Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 1-3

Martha Argerich, piano
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor



Samuel Barber
Orchestral Works and Concertos
Leonard Slatkin, Charles Munch



Rimsky-Korsakov
Evgeny Svetlanov


Beethoven
Symphony No.9
Piano Transcription by Franz Liszt
Konstantin Scherbakov, Piano



Kronos Caravan

"I am obeying an inner compulsion stronger than any upbringing," said Schoenberg once, speaking about his compositions. Yet the music which he created in Verklärte Nacht and Gurre-Lieder are often cited as "modernist" works emergent from the hot-house of the late Romantic period before Schoenberg broke with convention, and embraced the emancipation of atonality, stretching the rules of harmonic and melodic form until they snapped.

Still, listening to Gurre-Lieder, it is easy to remind ourselves that Schoenberg was at heart a traditionalist, and that his music came (initially, at least) as the product of his environment. His musical vocabulary and accent was informed, for instance, by Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, Mahler and Liszt. Schoenberg inevitably realized that the heritage of their Romanticisms had to evolve further, if only because logically, tradition demanded it. Like many trades of the time, composition was taught (as it still is today, to some extent) by apprenticeship, which meant that students inherited and were influenced greatly by their masters. (If the apprentices were any good, they would of course take the music a step or three further, as Schoenberg did, and in turn, his own students Anton Webern and John Cage would ruffle some feathers, too.)

Although there are already forward-looking aspects of Schoenberg's latter styles, such as the Sprechtstimme of the Speaker, the harmonic structure in Gurre-Lieder is torridly Wagnerian, the narrative structure of the music gives a nod to Richard Strauss and set around the epic poem by Danish writer and botanist Jens Peter Jacobsen, the Gurresänge. Gurresänge takes its name from the setting of the poem at the castle at Guerre along Lake Gurresco, telling of the Danish medieval legend of King Valdemar and Tove. In a line, Valdermar's jealous queen Helvig has Tove killed, and Valdemar adds to his own eternal damnation by blaming God.

In his conception of the cantata Gurre-Lieder, Schoenberg called for five vocal soloists and one narrator, two groups of choruses (one male, one mixed) and an oversized orchestra (four piccolos, ten horns, four Wagner tubas and iron chains in the percussion section), and in the score, written on specially ordered oversized manuscript paper, he meticulously specified tempi, dynamics, timbre and performance directions. This, coupled with some gorgeous orchestral writing, means that the major challenge with performing (or recording) Guerre-Lieder lies more in logistics management (a conductor directing 400 artists) than anything else.

There are already a number of excellent Gurre-Lieders in the catalog, and this Naxos release is in fact a repackaged version previously from Koch International (KICCD7542). Robert Craft shows here that he has rethought his Schoenberg, and brings the best playing out of the Philharmonia and the Simon Joly singers. More so than in Chailly's and Ozawa's renditions, Craft is not afraid to indulge in the lushness of the massed orchestral timbres, passionate outbursts of drama and simply wallowing in theatrics, yet without losing the focus and clarity of poweful storytelling.

The ensemble cast is superb, too. Melanie Diener may not be the sweetest-voiced Tove on record, but she gives a gripping, eloquent account full of pathos, floating over Craft's lightly placed instrumental textures. Stephen O'Mara's firm, confident timbre reminds one of the Wagnerian heldentenor, which is aptly fitting in his role here as Waldemar. As the Wood-Dove, Jennifer Lane has a freshness and glamour in the voice which compares more than favourably against, say, the Nordic stoicisms of von Otter on Rattle, or the Teutonic fury of Fassbaender on Chailly. Rounding out the soloists is Martyn Hill as a robust Klaus-Narr, David Wilson-Johnson as a characterful Peasant and the 83-year-old Ernst Haefliger who belies his years as a suitably melodramatic Speaker, as a superb exponent of Sprechstimme.

Given the size of the combined forces, capturing the sound without congestion and distortion is always going to be a challenge for the engineers. This digital recording was made in the Watford Colosseum, but there is never excessive reverberance - just the right amount to give a body of presence to the performers. Listening, for instance, to the beginning of Part III where Stephen O'Mara has to sing lustily over the orchestral outburst in the Wild Hunt, one gets an admiring appreciation for how ingenuously the engineers have separated and detailed the vocal and symphonic layers in such clear strata. The same is true in the brassy bluster of the Night Ride, and again in the magnificent orchestral sunrise with the choral ode to the sun.

This is the only super-budget Gurre-Lieder in the catalog to date and, like everyone else, spanning 2 full discs and intrepid listeners can be recommended to this with no hesitation. Those who have enjoyed this should move on the versions by Boulez, Rattle and Chailly to further explore and appreciate this music. I might mention, though, that Ozawa's long-standing classic recording is now also available as a Philips Duo (464 736-2). Ozawa's version is not without its solecisms, but does have the bonus of the two Chamber Symphonies as fillers for just a bit more. Neither provides the text or translations, which can be an inconvenience, although a quick Google should remedy that.

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