If you’re new to the music of Anton Webern, this superb budget CD is just the introduction you need. Until now, there’s been nothing much to tempt those unwilling to pay top price for Herbert von Karajan’s seminal recordings, or the equally engrossing and sometimes more revelatory DG remakes with the Berlin Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. In contrast, Takuo Yuasa isn’t a household name, and his Ulster Orchestra isn’t in the big league, but don’t let those factors deter serious evaluation of this release alongside the best available alternatives.
Yuasa’s account of the Op. 1 Passacaglia affords striking evidence of the high quality of his ensemble. The playing is fine-grained and exact, and the cumulative effect of the performance is mightily impressive, with the vehement 16th variation especially telling. Webern’s Symphony Op. 21 may only last seven minutes or so, but Yuasa manages to pack a terrific wealth of detail and vast emotional range into its diminutive time-frame. There are some superb moments in the performance, none more shattering than the fearsome outburst from the first horn during the second section.
Equally shocking is the whip-crack violence Yuasa unleashes in the third of the Five Pieces Op. 10, played very fast and with impressive precision by this accomplished team. The awesome funeral march (No. 4 of the Six Pieces Op. 6) hasn’t quite the impact of Karajan’s, and Boulez’s is more monstrous yet; but Yuasa’s skill at building angst-ridden crescendos comes into its own in one of the finest of many outstanding moments on this recording. The muted trumpet solo in No. 5 (with celesta and glockenspiel) has the required eerie quality, and the uneasy stasis of the close is persuasively attained.
In sum, although the Ulster Orchestra’s solo and ensemble work is of high order, the principal benefit of the Karajan and Boulez recordings is that the Berliners produce playing of unrivalled tonal beauty side by side with those moments of near-seismic disturbance that are the true essence of Webern’s music. By choice, I’d opt for Boulez, whose more recent recordings are finer than DG’s earlier ones with Karajan; but Yuasa’s accounts have the spare, skeletal feel and expressive economy that makes them very rewarding indeed. An outstanding achievement.
