Your favorite recordings of Webern

[GB]

My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.

What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

[Raymond Hall]

I wouldn't know, apart from a piece on a Naxos disc by Peter Hill. I remember playing a piano piece which fascinated me, but have forgotten the details. I was thinking of springing for the Boulez box which includes Rosen. Anyone have any thoughts on this Webern 3 CD box?

Ray Hall, Tare

[GB]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 10:16:32 PM UTC-5, Raymond Hall wrote:
> I wouldn't know, apart from a piece on a Naxos disc by Peter Hill. I remember playing a piano piece which fascinated me, but have forgotten the details. I was thinking of springing for the Boulez box which includes Rosen. Anyone have any thoughts on this Webern 3 CD box?
>
> Ray Hall, Tare

Are you talking about the Sony set [SM3K 45845]? I own it. The booklet contains a lot of information, and I like the recordings very much. You would probably find more preferable individual recordings on smaller releases, but the standard of the recordings in the box set is high.

There is another Webern - Boulez box released by DG, but based on my incomplete experience of the DG set, the Sony set feels much more intimate. The Sony set is a very good place to start listening to Webern.

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 4:56:34 PM UTC-10, GB wrote:
> My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.
>
> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

"Building a classical music library: Anton Webern":

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2007/apr/23/buildingaclassicalmusiclib1

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 4:56:34 PM UTC-10, GB wrote:

> My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.
>
> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

According to the following:

Passacaglia - Boulez/Berlin Philharmonic
Symphony - Boulez/Berlin Philharmonic
Variations for orchestra - Abbado/Vienna Philharmonic

Dohnanyi's renditions of the Webern Symphony and Passacaglia are superb as well, although the Boulez DG set is great.

http://www.talkclassical.com/30099-webern-berg-bartok-schoenberg.html

[Lawrence Kart]

Best Webern orchestral performances I know are Abbados' on DG.

Larry Kart

[howie...@btinternet.com]

For the piano variations, Biret's first recording, and Richter if you can put up with the bad sound.
For the quartet, The Schoenberg Quartet I think
For the late cantatas, Boulez in 1957 (concerts du domaine musical), again assuming you can put up with the sound
For the songs, Reinbert de Leeuw
For the five pieces for Orchestra, Bruna Maderna

[Raymond Hall]

Many thx. I may well go for it.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Tassilo]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 9:56:34 PM UTC-5, GB wrote:

> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

For the Five Movements, op. 5, and 6 Bagatelles, op. 9, for string quartet nothing can compare to the early 60’s RCA recording with the Juilliard SQ. On LP they were coupled with Berg’s Lyric Suite in an equally remarkable performance, and the entire program was briefly available on CD in Japan. Testament pulled the Webern off and coupled them with the Debussy and Ravel quartets. The entire contents of the LP are available through Sony as a print on demand CD from Arkiv Music, as MP3’s from Amazon. The La Salle Quartet made a justly celebrated recording of the complete music for string quartet of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, and that set is well worth tracking down, too.

I still prefer some of the performances in the old Robert Craft complete Webern to much of what has been recorded more recently: Craft’s performances reveal an expressionist fervor lacking from some of the more cool and detached performances of this repertory since. I definitely prefer his recording of the Bach/Webern ricercar to any other that I’ve heard. Similarly I prefer Boulez’s few Domaine musical recordings to the performances of the same works in his two complete sets: of the two Boulez sets, I prefer the earlier, now on Sony.

It’s been a long time since I listened to Dorothy Dorow’s recording of the Lieder with piano, but it could be spectacularly good, not that there’s anything wrong with Heather Harper and Charles Rosen in the earlier of the two complete Boulez sets.

-dg

[sci.space]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 9:56:34 PM UTC-5, GB wrote:

> My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.
>
> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

I like the Craft recordings, but the Boulez ones speak to me. I have found that composers conduct interesting performances, going back to the Harvard Summer Orchestra performances conducted by Leon Kirchner. He made Bruckner fascinating, which I had thought an impossibility.

[richard...@gmail.com]

It seems that I am in a minority of one. The recordings that first made Webern sound like a continuation of Western music to me, that made it live for me as music, were Karajan BPO in his LP set of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. I had Boulez already, but it didn't communicate in the same way.

[GB]

To clarify regarding the print-on-demand CD version sold by Arkiv: is this a transfer of the RCA Berg/Webern release, or the Testament Debussy/Ravel/Webern release? I am guessing you mean the latter, since I cannot find the Berg/Webern on CD on Arkiv, but I want to be sure I am not overlooking it.

