Recorded live in concert, Paavo Järvi created and conducted this interesting program of orchestral arrangements of chamber music works. The result is a world-class encounter between some of the most important names in music history.
There are great pieces of music which, throughout history, have inspired composers to make new arrangements, in particular orchestral arrangements of chamber works. This CD, which was recorded live in concert, features Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor and Webern’s arrangement of Bach’s Fuga, as well as a setting of Webern’s own “Langsamer Satz” for string quartet, here transcribed for string orchestra by Gerard Schwarz.
Schoenberg was a great admirer of Brahms and his transcription is a masterpiece of orchestral writing in which he created an ingenious fusion of authentic Brahms with noticeable touches of his own musical language.
Webern more or less created a completely new composition with his orchestration of the Fuga from Bach’s late The Musical Offering – deconstructing the ‘old’ and making a totally new sound; a sound for twentieth-century ears.
Meanwhile Langsamer Satz is a setting of one of Webern’s very early works, transcribed for strings and returning us to a Late Romantic soundscape.
Here is Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’ Piano Quartet:
