Schoenberg's Sheen

[karlhenning]

Saw this post, and knew there had to be a thread:

Schoenberg op.8

now that i've got a fast connection, i'm listening to all the Schoenberg that i haven't heard yet! yessssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of My Favorite Schoenberg:

Gurrelieder
Verklärte Nacht, string sextet, Opus 4
Quartets. Opp. 7, 10, 30 & 37
Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9
Opus 11 piano pieces!
Opus 23 piano pieces!
Serenade, Opus 24
Chamber Symphony No. 2, Opus 38
Piano Concerto, Opus 42
String Trio, Opus 45
Moses und Aron
Cello Concerto (after Monn)

[bhodges]

Some of My Favorite Schoenberg:

Gurrelieder
Verklärte Nacht, string sextet, Opus 4
Quartets. Opp. 7, 10, 30 & 37
Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9
Opus 11 piano pieces!
Opus 23 piano pieces!
Serenade, Opus 24
Chamber Symphony No. 2, Opus 38
Piano Concerto, Opus 42
String Trio, Opus 45
Moses und Aron
Cello Concerto (after Monn)

Yes, all great.  And I would add the Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, which I truly never tire of hearing.  Favorite live performances from the recent past: Chailly and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1999, on a program that also included Brahms' Violin Concerto (with Vadim Repin) and Brahms' Symphony No. 2, and an excellent chamber version in 2005 by James Levine and the Met Orchestra, on a program that included Dallapiccola and Carter.

--Bruce

[Cato]

I just had to take the time to add my favorites too:

Five Pieces for Orchestra You will wish there were 10!

Pelleas und Melisande  Hot, humid, and hysterical!

String Quartet #2  Cool winds from Mars expected later today!

Friede auf Erde Eventually there is peace at the end!

[karlhenning]

Pelleas und Melisande  Hot, humid, and hysterical!

Oh, man . . . thought I'd lumbered into the Debussy thread by mistake!

Welcome, Cato!

Have yet to find a recording of the Kol nidre . . . .

[springrite]

Oh, man . . . thought I'd lumbered into the Debussy thread by mistake!

Or Faure!

My favorite is probably the Five Pieces.

[Cato]

Oh, man . . . thought I'd lumbered into the Debussy thread by mistake!

When record companies had imagination, there was a disc available with Schoenberg's tone poem, and the stage music by both Sibelius and Faure.

Karl, for the Schoenberg  Kol Nidre check out these CD's:

http://www.hbdirect.com/album_detail.php?pid=391848

http://www.hbdirect.com/album_detail.php?pid=27992

I did not find them on Amazon, but this company is very good.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

For a quality one-stop for Pelleas, this new Czech disc might fit the bill.

[Cato]

I see this Czech disc even has opera excerpts from Debussy: is the Pink Harp fanatic still around?  This should be of interest to him!

The recording must be from the 60's or 70's given that Baudo is conducting.  Supraphon records from that time occasionally had problems with heavy hiss, but this one might be okay.

[Novi]

I like Pierrot Lunaire. Trippy stuff ...

[greg]

Saw this post, and knew there had to be a thread:

Some of My Favorite Schoenberg:

Gurrelieder
Verklärte Nacht, string sextet, Opus 4
Quartets. Opp. 7, 10, 30 & 37
Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9
Opus 11 piano pieces!
Opus 23 piano pieces!
Serenade, Opus 24
Chamber Symphony No. 2, Opus 38
Piano Concerto, Opus 42
String Trio, Opus 45
Moses und Aron
Cello Concerto (after Monn)

i listened to the 1st chamber concerto and the string trio, too, yesterday
still more to go, yay  

my favorites:
5 pieces for Orchestra
Book of Hanging Gardens
Variations for Orchestra
Piano Suite (if it's Glenn Gould performing)
3 pieces for piano
Transfigured night
Suite (i forget which one, i think with chamber instruments)
Pierrot Lunaire
Piano Concerto
Ode to Napoleon Dynamite (i mean Buonaparte, hehehe)
and more.....

listened to the 2nd string quartet again awhile ago... my opinion has changed a little. it's not so bad as i thought before, especially if i have in mind his other works from that period

[karlhenning]

I need to revisit that there Book of the Hanging Gardens, Greg!

[greg]

I need to revisit that there Book of the Hanging Gardens, Greg!

Go ahead! Usually his stuff grows on you if you don't know what to think at first.
What's interesting is his harmonic language at the time when he first starts diving into free atonality. You hear something like the Chamber Symphony or Transfigured Night, with late-Romantic sounds that could come from someone like Strauss, which is mixed up with lots of whole-tone sounding stuff- and then it evolves rapidly into atonality, though it's a completely different type of atonality than his serial stuff. It's like late-Romantic atonality, which is really cool

[not edward]

Lots of great pieces there: two that I particularly like which aren't mentioned elsewhere (probably because they are in truth minor Schoenberg) are the gorgeous Weihnachtsmusik and the completely silly String Quartet Concerto.

[Don Giovanni]

The Five Pieces for Orchestra are blisteringly brilliant. I think one critic wrote that the last movement was the greatest work of modernism in music. I wouldn't agree but I can see why he might have been stirred into such moments of hyperbole.

Along with the Serenade and String Quartet No. 2, these are my favourite Schoenberg works.

[Cato]

And one of Schoenberg's most fun works (yes, I said fun, and I'm glad, I tell you, glad!!!) is...

The Violin Concerto!

Not to be missed!

[mahlertitan]

i like the lighter works, the highly complex suite for strings in G

[Don Giovanni]

What do people think of the piano music? Which recording is the best to own? I've heard that Pollini is one of the best.

[Don Giovanni]

I still believe that Schoenberg doesn't get half the recognition he deserves. Even if people just recognised his importance - provided they had heard at least some of his works. I know that Webern could be said to have had more influence on the later serialists but, nevertheless, Schoenberg did ignite the whole movement and bring music 'over the edge of the cliff' - the edge that people like Mahler and Strauss had been edging nearer to all the time. Indeed, one of the first examples I can think of of 'over the edge' music is Schoenberg's 2nd quartet - wonderful piece.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

What do people think of the piano music? Which recording is the best to own? I've heard that Pollini is one of the best.

I find much to admire in Schoenberg's solo piano music. And to me Pollini gets right to the heart of it.

What little Uchida has recorded (on her PC disc) is good too.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Anyone have any thoughts on Jacob's Ladder?

I've just been listening to the disc below and am bowled over by the beauty of the music! By turns bold, delicate, and layered with much color.

Nagano conducts with a romantic influence yet by no means downplays the edginess.

I've not seen much in print about this work but under Nagano's direction I detect much to rave about!

And the text...little doubt this would be a hard one in the theater!