Schoenberg: Gurrelieder / The Two Chamber Symphonies ~ Ozawa / Inbal

Jessye Norman (Artist), Tatiana Troyanos (Artist), Kim Scown (Artist), James McCracken (Artist), David Arnold (Artist), Arnold Schoenberg (Composer), Eliahu Inbal & Seiji Ozawa (Conductor), Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Boston Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Tanglewood Festival Chorus
• Orchestra: Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Eliahu Inbal & Seiji Ozawa
• Composer: Arnold Schoenberg
• Audio CD (January 11, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Philips
• ASIN: B00002DDWQ
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,574 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 96

2. Gurrelieder: Part One: Orchestral Prelude

3. Gurrelieder: Part One: Nun daempft die Daemm'rung

4. Gurrelieder: Part One: O, wenn des mondes Strahlen

5. Gurrelieder: Part One: Ross! Mein Ross!

6. Gurrelieder: Part One: Sterne jubeln

7. Gurrelieder: Part One: So tanzen die Engel vor Gottes Thron nicht

8. Gurrelieder: Part One: Nun sag ich dir zum ersten Mal

9. Gurrelieder: Part One: Es ist Mitternachtszeit

10. Gurrelieder: Part One: Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick

See all 12 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Gurrelieder: Part 2: Herrgott, weisst du, was du tatest

2. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Erwacht, Konig Waldemars Mannen wert!

3. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Deckel des Sarges klappert

4. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Gegrusst, o Konig

5. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Mit Toves Stimme flustert der Wald

6. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: 'Ein seltsamer Vogel ist so'n Aal'

7. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Du strenger Richter droben

8. Gurrelieder: Part 3: Die wild Jagd: Der Hahn erhebt den Kopf zur Kraht

9. Des Sommerwindes wilde Jagd

10. Herr Gaensefuss, Frau Gaensekraut

See all 13 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This is the biggest piece of music that ever gets performed with any regularity. Anyone who avoids Schönberg because his name is synonymous with that nasty, atonal stuff need have no fear. This is a ripely romantic score with big tunes and cinematic orchestration. The story is simple. King Waldemar of Gurre is fooling around with Tove. The queen finds out and has her poisoned. The king curses God, and is condemned to ride on a ghostly hunt throughout all eternity, until the arrival of dawn signals an end to the nightly horror. This performance--which happily has been reissued at bargain price--has been the choice since the day it was released, both for interpretation and for recording. Magnificent doesn't begin to describe it. --David Hurwitz

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HOW CAN YOU RESIST?, January 28, 2001

By 

MOVIE MAVEN (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Schoenberg: Gurrelieder / The Two Chamber Symphonies ~ Ozawa / Inbal (Audio CD)

OK, if the name Arnold Schoenberg sets your teeth on edge just THINKING about his music, you can relax. The "Gurrelieder" is a large choral work in the style of Wagner or Mahler: that is, Romanticism to the Nth degree. There is not a hint of the atonal/serial/12-tone music which Schoenberg pioneered and was famous for. The music is full and rich and totally melodic. Many passages are as reflective as Wagner's "A Siegfried Idyll" and others as heart-stopping as Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony." This is positively THE performance to buy for several reasons---firstly, the soloists are perfect for their roles and all in their prime: James McCracken, a terrific heroic tenor at the Metropolitan Opera is not as well known as he should have been because he, for some reason, did not record alot. (His first rate 'Don Jose' is featured on the Leonard Bernstein DGG recording of "Carmen" starring Marilyn Horne.) Tatiana Troyanos, an American mezzo, had a huge career at the Met thanks to being championed by music director James Levine, but she recorded little and now after her premature death, we are left with few recordings to treasure. (She played 'Octavian' opposite Kiri Te Kanawa's 'Marschallin' in a legendary video of "Der Rosenkavalier" which, unfortunately, was never released as CD's.) And what is there left to say about Jessye Norman at her best??? Her voice here is simple and yet overwhelmingly emotional. The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Ozawa is tops, the all-important choral parts are taken by the formidable Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the sound on this Philips set might have been recorded yesterday. Add to all this that Schoenberg's two "Chamber" Symphonies are given as bonuses and the fact that Philips is selling the CD's at bargain prices, Well, how can you resist? Very Highly Recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent recording, June 29, 2002

By 

Can Okan (Istanbul, Istanbul Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Schoenberg: Gurrelieder / The Two Chamber Symphonies ~ Ozawa / Inbal (Audio CD)

