Schoenberg: The Piano Music / Maurizio Pollini

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
The first great pianist to record all of Schoenberg's piano music was Glenn Gould, and if you grew up with Gould's interpretations, then you're in for a shock. In the first place, Pollini actually plays what Schoenberg wrote--Gould freely altered the text in ways that would have driven the composer insane. And then there's the humming--yes, believe it or not, Gould did manage to sing along as he played. Pollini's quieter, less vocal approach conveys much more of what Schoenberg actually wrote, with no sacrifice of expressiveness. And although most of the pieces on this disc are quite short, they are nonetheless important. It was in his piano works that Schoenberg worked out his theories of free atonality and 12-tone composition. So for anyone interested in these critical musical developments, this disc is essential listening. --David Hurwitz

Customer Reviews:

Lonely modernist landscapes. Perfect music for the isolated soul.......2007-06-02

I'll come out and say, Schoenberg is not a composer I really care about. I revel in the beauty of Verklarte Nacht but things like Pelleas und Melisande, Gurrelieder, Pierrot Lunaire, Variations for Orchestra, etc. don't appeal to me. Overall, it's Webern who appeals to me in more of his output, not Schoenberg.

But then there is Schoenberg's solo piano music which seems far more personal than the rhetorical works like Variations for Orchestra. Pollini is a master pianist who has been dedicated to modern repertoire all his life, this CD is a testament to his advocacy and understanding of this music.

Apart from the solo piano music, you also get the piano concerto with Abbado leading the Berlin Philharmonic. I am not won over by the Concerto as much as the solo pieces. In this work, Schoenberg being full aware of the great German tradition, tries to fuse the form of the romantic concerto with his own brand of new modern logic. In particular, the Robert Schumann concerto doesn't seem too far from Schoenberg's mind. It's because this harkens back to the old, traditional form that many pianists who don't normally explore modern repertoire have come to record the Schoenberg piano concerto. I am thinking of Alfred Brendel and Mitsuko Uchida. Pollini, on the hand, is of course a modern specialist, so this concerto is right up his alley.

For this Pollini Edition re-release, not only do you get the piano concerto as an extra, they also throw in Webern's Variations for solo piano, making this CD a winner on all fronts. Listen to the solo pieces, alone at night and be captured by the unique way that Schoenberg distills the essence of modern alienation.

dost thou savor dissonance?.......2005-05-13

Schoenberg's solo piano music is small in quantity, but tremendously important in so many respects that an excellent performance is necessary for any listener of 20th century modernism. I would guess, however, that these works would pose a formidable task for the performer. Consider op.11, the three small pieces for piano. This work at last exploded the Western conventions of tonality. At the time, Schoenberg's atonal mode of expression was new and highly intuitive, so traditional interpretational paradigms would probably not serve the musician well. Thus even as the technical difficulties are overcome, the intellectual challenge remains great. Perhaps this is why so few pianists ever tackle twentieth century piano music (among other reasons). Pollini is considered one of the premiere Schoenberg interpreters, and the evidence is strong in his favor. His performance here is emotionally powerful but also cool and calculated. (The idiosyncratic Glenn Gould's performances of Schoenberg's works are also recommended.)

The vestiges of tonality still linger in Schoenberg's op.11, at least in the first two pieces. The third really drove home the possibilities of atonality, though -- the musical argument is evasive to the inattentive listener, and even those of diligent concentration are hard pressed. Schoenberg's end here was to create a more egalitarian music, a radical chromaticism where each tone is important in itself rather than in its relation to the central key. One cannot help but feel the excitement of the composer in these works, something for which pollini must be commended.

It is good that these solo works are presented in chronological order, as it enables the listener to chart the fascinating development of Schoenberg's approach. I do not wish to discuss these works in detail. I will make only cursory remarks to explain why I think they are interesting. The six piano pieces of op.19 are necessarily short musical dictums that, once capitulated, need not be further developed. They are just little ideas, but they are powerful in their succinctness. In op.23, Schoenberg experiments in finding an organizational principle for atonal music. He applies serialism. Listening to these small pieces is highly valuable for the listener of serial music, because it trains one to recognize the permutations of tone rows; op.23 applies the serialist method to small groups of notes rather than the full chromatic scale. Op.25 is the first fully 12-tone work - the six pieces are all developed from manipulation of a single tone-row. It is inventive and exciting, not to mention difficult to play. Several years later Schoenberg returned to solo piano music with op.33, two short pieces structured more along a chordal idiom than a melodic one.

