“Private Musical Performances” by Linos Ensemble

courtesy of Naxos of America

Back when I was writing for Examiner.com, I had the good fortune to learn about the Linos Ensemble, a chamber orchestra founded by oboist Klaus Becker in 1977. They had an ongoing project with the Austrian Capriccio label to record chamber music arrangements that had been prepared for performances by the Society for Private Musical Performances (Verein für musicalische Privataufführungen). Arnold Schoenberg had founded this organization in Vienna in 1918 with the intention of giving high-quality performances of unduly neglected compositions. When those compositions required more resources than could be mustered, Schoenberg and his colleagues prepared arrangements suitable for chamber ensembles. At the beginning of this month, Capriccio released an eight-CD album of all the recordings made by Linos for this project. That album is now available from Amazon.com; but, sadly, it is only available for MP3 download.

Ironically, the only Linos recording I had encountered prior to last month presented music that was never given a Society performance. Schoenberg himself began an arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the fall of 1921 but never made it past the middle of the first movement. By the end of that year, the Society had dissolved for lack of funds; and Schoenberg abandoned his project. Long after Schoenberg’s death, in 1982, the German conductor and composer Rainer Riehn decided to complete Schoenberg’s unfinished project with the goal of realizing Mahler’s sonorities with the sorts of chamber resources used at the Society concerts. That is the version that Linos recorded for Capriccio, true to the spirit of the Society if not to the flesh.

Those familiar with this composition will immediately recognize the limited dynamic range of the arrangement. Nevertheless, there is a transparency that emerges through the thinner textures. That transparency allows the attentive listener to identify more layers of detail than can make it to the surface in the setting of a large string section and energetic percussionists.

This is basically a rule of thumb that pervades the many compositions documented in the new Capriccio collection. This is far from a complete account the arrangements made for the Society. For one thing the repertoire that accumulated over the 113 concerts presented between December 29, 1918 and December 5, 1921 was extensive and highly varied. Furthermore, many of the arrangements involved only a single keyboard; the very first concert featured Mahler’s seventh symphony in a four-hand arrangement by Alfredo Casella.

Thus, while this Mahler selection is familiar, it is also one of the most ambitious where arrangement is concerned. Among the Capriccio recordings its closest rival would probably be Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major. This is the symphony in which, during the second (Adagio) movement, Richard Wagner was welcomed into heaven with a cymbal crash; and those expecting an outburst of percussion will probably be disappointed. Nevertheless, within the scope of reduced instrumentation, the spirit behind that climactic moment still rings true.

It is worth observing that many viewed the Society as a highly dedicated, but nevertheless grim, gathering of modernists serious to the brink of fanaticism. I was therefore very pleased to discover that the last CD in the Capriccio collection demonstrates that both Schoenberg and his best-known students, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, could have a sense of humor. The disc presents five waltzes by Johann Strauss II, three arranged by Schoenberg and one each by Berg and Webern.

As I recall, when these manuscripts were rediscovered, the American Musicological Society celebrated the occasion by hosting a ball (of sorts) at its annual meeting. The intention was to get musicologists dancing to Strauss by virtue of the Second Viennese School, and some of the attendees even dressed appropriately for the occasion. Unfortunately, I did not make it to that meeting. Four of the waltzes were subsequently recorded by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players; but, thanks to Linos, this was the first time I learned that those were not the only four arrangements.