The Total Perspective Vortex

Strauss, Nietzsche and Ein Alpensinfonie. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The climactic moment of Strauss' Ein Alpensinfonie.

Before he rose to fame as the creator of operas like Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, Richard Strauss was famed for his tone poems. Of these, his last and most ambitious is Ein Alpensinfonie from 1915. It is a mind-boggling 22-movement work which follows some of the conventions of a proper symphony but is designed to be played as one single unit, telling the story of a day's journey up an Alp in his native Bavaria.

Concert Review: Village Raves and Watery Graves

Juraj Valčuha at the New York Philharmonic.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Juraj Valčuha led the New York Philharmonic this week.
Photo © 2015 Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Although the New York Philharmonic has finally and decisively appointed a new music director, there is still a spirit of healthy competition on its podium between young conductors deigning to be heard before one of the most loyal audiences in New York. This week it was the turn of Juraj Valčuha, a Slovakian firebrand who offered an interesting program of works from central Europe. 

Concert Review: No Country for Forgotten Men

The ASO explores Russia's lost Jewish composers.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Big stick: the composer Anton Rubinstein on the podium. His work was played
Thursday night by the American Symphony Orchestra.
Painting by Ilya Repin.

The concert hall music of Russia has a shorter history than most, as no major composers emerged in that land until the 19th century. And yet, there are as many forgotten and neglected composers from Russia as there are trees in its vast taiga forests. On Thursday night, Leon Botstein chose four Jewish composers from Russia as the focus of a Carnegie Hall concert by the American Symphony Orchestra: Aleksandr Krein, Anton Rubinstein, Mikhail Gnesin and Maximillian Steinberg.

Concert Review: The Easy Life in Garmisch

Leon Botstein explores the home life of Richard Strauss.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Symphonia Domestica: the Strauss family (Richard, Pauline, Franz) in the year 1910.
Photo © 1910 the Estate of Richard Strauss.

The American Symphony Orchestra's yearly Vanguard series is an opportunity for music director Leon Botstein to shine a flashlight into the dark corners of the repertory, unearthing rare (or in some cases, unheard) treasures for the pleasure of its Carnegie Hall audience. Wednesday night was Dr. Botstein's yearly excursion into the lesser-known repertory of Richard Strauss, the composer of tone poems and operas whose 150th birthday was celebrated earlier this year.

Concert Review: It's a Bird...it's a Plane...

It's Valery Gergiev, swooping into Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Valery Gergiev saves the day.
Original photo element of Mr. Gergiev © 2014 by photographer David Shankbone.
Image of Henry Cavill as Superman from the 2013 Warner Brothers film Man of Steel.
© 2013 Warner Brothers Pictures. Character of "Superman" © Detective Comics.

The life of a jet-setting conductor is sometimes like that of a comic book hero, called in as a last minute emergency stopgap to rescue an orchestra in distress. That was the case this week at Carnegie Hall, where Valery Gergiev and Fabio Luisi were called in as eleventh-hour replacements for Munich Philharmonic chief conductor Lorin Maazel in a pair of scheduled concerts.

Mr. Gergiev (who is scheduled to take over for Mr. Maazel in Munich next year) stepped off a plane at 11am Friday and conducted an orchestra rehearsal earlier that afternoon. On Friday night, he conducted the Munich Philharmonic in three works by Richard Strauss, a native of that city and a composer whose 150th birthday is being celebrated this year. The program featured two of Strauss' most successful tone poems: Also Sprach Zarathustra and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, flanking the Burleske a one-movement piano concerto that is only occasionally performed.

Concert Review: The Thirty-Year Itch

Bernard Haitink returns to the New York Philharmonic

Bernard Haitink makes a point. Photo © CSO Resound Classics

When Bernard Haitink last conducted the New York Philharmonic, the compact disc had just been invented. Ronald Reagan was president, and the orchestra was completing a transition from the experimentation of the Pierre Boulez regime to a more conservative direction under Zubin Mehta.

This week, the Dutch conductor returned to the podium in Avery Fisher Hall for the first time in thirty years. For his return, Mr. Haitink chose a pair of conventional works that are not too frequently played by this orchestra. The concert opened with Strauss' tone poem Don Quixote followed by Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral.

Mr. Haitink is now 82, and celebrating his fifth decade as a professional conductor. He led the band with vigor, conducting both works with sure hands, a quick baton, and a steady, light-footed approach to the music. His conducting remains pristine and precise, drawing a warm, balanced quality of sound, bringing out the very best from this fine orchestra.

