Pierre Boulez - Schoenberg: Serenade, 5 Pieces for Orchestra, Ode to Napoleon (1993) CD-Rip

The three works presented here reveal distinctly different phases of Arnold Schoenberg's development, each a critical point of departure. In the Pieces (5) for Orchestra (1909), Schoenberg's atonal language appears full-blown and marks a clear break with tonality. For the first time, Schoenberg places content over form and dispenses with any pretenses toward classical objectivity or balance. The adventurous twelve-tone Serenade (1923) came about after Schoenberg spent years searching for a practical method to rein in his emotionally driven music and shows an imposition of formal order. The content is still turbulent and tense, but the use of forms such as the march, minuet, variations, and song indicate his need to contract his parameters to a more feasible scale. The Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte (1942) for strings, piano, and reciter is a melodramatic setting of Lord Byron's diatribe against tyranny. Schoenberg's defiant music underscores the text and provides a modern context for this scathing j'accuse against Hitler. The admission of major triads in the twelve-tone process initiates another change in the composer's practice, anticipating his later return to tonality. In these performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble InterContemporain, Pierre Boulez's focused direction gives the music clarity and vitality.