Schoenberg's Gurrelieder is a hard work written for a grand ensemble. But this recording is really excellent. Especially the voice of Jesse Norman, Tatiana Troyanos's marvellous performance on Lied der Waldtaube, three men's choir in the third section and the eight voice choir's performance in the final section is really worth to listen again and again. And also we can't pass by Eliahu Inbal's Chamber Symphonies recording, it is also great.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still sounds pretty good to me, April 1, 2008

By 

Ralph Moore "Ralph operaphile" (Bishop's Stortford, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Schoenberg: Gurrelieder / The Two Chamber Symphonies ~ Ozawa / Inbal (Audio CD)

I hadn't realised just how many recordings of this monumental work there were out there until I started a little research and I can claim to be familiar with only four -although I have listened to some excerpts of others. The other odd thing my investigations revealed was just how many totally contradictory opinions you can glean from a trawl through the Amazon reviews, both US and UK.

OK; in the end you can only tell it as you see - or rather hear - it yourself. My departure point and single biggest discriminator is the quality of the soloists. I realise that you need a wonderful conductor, orchestra and choir to do those massive sonorities justice and the final, blazing paean to Nature and the sun from combined forces has to be right, but the emotional core of this overlong, rambling, unbalanced, but ultimately fascinating, work lies with the outpourings of feeling from the hero, heroine, two bemused onlookers and, finally, the recitalist of the poem. I agree that several conductors seem to lose detail in a soup of sound - or maybe that is as much a location and recording problem - but I can forgive some of that when the voices are right. (Gielen's relatively new recording sounds to my ears to be serious undercast, although Diener repeats her touching, slightly low-key assumption of Tove.)

First, I will not budge on one fact (i.e opinion!): nobody, but nobody, not even Troyanos, begins to approach the depth, strength and variety of colour that Janet Baker brings to her Wood Dove narration. Her voice, in the rather elderly and hissy live, Danish recording conducted by Ferencsik, is awesomely powerful and resonant yet also delicate and moving. She conveys every nuance of emotion in a tour de force of a performance. Troyanos is good but just compare key moments such as "Tod ist Tove". Everyone else, barring Troyanos (and perhaps Fassbaender on the Chailly set) is an also-ran in this part - and some are quite disappointing - particularly Jennifer Lane in the Craft performance.

Regarding Waldemar, there are, to my ears, a lot of rather windy, over-parted tenors who have a go at this role; strangely enough, Alexander Young, Baker's and Arroyo's partner, makes a success of it simply by treating the role quite lyrically and focussing his lighter voice tellingly instead of trying to blast. O'Mara, on the Craft, is very good; having heard him live I suspect that the recording is kind to him, as his voice in the flesh is not that large, however pleasing and musical. No; for me McCracken in the Ozawa set is close to ideal in timbre and attack - if only he had attempted to sing more quietly in the more intimate passages. However, his is still a thrilling assumption of the role and the right, huge voice for this frenetic, despaired and desperate character - and it is possible that the close recording is partly to blame for his prominence in quieter passages.

I need a soprano of real heft and amplitude of tone as Tove - but someone who can fine down her large voice from the more ecstatic moments to accommodate the declarations of love. Arroyo (Ferencsik -again) and, of course, Jessye Norman for Ozawa, have huge, beautiful voices and their competitors,such as Melanie Diener, while being perfectly adequate, rather pale in comparison.

The strength of the Craft set lies in the coherence and splendour of the choral singing and his control of tension - but the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, too, won a Gramophone Award for their contribution to Ozawa's recording. The soloists in Ozawa'a performance are, as I mention above, recorded rather too closely but the ambience of the Boston Symphony Hall is kind. The Ferencsik does not have as stellar an orchestra or choir as Ozawa but they still generate excitement and depth of sound. The best overall sound is to be found on the Craft (formerly Koch, now Naxos).

So, ultimately, I find myself returning either to Ferencsik or Ozawa for the sterling solo performances and it is the latter that I would cling to at a push - while always regretting that it was not Baker who sang for Ozawa. I don't think that Chailly provides the same thrills; his soloists (Fassbaender apart) strike me as competent but bland - though I do enjoy Hotter's declamation even if he had an inauthentic voice type for the spoken role, if we are to heed the composer's wishes for a lighter ex-tenor sound.

P.S. Having since discovered the superb Munich recording on Oehms (see my review), wonderfully played and conducted by Levine and impressively sung by Heppner and Voigt, I unhesitatingly recommend that one even above the other versions I recommend above. The buyer is spoilt for choice.