Alone, Schoenberg's solo piano music is some of the best of its genre of the twentieth century. This disc is worth having for that alone. This edition includes other pieces, tho': Schoenberg's piano concerto, and Webern's outstanding Variations for solo piano. DG has a disc of the solo piano music by itself, but there is no reason to get that when this edition exists. The piano concerto, op.42, is a dramatic 12-tone work, one of my favorites of the 20th century. It is a drastically modern work, full of vivid colors and restless, percussive solo parts, yet Schoenberg sometimes manipulates the tone row for the deployment of quasi-tonal orchestral waves. Despite its rigorous structure and uninviting dissonances by the ream, the work maintains a degree of romanticism -- something the Darmstadt school may have derided, but this listener feels it functions on an effective emotional level. Webern's Variations may have been more to the preference of folks like Boulez and Nono -- it is systematically certain in its serialist methodology (Schoenberg was more relaxed in the application of the 12-tone structures). In addition to being deliciously dissonant and innately raw, it is an exciting display of virtuosity. Pollini shines here as with his Schoenberg interpretations.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

fugitive beauty.......2004-09-06

Pollini is fantastic with Schoenberg's piano pieces. This chronological presentation allows you to hear the progression from the atonal works to the later 12-tone compositions. Adorno held the atonal works to be the highest pinnacle of expression, and it's easy to hear why he was so impressed. I find it amazing to compare Schoenberg and the painter Kandinsky. They were friends, and participated in a joint revolution across types of art, Schoenberg pushing dissonant chromaticism into outright atonality as Kandinsky did the same with painting, pushing Impressionism's blurring of the object to total abstraction. Then, in the 1920s, Schoenberg developed his 12-tone system as Kandinsky developed a parallel system of abstract forms at Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau. I strongly prefer Kandinsky's Bauhaus work to his earlier period, while with Schoenberg, I enjoy both. I prefer the earlier atonal piano pieces, but I prefer the serialist string quartets (3rd and 4th -- see my review of the Arditti Quartet recordings on Montaigne). His "Suite for Piano" and other 12-tone works incorporate a pure, Baroque structure, and mark a phase of consolidation. The earlier works seem to document the dissolution of the ego, and Pollini conveys them as fleeting, fugitive beauty.

This disc (part of the huge Maurizio Pollini Edition on DG) includes the entire solo piano music, which was previously available in the "20th Century Music" series -- it had a bright yellow cover -- and it adds Schoenberg's "Piano Concerto," with Pollini and the Berlin Philharmonic, with Claudio Abbado conducting, as well as a short work by Webern. The Concerto is a wonderful, energetic piece, not the dour, taxing thing I suppose many might imagine. With its addition, what was already indispensable becomes doubly so.

A great Schoenberg collection reissued, with bonuses.......2003-11-30

Maurizio Pollini's traversal of the solo piano music of Arnold Schoenberg was always a classic of modern music recordings, and this reissue makes it all the more attractive by adding the piano concerto and Pollini's classic recording of Webern's variations to the mix.

The Three Piano Pieces are from the early days of Schoenberg's atonal period, and the first two have fairly strong tonal echoes still. The first alternates passion and ambivalance, while the central slow piece has increasingly tense ruminative melodies over an ostinato figure that increases the tonal feel to the work. In contrast, the radical finale is a torrent of atonal notes whose intensity sweeps away the pensive thoughts from the second piece.

The Six Little Piano Pieces are amongst Schoenberg's finest works. Many are mere wisps of sound, averaging less than a minute each, they evoke fleeting memories, thoughts, then are gone. The finale, an elegy for Schoenberg's mentor Gustav Mahler, is a near-silent ghost of a funeral march.

