Document

  1989
    September 1989
        Orchestral
                Second Viennese School.

Second Viennese School Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan.

DG (Mid price) (CD) 427 424-2GC3 (three discs, nas: 181 minutes: ADD). From 2711 014 (3/75).

Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5—symphonic poem. Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31. Verklarte Nacht, Op. 4. Berg: Three [Piece] Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6. Lyric Suite—three [piece] pieces for string orchestra. Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1. Five Movements, Op. 5. Six [Piece] Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6. Symphony, Op. 21.

Most of these performances have already been available in CD reissues—the Webern compilation was reviewed in Gramophone as recently as July 1988. Yet DG have decided that Karajan's Second Viennese School benefits from being available as a single entity: one man's view, in 1972–4, of some of the most complex and diverse orchestral music of the century.

Karajan has never approached contemporary music with the innate radicalism and inside knowledge of a composer-conductor like Boulez; yet he cannot be accused of distorting reality by casting a pall of late-romantic opulence and languor over all these works. He is understandably most at home in the expansive and often openly tragic atmosphere of Schoenberg's early tone poems Verklarte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande, and Webern's Passacaglia. In these works the richly blended playing of the BPO provides the ideal medium for Karajan's seamless projection of structure and expression. On the other hand, the more fragmented expressionism of Berg's Op. 6, and parts of Webern's Opp. 5 and 6, are communicated with exemplary immediacy. Nor do the movements from Berg's Lyric Suite lack anything in searing intensity or concentration.

With the fully 12-note pieces—Webern's Symphony, Schoenberg's Variations—Karajan remains especially sensitive to the music's lyricism, to the connections that to his ears override the contrasts. Although the Schoenberg has certainly been heard in performances less redolent of nineteenth-century tradition, as well as less calculated in terms of recorded acoustic, this remains a powerfully dramatic reading, at least until the finale—a less than ideally intransigent conclusion. In the Webern Symphony, it could even be argued that the drama is more powerful than is sanctioned by the score at least so far as dynamics are concerned. One man's view, then: but, given the man, a notably fascinating one.

AW

Chamber



		Most of these performances have already been available in CD reissues—the Webern compilation was reviewed in Gramophone as recently as July 1988. Yet DG have decided that Karajan's Second Viennese School benefits from being available as a single entity: one man's view, in 1972–4, of some of the most complex and diverse orchestral music of the century.



		Karajan has never approached contemporary music with the innate radicalism and inside knowledge of a composer-conductor like Boulez; yet he cannot be accused of distorting reality by casting a pall of late-romantic opulence and languor over all these works. He is understandably most at home in the expansive and often openly tragic atmosphere of Schoenberg's early tone poems Verklarte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande, and Webern's Passacaglia. In these works the richly blended playing of the BPO provides the ideal medium for Karajan's seamless projection of structure and expression. On the other hand, the more fragmented expressionism of Berg's Op. 6, and parts of Webern's Opp. 5 and 6, are communicated with exemplary immediacy. Nor do the movements from Berg's Lyric Suite lack anything in searing intensity or concentration.



		With the fully 12-note pieces—Webern's Symphony, Schoenberg's Variations—Karajan remains especially sensitive to the music's lyricism, to the connections that to his ears override the contrasts. Although the Schoenberg has certainly been heard in performances less redolent of nineteenth-century tradition, as well as less calculated in terms of recorded acoustic, this remains a powerfully dramatic reading, at least until the finale—a less than ideally intransigent conclusion. In the Webern Symphony, it could even be argued that the drama is more powerful than is sanctioned by the score at least so far as dynamics are concerned. One man's view, then: but, given the man, a notably fascinating one.