Berg: Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5

When these recordings were made (in the 1960s), Schoenberg's music was comparatively rare on record. It represented, then, the typical daring of both, this ensemble, and of the L'Oiseau-Lyre label for which it was originally recorded. In the extended Schoenberg Serenade, the ensemble was joined for one of the movements by baritone John Carol Case. All recordings are released on CD for the first time.

"(Berg) They are played with exactly the right poise and sensitivity..." Gramophone.

The clarinetist Sebastian Manz and pianist Martin Klett founded Duo Riul in 2008 and in the same year the artist won the German Music competition. Since then, they have performed over 60 concerts. Their debut CD is a journey through the clarinet literature of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This disc is an exploration of abstract clarinet-and-piano music from the 20th Century. The six items on this programme include three sonatas, one sonatine, a set of pieces which taken together closely resemble a sonata, and another set inspired by the latter. All six might be considered to be rather off the beaten recital-programme path and all six convey something of their national origins. Certainly all have retained particular currency in their composers’ respective countries.

This disc of Berg’s complete output for chamber music was originally issued by Chandos in 2001, as part of the Schoenberg Quartet’s traversal of all the chamber music written by the Second Viennese School. It included many rarities and arrangements – here, for instance, is the only currently available recording of Berg’s own transcription of the last of his early and passionate Altenberg-Lieder for a quartet of piano, harmonium, violin and cello, made for performance at an influential private musical society, established by Schoenberg in 1900 in order to play and promote the revolutionary music of himself, his friends and associates, away from the catcalls of the conservative Viennese public. This disc contains some of the most heartfelt and openly passionate music from a musical school often regarded as forbidding and abstract.