Those who are familiar with Pierre Boulez’s earlier “Complete Webern” on Sony will notice that his new Deutsche Grammophon edition contains six discs to Sony’s three. That’s because Sony only included works for which Webern assigned opus numbers, plus the composer’s Schubert and Bach arrangements. DG fleshes out the picture with all of Webern’s posthumously published music, mostly dating from his apprentice years. Virtually all of these recordings already have been available. Discs one through three are given over to orchestral, choral, and chamber works with Boulez leading the Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Singers, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Soprano Christiane Oelze’s survey of Webern’s lieder with voice and piano occupies disc four, with the addition of three unreleased songs set to poems by Ferdinand Avenarius. On disc five, the Emerson Quartet plays all the string trio and quartet works. The final disc brings together the cello and piano music, the four pieces Op. 7 for violin and piano, and the piano works. Gianluca Cascioli’s traversals of both 1906 movements for piano were previously released, while Krystian Zimerman recorded two tiny pieces and the Op. 27 Piano Variations especially for this collection.
We first encounter Webern writing music in a style that resembles Brahms with a little Grieg mixed in for good measure. Soon his harmonic palette blossoms with chromatic complexity and takes a refined turn during studies with Arnold Schoenberg. Finally, Webern’s singular voice emerges by way of pocket pieces whose ascetic contours sport asymmetrical rhythms, canonic lines that leapfrog from instrument to instrument, and rigorously organized pitches. There’s no filler, no fat, and every note counts.
Sometimes it’s hard to grasp such fleeting, fragile, and texturally exposed music in a single hearing. When I hear a Webern work in concert, for instance, it’s usually over before it begins. Imagine passing a Joan Miró painting while riding a bicycle and you’ll understand what I mean. You need to find quiet listening space and know that you can play a movement or even a whole piece more than once.
Performing Webern well demands the utmost in precision and concentration, yet without negating the music’s passionate undercurrents. Boulez has lived with this music a long time, and the refinement of his latest interpretations beggar description. The sonic advantages of the DG recordings play no small part, in that fine-tuned dyanmic adjustments at quiet levels can be heard with no compromise. The conductor’s tempos have broadened since his 1967-72 recordings in the aforementioned Sony set, and instrumental balances are smoother, more blended than before. Yet the ferocity and edginess of the earlier versions haven’t been superceded. Nor is the elemental force and dynamism of Dohnanyi’s superb Cleveland Webern readings surpassed here.
No qualms, though, concerning Christiane Oelze, who negotiates Webern’s treacherous, leaping lines as if they were nursery rhymes. Similarly, the Emersons leave no little detail unscrutinized, and make a lean contrast to the more opulent, aristocratic Quartetto Italiano Webern recordings from the 1970s. I’m sorry the not-so-famous Cascioli wasn’t brought back to record the piano works assigned to the better-known Zimerman, whose mincing, overwrought Variations lack the grace and eloquence of Peter Serkin’s recent Koch version.
An excellent booklet includes an introduction by Boulez, numerous photos of Webern at work and play, an informative essay by Paul Griffiths, a comprehensive Webern timeline, and complete texts and translations. Whatever reservations one might harbor about this or that individual performance, it is unlikely that this set as a whole will be surpassed in the near future. It belongs in every serious music library, private or public. [9/9/2000]
