Arnold Schoenberg - Gurrelieder (Seiji Ozawa)

Information

Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

CD1:

1. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 1. Orchestral Prelude
2. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 2. Waldemar: Nun dämpft die Dämmerung
3. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 3. Tove: O, wenn des Mondes Strahlen
4. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 4. Waldemar: Ross! Mein Ross!
5. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 5. Tove: Sterne jubeln
6. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 6. Waldemar: So tanzen die Engel
7. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 7. Tove: Nun sag ich dir zum ersten Mal
8. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 8. Waldemar: Es ist Mitternachtszeit
9. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 9. Tove: Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick
10. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 10. Waldemar: Du wunderliche Tove!
11. Gurre-Lieder - Part I: 11. Voice of the Wood-dove: Doves of Gurre

CD2:

1. Gurre-Lieder - Part II: 12. Waldemar: Herrgott, weisst du, was du tatest
2. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 13. Waldemar: Erwacht, König Waldemars Mannen wert!
3. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 14. Peasant: Deckel des Sarges Klappert
4. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 15. Waldemar's Men: Gegrüsst, o König
5. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 16. Waldemar: Mit Toves Stimme flüstert der Wald
6. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 17. Klaus the Jester: Ein seltsamer Vogel
7. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 18. Waldemar: Du strenger Richter
8. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 19. Waldemar's Men: Der Hahn erhebt den Kopf
9. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 20. Orchestral Prelude
10. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 21. Speaker: Herr Gänsefuss, Frau Gänsekraut
11. Gurre-Lieder - Part III: 22. Mixed Chorus: Seht die Sonne

Jessye Norman, soprano
Tatiana Troyanos, mezzo-soprano
James McCracken, tenor
Kim Scown, tenor
David Arnold, baritone
Werner Klemperer, narrator
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, conductor

Date: 1979
Label: Philips

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 8

This recording of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder was made at Boston’s Symphony Hall in April, 1979. A distinguished cast of soloists headed by James McCracken (Waldemar), Jessye Norman (Tove), and Tatiana Troyanos (Wood Dove) joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus under Seiji Ozawa. Philips’ original LP issue sounded good but inevitably suffered near melt-down at Schoenberg’s gigantic climaxes. This drawback has been largely overcome in these newly-remastered CDs. Only at very high playback levels are you likely to find the brass too strident or the chorus sopranos edgy, although the sound is still generally top-heavy. However, it’s more likely you’ll get a call from your neighbours before reaching that point, and this transfer conveys not just the gigantism of the score but also the ambience of the recording location with palpable realism.

Ozawa’s account sometimes can be a little short on imagination, though. Compare the orchestral prelude to Waldemar’s first song, or the impressionistic strands of orchestration in the song of the wood-dove (Troyanos sings it beautifully!) to the Decca recording by Chailly and you’ll hear a wealth of inner detailing that Ozawa often paints over too hastily. Chailly is somewhat better at layering Schoenberg’s terraced orchestration so everything is audible, but Ozawa’s Wild Hunt at the beginning of Part 3 is especially well managed. The orchestra rips into the horrific passage following Waldemar’s “today the dead ride abroad” outburst with awesome power. There’s a heady feeling of catharsis, too, about Ozawa’s final chorus. Gurrelieder rarely fails here, but the trumpets blaze magnificently as the chorus intones “behold the sun”, clinching a performance that’s seldom as thoughtfully managed as Chailly’s, but that’s often more exciting at crucial moments.

-- ClassicsToday 

More reviews:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/schoenberg-gurrelieder-7

http://www.allmusic.com/album/schoenberg-gurrelieder-mw0001396040

http://www.amazon.com/Gurrelieder-Arnold-Schoenberg/dp/B000FG5PJK

http://www.amazon.com/Gurrelieder-Schoenberg/dp/B0000040WP

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Arnold Schoenberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer, leader of the Second Viennese School. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner. Later, his name would come to personify innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, an influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg

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Seiji Ozawa (born September 1, 1935) is a Japanese conductor, best known for his 29 years tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1979-2002). He was also the principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera from 2002 to 2010. Ozawa has been an advocate of 20th-century classical music, giving the premieres of a number of works including György Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony in 1975 and Olivier Messiaen's opera Saint François d'Assise in 1983.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiji_Ozawa

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