The Five Piano Pieces are perhaps most famous because the last of them was the first published piece of serial music. The first is slow and tightly knit, the second an explosion of energy. Next comes a slow piece with an almost improvisatory feel and a second energetic one. The last is a rather discursive waltz that applies the new serial technique in a fairly simplistic way.

The Suite is a step backwards in many ways. Gone are the near-improvisatory, concise structures of the previous pieces; instead Schoenberg returned to traditional forms while writing serial melodic lines. I find this the least impressive work on the disc: while well-written I feel it is also rather too dry.

The two brief pieces, opus 33, return more to the atmosphere of the earlier five piece set, though this time in a serial idiom. They are more discursive, more improvisatory, more lyrical, and a lot more fun to listen to. Indeed, they point the way to the lyricism of the piano concerto that was to arrive a decade later.

Schoenberg's piano concerto is a work very popular with pianists (I've heard close on a dozen different pianists play it live in the last few years), even though it has yet to fully break through to mainstream audiences. Written in a four-movement form that plays without a break, this work allows constant echoes of tonal harmony through its serial structure. An ambivalent first movement is followed by a violent scherzo, an anguished slow movement and a more optimistic finale. This is one of the most accessible of Schoenberg's serial pieces, and also one of the best.

Webern's piano variations are in truth a three-movement sonata lasting about six minutes, of which only the finale is in variation form. A moderately-paced opening movement is followed by a witty miniature scherzo with off-center accents, before the final variation set. Crisp, clear and thoroughly atonal, this is one of the great works of the Viennese serial school.

Pollini's performances range from good to outstanding, and only occasionally does he hint at the overly clinical playing that can mar his playing of Romantic-era music. Those versed in this repertoire will probably already have the 20th Century Classics edition of the solo piano Schoenberg, but if not, and you want to explore these remarkable works, I know no better way to do so than with this disc.

Schumann, Schoenberg: Piano Concertos
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Schumann, Schoenberg: Piano Concertos

Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

All Works by Schoenberg | Schoenberg, Arnold | ( S ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
All Works by Robert Schumann | Schumann, Robert | ( S ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Concertos | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music
Piano | Keyboard | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra | ( B ) | Featured Performers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000E4ET
Release Date: 1990-04-12

Schoenberg: The Piano Music / Maurizio Pollini
Average customer rating:

Re-released in the Pollini Edition with the Piano Concerto

The innovative Schoenberg

Fine pianism, but not well interpreted.

Great recording now superseded by a superior coupling

Accurate, Direct

Schoenberg: The Piano Music / Maurizio Pollini

Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

All Works by Schoenberg | Schoenberg, Arnold | ( S ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music
Pollini, Maurizio | ( P ) | Featured Performers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
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Rossini - Tancredi / Podles, Jo, Olsen, Spagnoli, di Micco, Lendi, Zedda

Schoenberg: Piano Works

Maurizio Pollini Edition - Schoenberg: The Solo Piano Music, Piano Concerto; Webern: VAriations Op. 27

ASIN: B000001G8X
Release Date: 1990-10-25

Tracks:

Three Piano Pieces Op. 11: Massig
Three Piano Pieces Op. 11: Massige Achtel
Three Piano Pieces Op. 11: Bewegt
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: Leicht, zart
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: Langsam
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: Sehr langsame Viertel
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: Rasch, aber leicht
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: Etwas rasch
Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19: 6 Little piano pieces, op.19: Sehr langsam
Five Piano Pieces Op. 23: Langsam
Five Piano Pieces Op. 23: Sehr rasch
Five Piano Pieces Op. 23: Langsam
Five Piano Pieces Op. 23: Schwungvoll
Five Piano Pieces Op. 23: Walzer
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Praludium: Rasch
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Gavotte: Etwas langsam, nicht hastig (attacca:)
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Musette: Rascher
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Gavotte (da capo)
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Intermezzo
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Minuett: Moderato - Trio
Suite For Piano Op. 25: Gigue: Rasch
Piano Piece Op. 33a: Massig
Piano Piece Op. 33b: Massig langsam

