Customer Reviews

Erwartung / Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs)

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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.

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.

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.

I didn't really like this opera at all. I have common tastes in music and there just isn't any pretty music here at all. Salome and Elektra are totally deranged operas and yet they have many passages of great lyrical beauty. One thing I found particularly annoying was the very, very quite passages, so quiet I had to strain to hear, then you would be blasted by the orchestra playing full force knocking you off seat, this happens over and over. I do have to say that Jessye Norman is the PERFECT singer for this part and her singing is FLAWLESS. For this part her singing ranks as some of the best work she ever did, and even though I hate the opera I can recognize that Norman's performance is a tour de force. If I could I would give this CD five stars for singing and one star for the opera.

I understand the complaints of the two previous viewers...but I must ask them the following question: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT??? Of course the music lacks tonality - it was written by Arnold Schoenberg, the master of the 12-tone composing style.

The music is bizarre, make no mistake...however, there is an almost primal beauty about these pieces. They come directly from the mind of one of our century's greatest geniuses in all their provocative and ornery glory. The music is disturbing, not horrid. Frankly, I think if you don't like this music, it's not a comment on the art, it's a comment on your open-mindedness and willingness to let your emotions be challenged and shaken.

So buy the CD, and listen to it. It will shake you up - that's the point.

I came to this work (Erwartung) through the double-bill broadcast on PBS of Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung (both with Jessye Normon). I had heard neither work prior to this broadcast. Since I am not one who usually enjoys most modern opera, especially in English, I "braced myself" for what I was to hear. I state this because Bluebeard's castle was sung in English, this work in German.

In both cases, there were moments where my mind wondered, left in some strange void, and at other times I was taken away with the emotional beauty of the writing (mostly in the orchestra). Since I didn't find I really felt the completeness of either piece, I went to the library to seek out recordings, and again, I wanted them with Jessye Norman (one, I love her singing, and two, it was in her performances that I came to the works, and I wanted to learn to love them with a sound I truly did enjoy; I will explain later why this was important to me).

In both cases, the works grew on me. It was far easier to enjoy Bluebeard's Castle than Erwartung, but it too grew on me. I fully understand those who HATE the writing of Arnold Schoenberg. It isn't for everyone, and it never will be. Even if his music has lived 50 years after his death, it is not a top box office draw, and quite often it is only enjoyed by those who are very much drawn to this type of music. However, even if no one ever mastered his complex and baffling system of musical composition, what he did with it was truly amazing (which is alluded to in some comments, was created so he could say he was wonderful even if he sounded terrible to everyone else; I am not at all sure this is true, but it is true based in his own writing, he was seeking something, some way of writing music so it would reflect all the various feelings that mankind feel; to him, the standard scale and system just didn't offer enough opportunity; I personally take him at his word, and really admire what he was trying to do, no matter how successfully or not he was at it; and that success is completely a personal thing that each listener must decide; some love him, some don't).

Some are not sure of Jessye Norman's dark brooding voice. I think that is exactly what drew me to this recording. Her voice is a truly beautiful sound. It is not one you "have to force yourself to endure." And she has a way of making music that sounds so "ugly" sound actually beautiful. Now I say this because after I learned to really enjoy the work (based completely on this recording of the work), I listened to it recorded by other people. Some were passable, but most were horrible. The work's strange harmonies and disjointed compositional style only were accentuated. The work quickly fell a part, and those moments where the mind wonders (those I felt when I first heard the work) increased in number to the point of complete boredom. His vocal writing became an exercise in vocal screaming and tedium.

And this is the reality I learned: just because someone is famous, or because they did something revolutionary, doesn't make them great. Schoenberg will never be a great composer in the sense of say, Mozart. He may have been innovative, but he was not great. Great music survives crappy performances and the listener can still feel the greatness of the music. I found with this work, great voices (like Normans) gave the illusion we were hearing great music. As soon as more inferior voices sang (though well trained, not simply crappy singers; and for the most part singers who specialize in all the modern stuff, but who cannot sing a note of Mozart at all, for example) the music retreated into some disorganized bunch of noise. Any sense of greatness was lost.

