Schoenberg: String Trio, Op. 45

The Goeyvaerts String Trio, which was founded in 1997 and focuses exclusively on 20th and 21st century repertoire, perform works of the Second Viennese School by Schoenberg and Webern as well as the powerful and emotional String Trio of 1985 by Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.

Arnold Schoenberg’s pupil Leonard Stein recalls that the composer apparently meant the many strange, seemingly incoherent events in the String Trio op. 45 as a musical depiction of the delirium that he experienced after his recent heart attack. Although dating from two decades earlier, Anton Webern’s String Trio op. 20 (1927) is, like Schoenberg’s, a work written according to serial principles. The development of Alfred Schnittke’s String Trio (1985) seems to have been a very intense emotional experience for the composer. It is fairly well known just how much Schnittke, as a Soviet composer, suffered under the cultural isolation imposed on him by the Soviet authorities.

The Goeyvaerts String Trio owes its name to the late Flemish composer Karel Goeyvaerts (1923-1993) who played a key role in the fundamental changes in European new music. They have collaborated with several major contemporary composers including Giya Kancheli and Peter Swinnen, as well as performers such as Alexander Ivashkin (cellist and biographer of Alfred Schnittke), and Henk Guittart of the Schoenberg Quartet.

Craft has twice won the Grand Prix du Disque, as well as the Edison Prize for his landmark recordings of Schoenberg, Webern and Varèse, and countless other awards.

Craft’s consummate artistry and unique insight continue to bear fruit with this volume featuring diverse works spanning more than twenty years of Schoenberg’s controversial and highly influential career.

“Robert Craft was put on this earth to produce clear blueprints of Schoenberg and Stravinsky scores.” Gramophone

This 4-CD boxed set presents historic recordings of works by Arnold Schoenberg, the founding father of 20th-century modern music, and his most prominent pupils, Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

These recordings, made between 1949 and 1965, comprise works which were written between 1906 and 1950, thus portraying practically the entire era of the Viennese School. Not only do they trace the multi-layered compositional developments of the Viennese School, but they are also significant musical and historic documents of multi-faceted interpretational approaches towards this music.

The Viennese School was formed before the First World War as a movement in music attempting to unite radical expressive techniques and traditional form concepts, demanding specially trained interpreters for this undertaking. In these RIAS recordings, first-rate artists from the circle of the three Viennese composers can be heard: Rudolf Kolisch, Eduard Steuermann, Winfried Zillig and Else C. Kraus were immediately shaped by their teacher, Schoenberg, whereas others, such as Peter Stadlen and Tibor Varga were in contact with the composer, or with Webern or Berg. Ferenc Fricsay or Suzanne Danco, on the other hand, did not belong to the circle of the Viennese School and its performance teachings. Their interpretations are of particular interest as they brought these works to life, unprejudiced by performance traditions of this music which, at that time, was hardly performed.

The comparison of the two recordings of Schoenberg’s 'Fantasy for Violin and Piano', Op. 47, with Kolisch and Varga respectively, and the sensational interpretation of Schoenberg’s 'Pierrot Lunaire' by the Munich singer Irmen Burmester alongside an outstanding instrumental ensemble under the direction of Josef Rufer (1949) are particular highlights of this anthology.

These radio recordings were made possible thanks to the indefatigable initiative of the music writer Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt in his role as Editor of New Music at the RIAS. He and his colleague Josef Rufer, who can be heard as conductor, ensured that those musicians who had returned from exile would be engaged to contribute to these radio documents. By doing so, Stuckenschmidt and Rufer intended, on the one hand, to continue the tradition of Schoenberg’s stay in Berlin from 1925 until 1933, and, on the other hand, to provide the music of the Viennese School with greater resonance within public awareness.

This edition is complemented by the publication of a text by Prof Dr Rudolf Stephan, the doyen of research into the Viennese School in Germany after the Second World War and editor of the complete works of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg. He reflects on his comprehensive experiences with the music of the Viennese School, stretching back to the years immediately following the end of the war.