Customer Reviews

Webern Conducts Berg - Violin Concerto

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Have you every wondered what it would be like to hear J.S. Bach being played by himself - or at least by C.P.E. Bach? If you want an idea of the sort of shock it would cause you then you should try this recording of Anton von Webern conducting Alban Berg with Louis Krasner, who gave the first performance, playing the violin. The whole recording is a total revelation over passage after passage. The end result is like a great painting that has been freshly restored - never mind the scatchy sound.

Anton von Webern was regarded as an exceptional conductor in his time and Berg even said that he was the greatest Mahler conductor since Mahler. Nowhere does Webern's genius as a conductor shine through as it does here, for he has total understanding of Berg's musical language. The tempi are expansive with an almost Klemperian monumentality but Webern achieves a miraculous clarification of orchestral texture. If this is anything to go by, then Webern's Mahler must really have been something else. It just makes Webern's senseless death after the end of the Second World War all the more tragic.

The whole experience leaves you thinking that if the descrepancy between current performance practice with that of composers of the early 20th century is this wide, what then is the yawning gap between current practice and those older composers? It is really food for thought. Whatever the case this is definitely one of the most important recordings of music ever made and above all a profoundly moving performance by Webern in honour of his dead friend, Berg.

This is a must have recording for anyone interested in Berg's Violin Concerto. It is the second performance of the work, conducted by Anton Webern on May 1, 1936, less than 6 months after Berg's untimely death.

The performance is excellent. There could be no better interpretation of the concerto. The recording (a live performance) is quite good by the standards of the day and the transfer is superb. Louis Krasner, for whom the concerto was written, plays wonderfully. At the conclusion, the orchestra overwhelms his notes, but this is a small matter compared to his performance. There is some coughing at the start of the concerto but the audience becomes caught up in the music, so new to their ears.

We have the chance to go back in time to when the Berg concerto was barely known, and as an historical document of the event it is priceless. You will not be sorry if you buy this disc.

La fecha de esta grabación asustará a más de uno. Estamos en el año de la muerte de Berg, y una serie de circunstancias han hecho que su amigo y compañero de la denominada Segunda Escuela de Viena no pueda dirigir el estreno de la última obra terminada de Berg: el concierto de violín. Sin embargo, la BBC de Londres le da a Webern la oportunidad de dirigir la segunda ejecución absoluta de esta obra maestra con la orquesta de la BBC y Louis Krasner, quien encargó el concierto, al violín. En la grabación comprobamos que algo importante estaba ocurriendo en aquella sala, la tensión se puede respirar incluso a pesar del mal sonido, la sensación de que algo irrepetible se estaba produciendo. Webern dirige con gran lentitud, haciéndose uno con esta música triste y maravillosa. Krasner toca de una forma religiosa, como comunicándose con el propio compositor en el más allá. Parece que la orquesta de la BBC huniera estado tocando esta música toda la vida. Y además de la perfecta interpretación, (la ejecución es irreprochablemente buena) el ambiente de homenaje hacia el recién muerto compositor es casi insoportable en su intensidad. Si el sonido fuera mejor, esta interpretación sería una referencia absoluta. Así tal como está lo es, pero no todos pueden soportar un sonido que no sea técnicamente perfecto. En todo caso, para los amantes de Berg y de la música en general, esta interpretación no debe perderse, sino atesorarse como algo religioso. Sé que no es una versión para escuchar a menudo, por esa misma tensión irresistible que he anotado. Pero cada vez que se repite la escucha, comprobamos que algo irrepetible ha sucedido.

I would also like to add, that along with Louis Kraner's playing of Berg's Violin Concerto, which he commissioned, we have here a recording featuring the conducting of Berg's close friend and fellow Second Viennese composer Anton Webern. Here is preserved for following generations a performance of one of the signal moments in 20th-century music. To hear Webern conduct is a blessing.

The recording of Berg's Lyric Suite for String Quartet is of lesser impression audio-wise than the violin concerto.

Alban Berg is my favorite composer, and I'm excited about traveling to New York to see the Metropolitan Opera performance of his great opera, "Lulu."

Michael