July 26: The Juilliard String Quartet Plays Schoenberg – The First Release of the Juilliard Quartet’s Complete 1975 Cycle of String Quartets on CD
The Juilliard String Quartet Plays Schoenberg
with the first release of the Juilliard Quartet’s
Complete 1975 Cycle of String Quartets on CD
Album Release Date: July 26, 2024
Reviewer Rate: $30.01 + shipping/handling fees
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Schoenberg at 150 on Sony Classical
Arnold Schoenberg, one of the most influential musical figures of the 20th century, was born in Vienna in 1874. Sony Classical is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the great composer’s birth with the reissue of 20 CDs of recordings from CBS/American Columbia. The company was a pioneer in documenting Schoenberg’s achievements and already demonstrated that commitment during his lifetime (he died in 1952). In 1940, with the composer conducting, Columbia Masterworks produced the first recording of one of his most captivating and revolutionary works, Pierrot lunaire; and in the 1950s and 60s, the label undertook a ground-breaking multi-volume series entitled “The Music of Arnold Schoenberg”. But arguably no recordings have done more to further the cause of Schoenberg’s orchestral and vocal works than those of Pierre Boulez, while none have done more to promote his chamber music than those by the Juilliard Quartet. Sony Classical now presents all of Boulez’s Schoenberg for CBS/Columbia in a 13-CD box, and all of the Juilliard’s in a 7-disc set.
The Juilliard Quartet brought its “profoundly intelligent” Schoenberg interpretations (Gramophone) into the studio over an even longer span – four decades, beginning with its first traversal of the numbered string quartets in 1951/52 (“Magnificent recordings” – Gramophone). The Juilliard returned to Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in 1975 for a stereo remake of the four “official” quartets, now coupled with the ensemble’s first recording of the early D major Quartet – a charming student work that could almost be mistaken for Dvořák.
But it wasn’t only advances in technology that prompted the Juilliard Quartet to re-record Schoenberg after years of regularly performing the quartets in concert. In an interview about their evolving interpretations with the recording’s producer, the players spoke of an increasingly romantic approach, especially to Nos. 3 and 4, with less emphasis on rhythmic drive but greater emotional intensity. The set won them the 1977 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance.
The mono and stereo quartet cycles are both included in Sony Classical’s new 7-CD collection of the complete Juilliard Schoenberg recordings. And there are also two Juilliard versions for comparison – one from 1966 (the work’s LP premiere), the other from 1985 – of the extraordinarily intense String Trio which Schoenberg composed in the aftermath of a massive heart attack that caused his heart to stop beating. Something of that experience is reflected in the music. And, apropos comparison, the New York Philharmonic’s recording of Schoenberg’s sumptuous orchestral arrangement of his Verklärte Nacht in the Pierre Boulez collection is complemented here by the leaner original sextet version, with the Juilliard Quartet joined in 1991 by violist Walter Trampler and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
SET CONTENTS - The Juilliard String Quartet Plays Schoenberg
DISC 1:
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 (1952 recording)
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1952 recording)
DISC 2:
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 10 (1951 recording)
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1951 recording)
DISC 3:
Schoenberg: Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 45
Schoenberg: Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41 with John Horton and Glenn Gould
DISC 4:
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 7 (1975 recording)
DISC 5:
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1975 recording)
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1975 recording)
DISC 6:
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1975 recording)
Schoenberg: String Quartet in D Major (1975 recording)
DISC 7:
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 with Yo-Yo Ma
Schoenberg: String Trio, Op. 45 with Yo-Yo Ma