Anton Webern & Alban Berg

[Late]

I was wondering if those in-the-know here could recommend some superlative and/or favorite recordings of Anton Webern's and Alban Berg's music. I'm particularly interested in string quartet recordings. (I have the Emerson String Quartet's disc of Webern String Works, but, at least right now, it leaves me cold.)

Thanks for the recommendations!

[WD45]

I had this out just this weekend:

[A Lark Ascending]

I can't say I care for Webern much...like eating twigs with a hair shirt on.

Berg I do like and would strongly recommend the Three Orchestral Pieces, Violin Concerto and Lulu Suite. Think Mahler but far more curdled. The two operas (Wozzeck and Lulu) are engaging too.

Can't really help on versions as I only ever buy one version of classical pieces. The Abbado and Karajan versions of the above do me fine.

[WD45]

Oh dear... B-)

[A Lark Ascending]

What faux pas have I committed now...

[Д.Д.]

I have an excellent performance of Webern quartets on naive label (Warner Music group) - I think it/s by Arditti String Quartet - I will check when I get home. Can't coment on Berg.

Emerson Quartet I cannot stand - I have their CD of Prokofiev quartets, and it is very "flat" and mechanistic - so I wouldn't judge on the merits of music based on their performance.

[WD45]

What faux pas have I committed now...

None, really. That is just some image you conjured in my skull.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Bev Stapleton Posted: Apr 21 2005, 02:01 PM 

I can't say I care for Webern much...like eating twigs with a hair shirt on. 

Do you know the Passacaglia Op.1? I think it's a little less like the above!

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, I do know that one.

Much more in the late-Romantic style of Berg or early Schoenberg (Verkarte Nacht, Pelleas, Gurrelieder etc) which I like very much.

I'm afraid I need a bit of a tune. With Webern I always feel like I need to go up into the loft and bring down the old slide-rule.

None, really. That is just some image you conjured in my skull.

Sorry to disturb your skull. It's my digestion that gets bothered!!!

[Rooster_Ties]

My favorite Berg is his Lyric Suite for String Quartet (1925/6), followed closely by his String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910). They are often included together, since they fill a CD nicely. I have a few recordings of both, and the one I think packs the biggest punch are the 1991-92 recordings by the Alban Berg Quartett.

Alas, this recording appears to be out of print -- but is well worth tracking down. Anyone else have this particular recording?? If so, what do you think of it??

Like Bev, I'm pretty sweet on Berg, but sour on Webern. Spontoonious has tried to convert me several times, but Webern pretty much does nothing for me.

Edited April 21, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Chuck Nessa]

Unlike Bev and Mr Ties Webern is one of my favorite composers.

I used to be really dogmatic about my tastes in performance but have learned to appreciate different takes on the material.

Not really a fan of the Julliard or Emerson. My "old standby" recording of the Webern quartets is Quartetto Italiano and have recently enjoyed the Artis Quartet.

For the historically inclined, I urge the purchase of a set on Music & Arts titled "In Honor of Rudolf Kolisch" where you can hear many of the "New Viennese" works played by someone there at the creation. You should be able to find a fair amount of info online.

Edited April 21, 2005 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

Well, if you play Webern too loudly, you can expect to recieve secret messages (and maybe even visits) from the SS.

You know that, don't you?

Edited April 21, 2005 by JSngry

[Chuck Nessa]

You talkin' 'bout his son-in-law?

[JSngry]

No, about his use of serial techniques to encode and convey highly-sensitive German intellegence data during WWII.

It was all over the Internet a few years ago, so it's gotta be true.

[Epithet]

I like Levine's recording of Berg, Webern and Schoenberg orchestra pieces with the Berliner Philharmoniker. I don't believe it's widely touted (he tries too hard to make them palatable?) but I've heard Abbado's and Karajan's takes on the Bergs and couldn't get with them at all. Remind me to listen to that Gielen recording again.

Also heard Scherchen's take on the Passacaglia, op. 1 with some Italian radio orchestra—it's a scream.

[rostasi]

I was wondering if those in-the-know here could recommend some superlative and/or favorite recordings of Anton Webern's and Alban Berg's music. I'm particularly interested in string quartet recordings. (I have the Emerson String Quartet's disc of Webern String Works, but, at least right now, it leaves me cold.)

For the Webern SQs, I'd go with the Arditti on Disque Montaigne. Good price, great performance, nice guys. The complete Webern box is a nice thing to have, but I'm at odds recommending Boulez...try to get it cheap - I did.

As for Berg, If you're looking for complete, try for the DG box - there are some nice reduced price basic boxes on a few composers and he is one of the composers. It's a bit heavy on vocal works tho...