[Tassilo]

Sorry GB, apparently my mistake. I saw that the contents of the RCA album were available as downloads at Amazon and assumed that you could buy a print-on-demand CD from Arkiv Music (which is the case with several other albums, e.g. Carter's Double. Concerto with Rosen and Jacobs). The JSQ Webern and Berg Lyric Suite were both reissued by Testament but de- coupled.
-Tassilo

[GB]

On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 12:30:55 AM UTC-5, Tassilo wrote:
> Sorry GB, apparently my mistake. I saw that the contents of the RCA album were available as downloads at Amazon and assumed that you could buy a print-on-demand CD from Arkiv Music (which is the case with several other albums, e.g. Carter's Double. Concerto with Rosen and Jacobs). The JSQ Webern and Berg Lyric Suite were both reissued by Testament but de- coupled.
> -Tassilo

No worries! I will seek those recordings out. It seems like the recording of Lyric Suite on the original RCA release is the same one that Testament rereleased with JSQ's first recording of Carter's 2nd Quartet and Schuman.

Off-topic but speaking of JSQ and Carter: you might be interested that I uploaded a quadraphonic 1974 JSQ recording of Carter's 2nd and 3rd quartets on Symphonyshare, unless you have already heard it.

[cooper...@gmail.com]

On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 12:30:55 AM UTC-5, Tassilo wrote:

> Sorry GB, apparently my mistake. I saw that the contents of the RCA album were available as downloads at Amazon and assumed that you could buy a print-on-demand CD from Arkiv Music (which is the case with several other albums, e.g. Carter's Double. Concerto with Rosen and Jacobs). The JSQ Webern and Berg Lyric Suite were both reissued by Testament but de- coupled.
> -Tassilo

The great (I would say incomparable) Juilliard SQ Berg/Webern LP coupling was reissued on CD in Japan and is currently available in multiple downloadable formats (including hi-res) from Presto: https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8189719--webern-5-movements-for-string-quartet-and-six-bagatelles. All of the Juilliard SQ RCAs that were included in the 60-CD Living Stereo "Collector's Edition" are downloadable individually. At this point I think that the only Juilliard RCAs still awaiting reissue are Beethoven op. 132 (LSC 2765) and Mozart K. 387 (LM 2167). David can correct me if I'm wrong.

AC

[mrfi...@gmail.com]

String trio: Lasalle Quartet
Variations: Pollini
Six Pieces: Rosbaud
Langsamer Satz: Carmina Quartet
Mature quartets: Arditti

SE.

[Lawrence Chalmers]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 6:56:34 PM UTC-8, GB wrote:
> My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.
>
> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

My favorite Webern orchestral music is by Abbado/Vienna PO. Same for the Berg orchestral works.

[Tassilo]

You're right about the Lyric Suite: it stems from the same RCA LP as the two Webern pieces. I also noticed your upload of the JSQ 2nd and 3rd Carter qts although I havent downloaded it yet. -dg

[Tassilo]

Webern trivia. Did anybody notice that the sophisticated neighbors of the Sopranos in an episode from the HBO series were listening to the Webern Piano Variations? I noticed in the credits that it was the Rosen recording from the first complete Boulez Webern set. (More remarkable is what my uncle remembers seeing in the 70s: Peter Ustinov telling Johny Carson that he had just flown in from Reykjavik, where he had gone to hear a performance of Stockhausen's Gruppen. I'm not sure Carson knew what he was talking about.)
-Tassilo

[johnschottd...@gmail.com]

Although I avoid Karajan like..., umm, a Nazi, I make an exception for his recording of Webern's Symphony Op. 21 with BPO.

The Webern biography by the Moldenhauers states that Webern recorded a Schoenberg choral piece for a 78 recording, but unfortunately I don't think that recording has ever been traced.

[johnschottd...@gmail.com]

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 4:56:34 PM UTC-10, GB wrote:

> My current favorite is Schoenberg Quartet's recording of String Trio, Op. 20, on Chandos [CHAN 10083]. Their performance is precisely impassioned, which is what I look for in Webern's music.
>
> What are your favorite recordings of Anton Webern?

New book on Webern:

https://www.crcpress.com/Anton-Webern-A-Research-and-Information-Guide/Hoskisson/p/book/9781138780699

[GB]

I'm interested in reading a review of this.