Moses und Aaron
$55.00
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SCHOENBERG
Moses und Aaron
Franz Grundheber, Andreas Conrad, Johanna Winkel, Katharina Persicke / SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg & EuropaChorAkademie, Sylvain Ca
[ Hanssler SACD / 2 Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Friday 30 January 2015
This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.
Outstanding recording of a rarely recorded masterpiece in the twelve-tone system of Arnold Schönberg.
2014: The 140th Birthday of Arnold Schönberg (September 13th 1874).
Schoenberg's masterpiece in the twelve-tone system he developed was his unfinished opera "Moses und Aron", a vastly complex work based on a single tone row. That it remained a fragment may be essential to its spiritual message, for while Schoenberg never stated it explicitly, it would seem that he left this most ambitious project of his mature style incomplete on purpose. It is almost as though it would be impious to give a final and definitive form to matters so profound and spiritual; like the name of Yahweh they are ineffable.
Even today, Arnold Schoenberg's opera "Moses und Aron" is an incredibly intense listening experience. Whatever one thinks about Schoenberg's musical language - here it finds an expressiveness and cohesion which the listener cannot escape. This is especially the case in this new production of a work which does not appear on CD too often, sounding wonderfully transparent even in its most powerful and loudest moments. Appearing in the role of Moses, the world-famous baritone Franz Grundheber delivers an impressive characterization of the prophetic/revolutionary. Tenor Andreas Conrad embodies Moses' practically oriented brother Aron with a rare intensity, and the EuropaChorAkademie are outstanding as the third component of the drama, the Israelites. The entire production is overseen by one of the most convincing conductors for this repertoire, Sylvain Cambreling who leads the flawlessly playing orchestra.
"the recording is particularly effective in its balancing of the disparities, always managing to convey the forceful lyricism that makes Schoenberg's fervent response to the biblical drama so much more than mere eye-music...This imposing, intriguing opera is one of the most powerful contributions to 20th-century musical modernism and this recording does it justice." (Gramophone Editor's choice Awards Issue 2014)
"[Moog] gives a strong performance: rich and lavishly varied in sound, powerful, panoramically phrased with an impressive command of large-scale structure, and characterised with enough sleight-of-hand to persuade us (almost) that the Scherzo could even be the work of Schumann on an off-day...[Scharwenka], too receives a performance of exceptional polish, authority and conviction." (BBC Music)
