Arnold Schoenberg, Pelleas und Melisande Op. 5
Arnold Schoenberg, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Op. 36*
Gürzenich-Orchester, Köln
Markus Stenz, conductor
Kolja Blacher, violin*
Oehms Classics OC 445 (CD)
Until summer 2014 Markus Stenz was musical director of the
Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne (he is now with the Netherlands Radio
Philharmonic Orchestra). One of the highlights of his tenure in Cologne was a
fine Mahler cycle (see here for
my review of the Ninth). This disc (issued, like the Mahler cycle, by Oehms
Classics) must have been one of his last projects with the Gürzenich Orchestra.
The pairing of Schoenberg’s early Pelleas und Melisande (written in 1902-3) with the much later
Violin Concerto (written more than thirty years later in 1934-36) may seem odd.
Pelleas is a late-Romantic tone-poem,
Wagnerian in its musical idiom and scope – although Schoenberg’s orchestra is
large even by Wagner’s standards (with 17 woodwind, 18 brass, and 8
percussion). The Violin Concerto, in contrast, is a 12-note piece. Pelleas is written in D-minor, while the
concerto is atonal. A more predictable pairing might be the orchestral version
of Verklärte Nacht, written in 1899 and inhabiting a similar, expressionistic
musical universe. That is Karajan’s choice in his 1974 recording with the
Berlin Philharmonic.
In two of his recordings, though, Pierre Boulez has partnered Pelleas with the Violin Concerto, and there is a logic for the pairing. Among Schoenberg’s later works using the 12-note technique, the Violin Concerto is probably one of the most expressive. There is a definite continuity in expressive idiom between the two pieces, even if the musical languages are very different. And the two works share a similar compositional structure – both involve highly inventive reworking and developing of short and recognizable thematic motifs, with great contrapuntal sophistication.