Don Quixote is essentially a cello concerto blended with a tone poem. Strauss casts this noble instrument (played here by Philharmonic principal Carter Brey) as the mad, chivalric knight. Principal violist Cynthia Phelps took the part of Sancho Panza, her lines doubled with a tenor tuba. Like Cervantes' great novel, the tone poem has an episodic structure. It takes a skilled hand to make the work hang together.

Strauss contrasts the virtuoso solo parts with masterful orchestration, depicitng the good Don's actions against villains real and imagined. The complex brass parts create the aural illusion of spinning windmill blades, bleating sheep, and the good citizens of Spain, who the Don faces off with in the interests of his honor. Mr. Brey and Ms. Phelps embodied the protagnist with virtuosic playing, engaging in witty musical dialogue with Mr. Haitink and Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow.

It could be argued that Beethoven's Sixth is the great-grandfather of all tone poems. Beethoven expanded this symphony to five movements, and assigned short titles to each. With some influence from the illustrative writing of Haydn and the opera overtures of Mozart, this was the first piece of program music. The Pastoral paved the way for the Romantic movement that breathed its last with Strauss' death.

Mr. Haitink took the opening Allegro (subtitled "Cheerful Impressions on Arriving in the Countryside") at a brisk, tempo that sacrificed none of the idyllic qualities that are central to this music. The slow "Scene by the Brook" had some gorgeous playing from the cellos, led by Mr. Brey, restored to his place leading the section. Flautist Robert Langevin and oboist Liang Wang were perfect "birds" in the movement's final secton, worthy of a Messiaen sketch.

Thankfully, the orchestra chose to take the repeat in the "Merry Dance of Country Folk", slamming into the "Storm" without pausing for breath. The chugging strings and howling (wood)winds gave way to a serene horn-call. This was the finale, the "Shepherd's Song" played with deep, almost religious meaning and a gorgeous line from the principal horn. As the melody was tossed from section to section, it teased the development of a gorgeous fugue. Mr. Haitink's country excursion ended a satisfying final two chords, a sonorous ending to this profound work.

We Ain't Goin' Out Like That

A Playlist for the Apocalypse

At Bayreuth, meeting the end of the world requires ridonkulous pants.
Deborah Polaski as Brünnhilde, Wolfgang Schmidt as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung.
Photo © 1998 Bayreuth Festival/Deutsche Grammophon.

In case you've been keeping up with the media (aside from Superconductor) the world is supposed to end tomorrow evening in a giant earthquake--or something. According to Bible number-cruncher Harold Camping, a bunch of people are going to be taken from Earth in the Rapture. The rest of us will enjoy listening to really good music without hearing those people's cell phones ring during piano recitals. Anyway, here's ten works to check out as we all prepare to check out.

10) Wagner: Götterdämmerung (the whole frickin' thing.)
We might as well start off this soundtrack to the apocalpyse with the final opera from Wagner's Ring cycle, which ends with a Germanic vision of the end of the world. Something about a cursed ring thrown into a river, a collapsing castle and 24 giant moving planks on a computer-controlled system just spells doomsday. The Solti recording from 1962 (made in Vienna with Birgit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen) has been the benchmark for half a century.

9) Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (Apocalyptic)
Anton Bruckner's final completed symphony consists of huge slab-like chords of brass and strings, piled in an ever-reaching stairway to heaven as the composer grapples with the infinite. He spent so much time grappling with the Eighth that he never finished the even more ambitious Ninth--a lesson for us all.

8) Berlioz: Requiem
Tremendous orchestral and choral forces are required for Hector Berlioz' setting of the Latin Mass of the Dead. The Tuba Mirum (Last Trumpet) is announced by four offstage brass bands and twelve thundering kettledrums-definitely the soundtrack to some kind of 19th century apocalypse. The message: "God is coming! Look busy!" Colin Davis made two recordings: the first one is the one on my shelf.

7) Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"
The best funeral march ever written stands at the center of Beethoven's first long-form symphony. There are two dozen recordings in the standard catalogue, and another twenty or so that have been deleted by record companies preparing for the end of the world, or their industry as they know it. I like Claudio Abbado's second live recording with the Berlin forces.

6) Verdi: Falstaff
I thought about the Requiem here but a) I already picked the Berlioz piece and b) we all need to lighten up already. Verdi's Shakespearean comedy (and last opera) ends with a gorgeous fugue on the words "All the world's a joke." Not a bad way to go out.


