This latest instalment in the Naxos
Robert Craft series contains a mixture of newly recorded
items and one work, the Violin Concerto, that has already
appeared on Koch Classics in 2000. Comprising largely
music composed during the last ten years of Schoenberg’s
life, the disc also reflects to a large extent the émigré composer’s
preoccupation with his Jewish heritage as his life drew
to a close.
The disc opens with the powerful
Survivor
from Warsaw, Schoenberg’s moving response to a
Nazi atrocity in the Second World War. Schoenberg gave
this a universal significance by playing down the Warsaw
location and concentrating instead on the atrocity
itself, an incident in which weak, elderly and starved
Jews were systematically liquidated by the Nazi cohorts,
and one that was repeated time and again throughout
the war. This work had huge personal significance to
the composer, as he wrote in 1948:
“Now, what the text of the Survivor
means to me: it means at first a warning to all Jews,
never to forget what has been done to us, never to forget
that even people who did not do it themselves, agreed
with them and many of them found it necessary to treat
us this way. We should never forget this, even such things
have not been done in the manner in which I describe
in the Survivor. This does not matter. The main thing
is, that I saw it in my imagination.”
If memory serves, Craft has recorded
this before, with Simon Callow as narrator, but this
is a new version with David Wilson-Johnson and the Philharmonia.
While the choral and orchestral contribution make their
mark under Craft’s watchful baton, I have heard performances
of the narration which were more vividly re-enacted than
that by Wilson-Johnson. In particular the delineation
of the different episodes in the story and of its various
characters, from the prisoners to the German sergeant,
could have been more sharply defined. This is a work
which demands commitment and involvement over accuracy
to the score. However the final chorus makes an overwhelming
effect. In the same 1948 letter Schoenberg wrote. “The
Shema Jisroel at the end has a special meaning to me.
I think, the Shema Jisroel is the ‘Glaubensbekenntnis,’ the
confession of the Jew. It is our thinking of the one,
eternal, God who is invisible, who forbids imitation,
who forbids to make a picture and all these things, which
you perhaps have realised when you read my Moses und
Aron und Der biblische Weg [Moses and Aaron and the Biblical
Way]. The miracle is, to me, that all these people who
might have forgotten, for years, that they are Jews,
suddenly facing death, remember who they are.”
The
Prelude to
Genesis was
written as part of the same commission from the composer
and publisher Nathaniel Shilkret that resulted in Stravinsky’s
miniature cantata
Babel. Schoenberg’s was one
of a series of works written to reflect various events
in the Book of Genesis. Other music featured in this
unusual project included
Cain and Abel by Milhaud;
The
Flood by Castelnuovo-Tedesco and
The Covenant by
Ernst Toch. Bartok, Hindemith and Prokofiev were also
approached but did not contribute in the event. Schoenberg’s
Prelude, a twentieth-century “Representation of Chaos”,
begins with fugal entries representing the moment of
creation itself and includes a wordless chorus whose
unaccompanied vocalise brings the piece to a rather unexpected
conclusion. (See reviews of the complete composite work
by
Jonathan
Woolf and
Rob
Barnett).
Dreimal Tausend Jahre and
Psalm 130 are
Schoenberg’s final works. Providing a further reminder
of his Jewish faith, here the music represents a distillation
of his life’s work. Passages of quasi-tonality alternate
with angular 12-tone themes and sprechgesang. Excellent
performances and recordings.
We move to New York briefly for the
recording of
Ode to Napoleon, in which David Wilson-Johnson
is joined by the Fred Sherry Quartet and pianist Jeremy
Denk. This setting of Byron, whose poem pulled no punches
in its condemnation of the French emperor, also served
as a pertinent condemnation of Hitler during the Second
World War. Of his decision to compose the piece, Schoenberg
wrote: “I knew it was the moral duty of intelligentsia
to take a stand against tyranny.” First performed at
Carnegie Hall by Mack Harrell and Rodzinski in an orchestral
version which was later abandoned, Schoenberg attempted
to ensure the dramatic values of the work were given
full rein by notating precisely the rhythms and dynamic
of the spoken text. The performance is first-rate.
Finally, to the main work on the disc,
the 1936 Violin Concerto. On its original appearance
Rolf Schulte’s coolly accurate performance of Schoenberg’s
work was generally much admired, supported as it was
by the analytical clarity of Craft’s conducting and the
well-balanced sound. Accurate and involved in the opening
movement, Schulte is affectionate in the central
Andante
grazioso, and he and Craft even manage to create
genuine Brahmsian warmth as the movement progresses,
followed by exuberance in the closing
Alla Marcia.
However Hilary Hahn’s recent performances and recording
have added a new dimension to our understanding of this
challenging piece. Hahn brings a warmth and romanticism
to the concerto, and perhaps ultimately a sheer love
of the music, which Shulte and Craft do not quite match.
But it’s a close run thing, and some may prefer the cooler
approach on this disc. Certainly in terms of sound there’s
not much to choose between them.
A fascinating collection of music by
one of the twentieth century greats, performed by one
of his most eloquent advocates. Don’t miss it.
Ewan McCormick
Rolf Schulte
(violin); David Wilson-Johnson (narrator); Jeremy Denk
(piano); The Fred Sherry Quartet; Simon Joly
Chorale 