If you're leaning towards strings with Berg too, then you can either pick up the sexed-up DG cover

with "To the Memory of an Angel" that's a beautiful version done by Anne-Sophie Mütter and you get the added bonus of a wonderful Wolfgang Rihm work, "Gesungene Zeit" that'd give you a nice intro to this modernist composer.

or

I take you back to Boulez again with the BBC and the LSO doing the Violin Concerto, Three Orch. Pieces and the Chamber Concerto.

I would have you avoid the Kronos/Dawn Upshaw "Lyric Suite" - some people swear by both of them, but I think they have excellent PR.

[Larry Kart]

I've also learned (maybe even had to learn) to become undogmatic about how Webern is/can be/should be performed -- probably because I began with Robert Craft's old Columbia box of the complete works, which includes some performances that are scrappy (as Craft admits in the booklet) and others that may never be surpassed and/or carry a unique expressive charge because of the effort/passion involved in their fiercely difficult realization by those performers at that time and the corresponding sense of excitement/commitment those performers and Craft bring to the task. By contrast, both of Boulez's Webern sets struck me as icy/lacy petit-point; as I recall someone saying or writing of one of those sets, Boulez conducts Webern as though he were Ravel.

That said, I like Von Dohnanyi's London disc of the orchestral music quite a bit (don't know whether it's still in print), and I'm just getting familiar with the first disc of Craft's new Webern traversal on Naxos. Comparing Von Dohnanyi's and Craft's Naxos version of the Symphony may leave you thinking that somebody here has to be way wrong -- either one of them or you (if you respond positively to both, as I do) because they're quite different, Von Dohnanyi rather gemutlich-expressive (though not at all smeary-sloppy; he's conducting the Cleveland SO), Craft a good deal more cool and dry, though I wouldn't say Craft's "cool" means "detached," not at all. Timings are interesting -- while VD's first movement is 6:47 versus Craft's 7:31, VD's arguably feels mellower/slower because of the more gemutlich phrasing; but Craft's second movement at 2:32 seems to go like a bullet versus VD's 3:03. (Craft writes that his performance of this movement "at Webern's metronomic tempi may be the first to realise the music as it was intended to be heard" -- the imperious tone being typical of Craft; in my experience, sometimes his music-making backs that up 100 per cent, sometimes it's more a matter of him getting his back up. In any case, Craft's overall 10:03 for the Symphony feels a good deal swifter than VD's overall 9:53. I know -- clock time isn't the same as music time. And so far, I still like both recordings, even though I'm sure Craft would say I'm not allowed to -- in the notes he says that the Symphony "has become the best known of Webern's twelve-tone pieces (unfortunately in poor performances)..."

[Chuck Nessa]

Another interesting take on Webern's orchestral stuff is provided by Sinopoli with Staatskapelle Dresden (Teldec). His version of the Symphony takes 8:55.

[A Lark Ascending]

I have no issue with Webern's importance; or other people's love of him. I've just never managed to unlock anything to move me. I can be impressed by the orchestration but my mind soon wanders.

I keep trying every few years. One day maybe!

I have this one too, Rooster:

Again, I can't comment comparatively but I enjoy it.

There's something very appealing about that dissolving sound world of the early 20thC. I'm very fond of Franz Schmidt's Fourth Symphony which is also in that still tonal but blurring area.

A pity the Decca Entartete Musik series dried up - it was unearthing some very strange music in that field. Might not have been as historically important as S/B/W...but I'm always attracted to the side roads.

[SGUD missile]

I'd go with Von Karajan /Berlin SO version of "Transfigured night"

( I too prefer his earlier " Proto Romatic" work in general )

Also the Berg Violin Concerto w/ Anne-Sophine Mutter /James Levine /Chicago SO is quite nice.

If you prefer the earlier Schoenberg stuff, you might wanna try Witold Lutoslowskis' " Variations on a theme by Paganini " ..and compare it to the more well known Rachmaninov opus ..

[A Lark Ascending]

I strongly recommend this - a record I have played again and again since the 1980s. Now available at budget price:

The Stravinsky is very different to the Germanic post-Romantic world of Berg, but equally as thrilling.

I'm not a great fan of Violin Concertos but these two really get to me.

[JSngry]

No, about his use of serial techniques to encode and convey highly-sensitive German intellegence data during WWII.

It was all over the Internet a few years ago, so it's gotta be true.

Just in case anybody missed this:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa062998.htm

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa070398.htm

[Spontooneous]

Webern is like religion to me. And it pains me when I can't win converts.

It's ALL melody.

(The Sony Boulez box won't set you back too much money, and despite the tape hiss I still like these better than the DG recordings.)

[A Lark Ascending]

Webern is like religion to me.

In which case it might be advisable to move this thread to the politics forum, given what happens to religion threads!

[JSngry]

Holy shit!