5) Mozart: Idomeneo
If you're looking for an apocalyptic scenario, the prospect of being destroyed by a gigantic sea monster must appeal. Japan's genre of kaiju movies might have been inspired by this Mozart opera seria, where a Greek king runs afoul of the god Neptune and nearly gets stomped on by a giant, unspecified aquatic beast. Music's good too. I like James Levine's recording with the Metropolitan Opera forces and Placido Domingo as the king in deep water.

4) Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection
Gustav Mahler added a soloist and a chorus to this five-movement opus, which starts with a funeral march and ends with the dead busting out of their graves. Not quite a zombie apocalypse. The second Bernstein recording featuring the New York Philharmonic is a classic.

3) Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14
Part symphony and part song cycle, Shostakovich's penultimate symphony is a setting of 11 poems about death, written for two singers, a chamber orchestra and an unusual percussion section. Try Bernard Haitink's recording with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.


2) Messiaen: L'ascension
Just as the Rapture might send people running through the streets, Messiaen's music with its bird-songs and apocalyptic chords can send listeners running from the concert hall. "The Ascension", a 27-minute piece in four movements meditating on the resurrection of Jesus, is one of his more accomodating compositions. Also worthy: the Quartet For the End of Time, written in the chaos of World War II when the composer was held in the German Stalag-VIII-A prison camp.

1) Strauss: Tod und Verklärung
When Richard Strauss finally died, he commented that the experience was exactly as he had written it in this 22-minute tone poem, composed in his early period. (The title means Death and Transfiguration.) Herbert von Karajan's excellent recording with the Berlin Philharmonic is recommended as your guide to the world beyond.

Concert Review: Visions of the Amber Room

Detail from a modern replica of the Amber Room
 in the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia. 
© State Museum Preserve "Tsarskoye Selo."

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
In the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia, there was a fabulous chamber called the Amber Room, a gift to Peter the Great from Frederick I of Prussia. The walls of this room were hand-crafted of polished amber, creating a unique, burnished ambiance that was called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The Amber Room is lost to history, but its qualities of richness and warmth could be heard Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra played the first of two dates at Carnegie Hall under the sure baton of Yuri Temirkanov. The SPPO is Russia's oldest orchestra, founded in 1882 at the order of Tsar Alexander III. They are imbued with dark, rich orchestral tone, featuring throaty brass, warm strings and woodwinds that bring a personal, questioning voice to the most challenging solo parts.

The concert opened with Kikimora, a tone poem by Antonin Liadov. Liadov was a Rimsky pupil, whose sparse output has consigned him to minor status. Kikimora is based on an equally obscure fairy tale. But the story inspired Liadov to write innovative orchestration with rich rhythms and an imaginative solo part for the English horn.

The orchestra was then joined by pianist Nicholas Lugansky for Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Though it does not share the Everest status of the Third, this is still a fiendishly difficult work that is challenging to bring off. Rachmaninoff possessed a formidable hand-stretch which presents difficulty for soloists playing his music.

Mr. Lugansky brought impressive physical tools and technique to the keyboard, a wide finger-stretch and a command over the pedal and liquid runs required in the first and third movements. The second movement was the highlight, a slow meditative wander through the subconscious, shot through with the melancholy melodies that are a calling card of this composer.

Yuri Temirkanov. Photo © 2009 Medici TV.

The second half of the evening was dominated by Scheherezade, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's retelling of the Arabian Nights. This is really an extended four-movement concerto for orchestra, with different soloists and groups of instruments taking the part of characters in these famous stories. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship featured eloquent violin soliloquys from concertmaster Lev Klychkov, in an engrossing call-and-response with his orchestra and Mr. Temirkanov.

Other instruments stepped to the fore as the tales spun on. The Kalandar Prince featured powerful brass playing in perfect balance with the rest of the orchestra. The Young Prince and the Princess highlighted the woodwinds. And finally the whole orchestra roared forth in a mighty voice for The Ship Breaks Against the Cliff, before coming to a transcendent, almost Wagnerian conclusion in the final bars. This spectacular performance was met with an enthusiastic reception, and the appreciative audience earned a brief, scintillating encore.

Comparitive Listening: Verklärte Nacht

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg's 30-minute tone poem Verklärte Nacht was the work that first cemented his reputation as an up-and-coming composer in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Yet it is a misunderstood work, mostly because the name Schoenberg has become associated in the popular culture with his later discoveries in the realms of atonal and twelve-tone music.

