Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46

This volume of Robert Craft’s acclaimed Schoenberg series presents the composer’s favourite of his own orchestral works, the Violin Concerto. Conceived in grand style and dedicated to his ‘dear friend and fellow warrior’ Webern, it draws on the techniques of melodic variation and development that Schoenberg so admired in Brahms’ music to reach a majestic conclusion.

In the other shorter works, written during or after World War II, Schoenberg uses striking vocal and instrumental combinations to create intensely moving and dramatic music.

De Profundis was Schoenberg’s last completed composition.

This set shows the so-called bogey-men of the Second Viennese School, from their hyper Romantic height, through Expressionism and onto the more entertaining aspects of Serialism, as entertainers of a great order. The Nineteenth-Century heritage of Schubert, Brahms and Wagner are never far from Schoenberg, Berg and Webern in these 8 CDs, which concentrate on the earlier, more approachable (and often finest) products of three distinct composers, rather than any school. The performers reflect the composers' Romantic leanings here; Sinopoli bringing in artists at the height of their early careers: Deborah Voigt, Alessandra Marc and Juliane Banse.

The ever-approachable Berg is seen at his kindest and Webern, a figure who looked as far back as he did forward is as finely tuned in Im Sommerwind as in the Op.21 Symphony – a simply and fascinating journey. Schoenberg is in full splendour, too. Sounding more like Mahler's heir than a prophet of total change.

“In his highly compelling live recording, Sinopoli conducts a most sensuous reading of Gurrelieder, bringing out all it’s romantic voluptuousness… anyone who has ever thought of Schoenberg as cold should certainly hear this, magnetic from first to last…" Penguin Guide ***

“It would be hard to imagine more romantic readings of Berg’s principal orchestral works than those under Giuseppe Sinopoli. The atonal arguments of Berg have never been presented more sinuously, cocooning the ear, helped by sumptuous playing and recording” Penguin Guide ***