Amazon.com essential recording

The first great pianist to record all of Schoenberg's piano music was Glenn Gould, and if you grew up with Gould's interpretations, then you're in for a shock. In the first place, Pollini actually plays what Schoenberg wrote--Gould freely altered the text in ways that would have driven the composer insane. And then there's the humming--yes, believe it or not, Gould did manage to sing along as he played. Pollini's quieter, less vocal approach conveys much more of what Schoenberg actually wrote, with no sacrifice of expressiveness. And although most of the pieces on this disc are quite short, they are nonetheless important. It was in his piano works that Schoenberg worked out his theories of free atonality and 12-tone composition. So for anyone interested in these critical musical developments, this disc is essential listening. --David Hurwitz

Customer Reviews:

Re-released in the Pollini Edition with the Piano Concerto.......2007-06-02

Pollini's survey of Schoenberg's complete piano music is masterful, authoritative and possibly definitive. If you want it, it's now available again, coupled with Pollini's version of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic led by Claudio Abbado. They even throw in Anton Webern's Variations for good measure, so you get an outstanding bargain. I'm not really a Schoenberg fan, I prefer Webern myself. However Schoenberg's solo piano music is mysterious and darkly beautiful and shouldn't be passed up.

The innovative Schoenberg.......2007-01-06

In my typically amateurish travels through classical music, I am most commonly disappointed by the works of the 20th century composers who have a reputation for innovation. I expect all of Stravinsky's works to sound like 'The Rites of Spring' and Schoenberg's music to sound dissonant at best. Instead, many of the leading 20th century composers sound pretty much like the late 19th century composers heavily influenced by Wagner. Not so these pieces. These are far more interesting, albeit totally less familiar than, for example, piano works by George Gershwin or even Bela Bartok. My only complaint, unless you can get it for a good discount, is that it has a scant 50 minutes of music on it. Otherwise, sublime.

Fine pianism, but not well interpreted........2003-12-27

Despite the compliments showered by fellow reviewers, I must take a different stance. As an avid Schoenberg fan, I could not help but notice numerous errors where Pollini simply misread the notes. It is a clear evidence that he has not done the work to understand the works, particularly the devilishly difficult Op. 25. His errors are a clear evidence that he did not understand the 12 tone row (e, f, g, c#, f#, d#, g#, d, b, c, a, a#... how's that off the top of my head!?) and therefore fails to present the series clearly.

For someone who actually enjoys Schoenberg works, as myself, would be better served by fine, accurate, studied interpretation of none other than Glenn Gould.

Great recording now superseded by a superior coupling.......2003-11-30

There is little I can add to previous reviews here, except to note that DG have reissued this recording as part of the Maurizio Pollini Edition at the same price with the addition of the piano concerto and of Webern's piano variations, also in outstanding recordings.

This really is a great recording, though: the opus 11 pieces move from near-tonal ruminations to a coruscating atonal finale; the opus 19 set brief, amazingly atmospheric; the opus 23 disruptive, fascinating; opus 25 the only disappoinment--too clinical, too traditional--but with the opus 33 pieces returning to form. Pollini's playing is outstanding for almost the whole disc, and can be easily recommended--but you might as well get the extra couplings at no extra cost.

Accurate, Direct.......2003-02-13

Pollini here plays Schoenberg without hiding the music under an overly expressive style. His clarity lets the characters of these pieces speak for themselves, as they can so very well. This is my favourite recording of these works.

Giacomo Manzoni: Masse - Omaggio a Edgard Varèse for Piano & Orchestra / Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 9 for 15 Solo Instruments - Maurizio Pollini / Giuseppe Sinopoli

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Giacomo Manzoni: Masse - Omaggio a Edgard Varèse for Piano & Orchestra / Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 9 for 15 Solo Instruments - Maurizio Pollini / Giuseppe Sinopoli
Giacomo Manzoni (Composer) , Arnold Schoenberg (Composer) , Maurizio Pollini (Piano) , Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra , and Giuseppe Sinopoli (Conductor)
Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B00000E3ZA
Release Date: 1990-10-25

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