Arnold Schönberg: Violin Concerto etc. (Naxos Audio CD)

Rolf Schulte (violin)
David Wilson-Johnson (Narrator, Reciter)
Jeremy Denk (Piano)
The Fred Sherry Quartet
Simon Joly Chorale
Philharmonia Orchestra, Robert Craft

This volume of Robert Craft’s acclaimed Schoenberg series presents the composer’s favourite of his own orchestral works, the Violin Concerto. Conceived in grand style and dedicated to his ‘dear friend and fellow warrior’ Webern, it draws on the techniques of melodic variation and development that Schoenberg so admired in Brahms’ music to reach a majestic conclusion.

In the other shorter works, written during or after World War II, Schoenberg uses striking vocal and instrumental combinations to create intensely moving and dramatic music.

De Profundis was Schoenberg’s last completed composition.

“There's no denying the sheer excitement, the authentically Schoenbergian iconoclasm of what Craft and his team of 15 virtuosos achieve.” Gramophone on 8.557523