Erwartung / Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs)

A. Schoenberg (Artist), Jessye Norman (Artist), James Levine (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 10, 1993)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B00000412H
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,191 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #57 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Divas > Norman, Jessye

Track Listings

1. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

2. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

3. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

4. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

5. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

6. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

7. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

8. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

9. Erwartung, monodrama in 1 act, Op. 17

10. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Galathea

11. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Gigerlette

12. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Der Gemugsame Liebhaber

13. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Einfaltiges Lied

14. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Mahnung

15. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Jedem Das Seine

16. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Arie Aus Dem Spiegel Von Arcadien

17. Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs), for voice & piano: Nachtwandler

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the recording of Erwartung to buy, August 7, 2002

By 

J. P. Anderson (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Erwartung / Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) (Audio CD)

This CD joins two very different works of Schoenberg, both from before he started writing his 12-tone works.

The Brettl-Lieder were written early in his career (though after Verklaerte Nacht), while he was working with a cabaret company. The songs are light, humorous, stylized, arch, and rather unlike what you expect to hear from Schoenberg. The first seven are for piano and voice, but the last adds piccolo, trumpet, and snare drum. Jesse Norman does a great job with these. Although these songs are well-suited to lighter voices than Jesse's, she scales her voice down and digs into the cabaret style.

Of course, the major work here is Erwartung, written a few years later. This "monodrama" is a one-act opera for a singer and orchestra. The story is of a woman wandering through a moonlit forest looking for her lover who has not arrived at her house (and who may be with another woman). She is frightened, jealous, perhaps mad, and the story must be interpreted from the fleeting thoughts she vocalizes. She stumbles across a heavy object in the darkness. Is it his body? Is he dead? Did she kill him?

Jesse is wonderful in this role. Before this recording, she had performed the opera at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine. It was paired with Bartok's one-act Bluebeard's Castle (with Sam Ramey). The operas were broadcast on PBS, which was a bold move away from Boheme and Carmen.

Jesse Norman and James Levine play up the late Romanticism in this early Expressionist work. Schoenberg's music illustrates both the spooky, moonlit wood and the woman's unhinged, wandering thoughts. These artists capture this perfectly.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Schoenberg's music lives on -- Proof he was great, December 10, 1999

By 

John Harrington (anywhere, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Erwartung / Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) (Audio CD)

For decades spoil sports like "denisdiderot" below have been attacking Schoenberg's 12 tone system, saying, for example, that his music has no relation to "natural acoustics" and to the way "human beings make sense of sound". Well, last I checked, I'm a human being, one who happens to love this music, and I join musicians and music enthusiasts around the globe in praise of Schoenberg's work. The music of a "mediocre musical talent" doesn't last 50 years after his death. A talentless hack is forgotten. Schoenberg hasn't been forgotten and never will be. I dare say, though the real Denis Diderot is certainly remembered, the person below using Diderot's name as an alias will be forgotten shortly after his own death. Schoenberg will live on in the hearts and minds of musicians and music lovers everywhere as he does today.

Erwartung is perhaps one of Schoenberg's toughest nuts to crack, but Jessye Norman's performance is a classic. If you're new to Schoenberg, I suggest you start elsewhere; maybe with Boulez's lovely recording of Schoenberg's choral music (offered at the time of this review on Amazon). Not everyone will love Norman's overtly dramatic style and darkly timbral voice, but sampling the ra files above will be adequate enough to determine whether her style suits you. If it does, and if you love this music, don't hesitate to get this recording.

Schoenberg's music is not for everyone, but then there's a lot in music that isn't for everyone. Try to accept that, though you may not connect with this composer, there are many who honestly do, and you may be missing something.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing look at musical Expressionism, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Erwartung / Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) (Audio CD)

Schoenberg's "Erwartung" is an Expressionist type composition with a psychoanalytic look at feminine hysteria. The fact that the main female character remains nameless is an attempt at making the ideas presented in the piece cross time and space. Schoenberg's many musical ideas allowed for much of the progression of twentieth century music as we know it today. Along with the other Expressionist ideals, "Erwartung" is rife with emphasis placed on melodic fragmentation and discontinuity, including the idea that a single word can mean as much as an entire sentence. No, Shoenberg was no mediocre composer, and was also an excellent painter and playwright as well. It was Schoenberg that brought the twelve-tone ideas into use, and who crossed many musical genres, from Post-Romanticism to Symbolism to Expressionism and beyond. "Erwartung" is definitely a psychological thriller, and the two terrified shrieks made by the leading lady along with the orchestra are definitely on par with the artists of the time, most notably Edward Munch's "The Scream," and who attempted to distort reality to find the essential truths within.