (Portland, Maine USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Berg: Violin Concerto / Schoenberg: Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto ~ Kubelik (Audio CD)

Don't you just love it when classic recordings get reissued on CD at a budget price?! Such is the case with this title in the new "Universal Classics" series featuring Berg and Schoenberg Concertos, originally made in the early 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon. I fell in love with conductor Rafael Kubelik years ago after being introduced to his recordings of Dvorak, and he produces the same glowing results here. Of course performing with first rate soloists and orchestras is also key -- Szeryng and the Berlin Philharmonic on the Berg VC, Brendel and the Bavarian RSO on the Schoenberg PC, and Zeitlin and the Berliners once more on the Schoenberg VC. With budget lines being aimed at classical beginners, I'm not sure how many of them will opt to buy these 20th Century masterpieces, often wrongly maligned as dissonant and unlistenable. But I'll just be happy with the fact that three great recordings have resurfaced at an inexpensive price.