Search - Schoenberg, Prague Piano Duo :: Chamber Symphonies 1 & 2 / 5 Pieces Op 16

Schoenberg is a giant of a composer.

Karl Henzy | 08/22/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Well, I guess the two reviews by Denis Diderot tell the story--he's had a backlash conversion and now floods the modern music files at Amazon with negative customer reviews (mostly the same couple of reviews). In fact, Schoenberg was an incredible composer--I've been reading an analysis of one of the Pierrot Lunaire songs ("Nacht"), and it's amazing how much goes into this short piece. As far as this disc goes, the Chamber Symphony No.1 is a great work, and S. wrote it before abandoning tonality. It's interesting, because in a tonal way it bears a strong resemblance to his serial music a couple of decades later. The five pieces for orchestra, of course, are groundbreaking--what Schoenberg did in 1909, what with the three piano pieces, the five orchestral pieces, and finally Erwartung. Amazing."

FIRST-CLASS SCHOENBERG...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 12/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
This is a very fine disc of some really rare Schoenberg: the two Chamber Symphonies and the pantonal orchestral pieces from 1909--Schoenberg's most Expressionistic year.



The 1st Chamber Symphony dates from 1906; the 2nd is also mostly from that year--though completely finished over thirty years later in the same style of 1906.



These piano reductions were standard performance procedure in Schoenberg's Society for the Private Performance of Music just after WWI. They give a very sharp, clear x-ray of the music."