Search - Webern, Sinopoli, Skd :: Orchestral Works

Sinopoli is a highly valuable contrast to Boulez

Ian K. Hughes | San Mateo, CA | 03/14/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sinopoli's renditions of these pieces are intense and passionate. Possibly less refined than Boulez in separating all the "strands" of polyphony ( though Sinopoli is by no means lax in that regard ), he and the wonderful Dresden orchestra bring more vitality and life to these masterpieces than most other performers. Also, the TELDEC recording is superb ( note that Maestro Sinopoli can be heard breathing with quite some excitement in some pieces ) as it is with other Sinopoli and Barenboim releases ( Berg, Bruckner ). Highly recommended for those who are looking for a more overt connection between Webern and the late ( or "post" ) romantic Austro-Germanic composers ( Bruckner,Mahler, Strauss, early Schoenberg ), these performances stress more of the link with the past than the ( Boulezian ) leap into the future."

Webern with guts

Scott Spires | Prague, Czech Republic | 01/30/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These orchestral pieces are played in chronological order, so if you listen straight through you can hear the startling progression from the overripe Wagnerism of "Im Sommerwind" to the incredible compression of the late works, when Webern rations each note like a starving man trying to make a slice of bread last a whole week. Give this disc an hour of your time, and you can experience his entire creative arc.The performances are not clinical and cold, as can easily be the case with this music. Rather, they are powerful, intense, and even upsetting. The scorching Passacaglia sounds like a late Mahler symphony compressed into 10 minutes of music. The other pieces remind you that Webern was living in the same city as Freud and Hitler. This is indispensable modern music; but its romantic roots are also made perfectly clear here."

Some of the most magical hues of the sunset of romanticism

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 03/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even 100 years after the musical revolution that set out to distance pure music from subjective excesses of the minds of Wagner, Bruckner, and Mahler to name a few, a revolution spearheaded by Schoenberg and Webern, many still think that the concept of atonality and the twelve tone disciplines arose de novo from composers who just could not bear to reach for the heart instead of the mind of listeners. But is gratifying to see an increase now in performances of the works of the penultimate gargantuan orchestras of the early works of the revolutionaries.



What Schoenberg accomplished in his gloriously romantic GURRELIEDER (and ERWARTUNG) Anton Webern equaled in IM SOMMERWIND and PASSACAGLIA. Here is the full orchestra pushed to extremes of expressivity that the result is almost unbearably beautiful. This particular recording conducted by the much missed Giuseppe Sinopoli with the Staatskapelle Dresden is as fine a recording of the works of Webern as can be found. The progression from the beauties of the first two works through the elegant SIX ORCHESTRAL PIECES and FIVE ORCHESTRAL PIECES to the final VARIATIONS makes such superb musical sense. The interpretations are sensitive, full-bodied, clear as crystal, and as emotionally touching in their minimalism as any works in the repertoire.



The engineering of this Teldec project is state of the art and makes us only regret that the proposed long-term recording project between Sinopoli and Dresden saw so few actual recordings. This is a modern masterpiece of a recording and deserves the attention of all serious music lovers. Highly Recommended! Grady Harp, March 2005"