One must also note, very few singers of the quality of Jessye Norman will even try to sing this music. And there are reasons: it is not well written to showcase the voice at all, most of them don't like the sound of the vocal line, and the public staunchly stays away from such operas. It is NOT rare, even with Erwartung, to be singing to a half empty house and have NO ONE APPLAUD when you are through. After 50 years, it is not an understatement or a cut to the composer to say he has not become universal. It is a reality. However, we do see with this recording that given the right orchestra, the right understanding of the music (which James Levine really does understand to perfection), and a wonderfully beautiful voice that communicates volumes, we can discover a really pleasing work that can broaden our views and infuse our emotional connection. BUT A WARNING: This opera is NOT for everyone. If you really don't enjoy music that sounds disonante, DON'T BUY THIS RECORDING. You won't like it, you will feel cheated, and no matter how wonderfully it is performed (and it is wonderfully performed) you will just hate it. Again, if you want to broaden your horizons, then borrow it from a public library, get used to it, listen to it in small doses before listening to the entire thing (its 30 minutes will feel like 3 hours until you have accustomed yourself to what you are hearing). When you have prepared yourself for the work, then enjoy it. By the way, preparing yourself for this work takes more than just getting used to the sound, take time to understand the psychology behind it. It was written during the reign of Freud, of when people were defining what creates hysteria in women (all based on the ide of sexual repression). There are excellent essays on this concept and the historical position, and the real life person the story was based on (the librettist wrote about her own cousin). This extra study may help you appreciate what Schoenberg was attempting to do. That again makes this a hard work to endure. While most operas by the "truly great" may requite nothing more than a plot summary to be completely taken away, this one requires a whole lot more.

My classical collection isn't particularly impressive (perhaps 80 CDs), but it is diverse. In addition to enjoying the better known writings of Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and the like, I've come to enjoy the newer music written by Gorecki, Szymanowski, and even Messiaen's "Turangalila Symphony" (a more unusual selection to say the least).

I used to work at Media Play, and was allowed to take home free CDs often. On one such occasion, this Schoenberg release caught my eye... I wasn't familiar with it, but I certainly knew of Jessye Norman's work. It was free, why not give it a shot?

I'm certainly glad I did! As a junior-high youth ministry volunteer, this CD makes my job a lot easier. Sometimes I can't get my boys to concentrate on the lesson plan, and when their thoughts and actions turn to sports and girls, I need only threaten to put this CD on the boombox and their attentions refocus so quickly it makes my head spin! This thing is the best cure for ADD yet devised. It's a miracle! Unfortunately, as soon as their parents figure out what I'm doing, I'm likely to be arrested for child abuse.

All kidding aside, this music is truly abonimable. It makes no sense, it has no tonality, no rhythm. I'm reminded of something I once read of professional movie critics--if it (the movie) makes no sense, they'll consider it a masterpiece (think "The Piano"). These are the same people who enjoy this music.

Ish.

the music contained on this cd is proof enough in and of itself that Arnold Schoenberg was a mediocre musical talent, and turned to composing in an alienist atonal style only after he could plainly see that he could not compete on tonal musical grounds with the likes of strauss, pfitzner, schreker, ravel, debussy, and the like. the man craved attention and success, and most of all, "historical significance" for himself, and therefore devised a system of composing that purposefully could not be understood, thus setting himself up as a pretended misunderstood "genius" in the romantic sense, and claiming that anyone who cried foul regarding his music was simply not sophisticated enough to comprehend his noise. Then he created a rigid mathematical system of organizing tones with no relation whatsoever to natural acoustics or the way human beings make sense of sound. If his ludicrous communistic regimentation of musical tones is not enough to prove that Schoenberg was a musical mediocrity at best, or incompetent at worst, then just listen to the garbage contained on this cd for confirmation.