Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra / Cello Concerto (after Monn) / Piano Quartet (Brahms orch. Schoenberg)

Arnold Schoenberg (Composer), Johannes Brahms (Composer), Robert Craft (Conductor), London Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Philharmonia Orchestra of London (Orchestra), Philharmonia Chamber Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Philharmonia Chamber Orchestra
• Conductor: Robert Craft
• Composer: Arnold Schoenberg, Johannes Brahms
• Audio CD (November 21, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B000IY0634
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,799 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a Schoenberg CD with something for everybody, September 4, 2010

By 

Ray Barnes (Surrey, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra / Cello Concerto (after Monn) / Piano Quartet (Brahms orch. Schoenberg) (Audio CD)

This is another fine instalment in the Naxos complete survey of the works of Schoenberg. The Five Pieces for Orchestra is very typical of the early orchestral style of the Second Viennese School - concise and abrasively atonal. This is not initially comfortable listening, but the performance is excellent in every way. The Cello Concerto after Georg Matthias Monn's 1746 concerto for clavicembalo in D major overall stays "true" to the baroque style. It has some very fine cello writing and one regrets that its dedicatee Pablo Casals declined to perform it. I find the orchestral writing somewhat uninspired, but having not heard the original work, perhaps this is not a fault. As far as listenability is concerned, these two works are worlds apart - and Naxos in my view chose correctly in placing the Five Pieces first.

The most enjoyable item was the orchestration of the Brahms G minor Piano Quartet. Quite unlike the Concerto for String Quartet modelled after Handel's Concerto Grosso Op. 6/7, this piece does not conflate the original musical structure, and for at least the first three movements the orchestration is very Brahmsian in flavour - especially the woodwind and string writing. I find Brahms' writing in general has a pronounced cantabile quality and Schoenberg's adaptation for the most part feels the same. There are passages very reminiscent of the Second and Third Symphonies and the Haydn Variations. Where I have some concerns here is in the final movement, where Schoenberg introduces glockenspiel, xylophone and persistent use of the cymbals (this is also mentioned in the excellent notes, but one can easily hear this), to the point where, I feel the Brahmsian flavour is perhaps compromised. Overall this remains a fine work, and it is up to the listener to decide if Schoenberg got carried away or not. Excellent performance.

The sound quality is excellent, which especially helps the dense scoring of the Five Pieces. So too are the notes. The cover art, Alquimia by Ulrich Osterloh, is nice too.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discovering Schoenberg with Robert Craft, December 3, 2009

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra / Cello Concerto (after Monn) / Piano Quartet (Brahms orch. Schoenberg) (Audio CD)

Budget-priced recordings offer an outstanding opportunity to expand one's musical horizons. Thus, the Naxos label has recently released a five-CD compilation of recordings of the music of Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951) by the noted scholar and conductor, Robert Craft. My understanding is that several similar compilations of Craft-Schoenberg are in process. These recordings had been released in the mid-1990's on the Koch label before being reissued individually on Naxos in the last few years and then combined in a five-CD set. I have familiarity with some of Schoenberg but wanted to take the opportunity these releases present to hear his music further and discuss it for interested readers on Amazon. Schoenberg, the founder of the so-called "Second Viennese School" remains a difficult, controversial composer, primarily for his development of the twelve-tone atonal method of composition relatively late in his career.

As do the other releases in this set, this CD includes both major and less significant works of Schoenberg. The major work is the Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16 which dates from 1909. The relatively minor works are two transcriptions of the music of other composers, the Cello Concerto (after G.M. Monn) which dates from 1932 and Schoenberg's 1937 orchestration of Brahms's Piano Quartet in g minor, Brahms op. 25. Craft conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in the Five Pieces and the Philharmonia Orchestra in the two transcriptions.

The Five Pieces for Orchestra is a densely-packed work of about 15 minutes. Schoenberg gave names to each of the pieces after his publisher prodded him to do so. By 1909, Schoenberg was composing atonally, (sometimes called pantonally) but he had not developed the 12-tone row. Schoenberg's music is sometimes dismissed as overly cerebral or intellectual. This does him a disservice. Craft begins his notes for this volume with a statement of Schoenberg's artistic aim written at about the same time as this piece:

"Art belongs to the unconscious. One must express oneself directly. Not one's taste, or one's upbringing, or one's intelligence, knowledge, or skill. Not all these acquired characteristics, but that which is inborn, instinctive."

For all that Schoenberg fairly described his musical aim, the Five Pieces are difficult and concentrated indeed. The short pieces are tied together be repeated motifs. Each one begins with a short introductory phrase which becomes the basis for the movement. Phrases are repeated and developed with differences in tempo, rhythm, chord structure, and instrumentation. (Schoenberg shows his mastery as an orchestrator here and in the remainder of this CD.) Loud, highly dissonant sections of the work alternate with quieter, lyrical portions. The highlight of the work is in the final piece, marked "the Obligato Recitative" which takes materials from the earlier sections and works them into a climactic conclusion. The Five Pieces demand careful listening but the work repays the effort.

The remaining two works are transcriptions composed well after Schoenberg had developed his 12-tone method and after he had composed his operatic masterpiece in that idiom, "Moses und Aron". In these two works, Schoenberg seems to be resting somewhat and attempting to compose in a more accessible style. The cello concerto after Monn was composed for Pablo Casals who declined to play it. Monn was a late baroque, early classical composer, and Schoenberg's transcription has an astringent, neoclassical feel. Monn's original concerto was for the harpsichord. Schoenberg's transcription is notoriously difficult to play with its solo part high in the cello's register and its extensive use of double stops. I had the sense that the music doesn't lie well on the cello. With its orchestration and harmonization, Schoenberg's transcription has a distinctly modernist tone. It is unmistakably the work of a modern composer writing in an early classical idiom, similar in that regard to many works of Stravinsky and to Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony." Robert Sherry admirably performs the cello solo.

Schoenberg's transcription of the Brahms g minor piano quartet is better-known and more successful than his Monn transcription. Schoenberg said that he transposed this work for orchestra because the piano played a too dominant role in Brahms's quartet. Schoenberg's transcription is recognizably Brahms, but, as with the Monn, it is its own piece and has a modern flavor in its harmony, orchestration and angularity. The orchestration is at its strongest in the concluding Hungarian rondo in which Schoenberg makes great use of the xylophone, cymbals, and other percussion. The work is a combination of late romanticism with modernism. It is accessible and enjoyable.

I am looking forward to hearing more of Schoenberg in these performances by Robert Craft.

Robin Friedman

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Schoenberg Brahms, October 3, 2009

By 

Prof Dr Georg Nees "Brahms fan" (Germany) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra / Cello Concerto (after Monn) / Piano Quartet (Brahms orch. Schoenberg) (Audio CD)

The CD is excellent. I was especially eager to get the orchester-facon of the
piano quartett by Brahms. Now my wish is brillantly fulfilled.