Search - Schoenberg, Lyons Opera Orchestra Soloists :: Kaiserwalzer & Other Transcriptions

Transfigured Waltzes

Keith Otis Edwards | Dearbron, MI United States | 07/02/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Every so often, usually while in liquor and hence bereft of all sense and reason, I'll attempt to listen to Pierrot lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg, and when I do the sensation is analogous to having bitten into a piece of undercooked pork liver. I would assume that many lovers of serious music share my craving for new and undiscovered musical delights, but after years of trying to appreciate it, I still regard serialism as being to music as Morse code is to language.



It would be easy to dismiss Schoenberg as a sort of musical Trotsky who propagated an unworkable system of artificial equality or a bunkum artist who gained fame peddling 12-tone snake oil were it not for the salient fact that Arnold Schoenberg was a superb musician.



One of my favorite CDs is a collection of Schoenberg's transcriptions, and I'm especially fond of his version of the Emperor Waltz and Roses from the South, both by Johann Strauss the younger. The arrangements are for a chamber orchestra with piano and harmonium, and they are so good as to be transcendental. Neither the melodies or harmonies are altered, but these familiar waltzes are mysteriously changed in some way. I'd like to obtain the scores of these arrangements to see just what devices Arnold used to get such effects, but in the meanwhile I'll continue to marvel at the recording.



The CD to get of these arrangements is ERATO 13541, and the performance is by the all-stars of the National Opera of Lyon. This is quite a rare recording in North America and it's not even listed in the Schwann catalogue. The CD is, like all ERATO recordings, of an unsurpassed clarity that matches the spotless performance. This recording should be in everyone's collection."