Second Viennese School

A BBC Music mag cover disk from early 2002 that is particularly noteworthy for the quality of performance. All of these BBC disks are competantly played but just very occasionally one leaps out as being outstanding. The performance of Berg's Violin Concerto by Leonidas Kavakos and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis could qualify as a benchmark recording. The story behing Berg's concerto, dedicated to the memory of the young daughter of a Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius and presaging his own death, is well known and may have helped give this twelve tone compostion the shelf life that it has enjoyed. Although listened too with an open mind there is nothing "difficult" about the music which is wonderfully well played by Kavakos. The entire disk is dedicated to the Second Viennese School with the coupling being Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht again played by the BBC SO, this time conducted by Donald Runnicles. Based on Richard Dehmel's poem set in a nocturnal forest, this is early Schoenberg and is almost a tone poem. A string showpiece that is again given a fine performance and the two pieces make obvious complimentary partners on an atmospheric disk.