Notturno (Adagio) for violin, harp & strings in A flat major
Transcription for orchestra of Bach's Prelude & Fugue in E flat major
Despite his sizable contributions to the chamber music medium, vocal/choral music, and opera, Austrian master Arnold Schoenberg left a disappointingly small output for orchestra; he never wrote a proper symphony and, apart from his concerti, the early symphonic poem Pelléas und Melisande, and the string orchestral Verklärte Nacht, his largest stand-alone orchestral works consist of transcriptions of other composers. Nevertheless, his Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, (1909) is central to Western orchestral literature and -- ...
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Despite his sizable contributions to the chamber music medium, vocal/choral music, and opera, Austrian master Arnold Schoenberg left a disappointingly small output for orchestra; he never wrote a proper symphony and, apart from his concerti, the early symphonic poem Pelléas und Melisande, and the string orchestral Verklärte Nacht, his largest stand-alone orchestral works consist of transcriptions of other composers. Nevertheless, his Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, (1909) is central to Western orchestral literature and -- largely because of their style -- a highly desirable work to hear in a high-end format. MDG has met this desire through its Schönberg: Orchestral Works hybrid multichannel CD, where the big five are heard as performed by the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, which has distinguished itself with, among other things, an outstanding recording of Liszt's oratorio Christus, backing up the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno. In regard to filler, MDG opts for the Schoenberg's seldom-recorded Six...
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