This is a great example of the composer's early style, where the orchestral and harmonic ideas associated with Richard Wagner receive a full exploration over the course of a half hour. Verklärte Nacht (the title means "Transfigured Night") is heady, intoxicating music for strings. It is love-music, and was inspired by Schoenberg's first encounter with Mathilda von Zemlinsky. Eventually, he married her.

The work is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel
and as such, has a plot. A man and a woman, lovers, are walking in the woods. The woman reveals to the man that she is pregnant, and that he is not the father. Schoenberg explores shifting chromaticism and dissonance, working inexorably to the final resoluton, when the man forgives the woman and they walk on into the night.

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

The Contenders:

Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan (DG)

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester cond. Riccardo Chailly (Decca, 1987)

Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG, 1995)

Chamber Orchestra of Europe cond. Heinz Holliger (Teldec/Apex 2002)

Glass Chamber Players (Orange Mountain Music, 2010)

This week's CL features five recordings of the piece. One

features the original chamber music version, scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos. This is an excellent 2009 recording of the chamber version of the work, allowing the listener to hear the interplay of Schoenberg's melodic lines.

The other four are of Schoenberg's 1943 revision of the work for chamber orchestra. This is the most commonly heard version of Verklärte Nacht.

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

These orchestral versions were recorded for major labels, when conductors had free rein over their repertory and record companies spent gobs of money on sessions. Giuseppe Sinopoli takes the slowest tempos by far on his London recording, made in 1992 and released three years later. He travels through the woods at a careful pace, pausing to stretch out the key phrases. His performance of the opening movement is nearly a minute longer than his rivals.

Herbert von Karajan' Berlin Philharmonic recording sounds cavernous and hollow, in an over-resonant acoustic that the DG tonmeisters did little to correct in the remastering process. This is one of the few recordings that Karajan made of music of the so-called Second Viennese School, and he sounds vaguely ill at ease in this music.

The Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly leads the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the excellent, if slightly less famous band from further down the River Spree. Chailly recorded this as a follow-up to his excellent Gurrelieder. It is a sterling version in digital sound. Finally, the famed oboist Heinz Holliger leads the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Europe in a warm reading that emphasizes the romantic qualities of the score.

Liszt At 200: Five Essential Works

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a prolific composer, making vast contributions to the international repertory of piano and orchestral music. Here are some great examples of his art to get the curious listener started.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major
From its majestic opening figuration, Liszt set out to make a grand statement with this, the first of his three piano concertos. As usual, the composer broke new ground, giving the piano equal voice in the opening moments and bringing the role of the instrument deeper into the orchestra.

Polonaise from Eugene Onegin
Liszt wrote many opera transcriptions, setting works by Wagner, Verdi and others for the piano. This version of a dance from Tchaikovsky's opera is one of his finest. It bursts with the same enthusiasm and rhythmic joy as Tchaikovsky's work, bursting with a propulsive force from the keys.

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp Minor
Liszt decided to explore the music and national identity of Hungary with his set of 19 Hungarian rhapsodies. The No. 2, with its sturdy rhythms and glissando passages, is among the most famous--and not just because it's featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

La lúgubre gondola No. 1
This dark composition for piano depicts a Venetian funeral procession. Composed in 1882, it prefigured the death of Liszt's son-in-law Richard Wagner. (Wagner, married to Liszt's daughter Cosima von Bülow, died in Venice in 1883.) The piece also exists in an orchestration (by contemporary composer John Adams) called The Black Gondola. Both are recommended.

Bagatelle Sans tonalité
This short piano piece, written in 1885 (a year before Liszt's death) is characteristic of the composer's late style. It is also one of the earliest examples of a work without tonality, relying on shifting chromaticism instead. Liszt was part of the "music of the future" movement during his lifetime. With this late composition, he predicted what was to come.

The Incredible Life of Franz Liszt

French caricature of Franz Liszt at the piano, circa 1845

Ed. Note: This article marks the first in an ongoing Liszt at 200 series, celebrating the bicentennial birthday of Franz Liszt in the year 2011.

Oct. 22, 2011 marks the 200th birthday of Franz Ferenc Liszt, the Hungarian composer, pianist, and showman whose prestidigitative playing marked the dawn of a new era in piano music. Liszt's meteoric career signalled the rise of the piano virtuoso as a public figure equivalent with kings, generals, and minor gods.

Franz Liszt was the greatest pianist of the 19th century, a formidable performer who could play anything, from all nine Beethoven symphonies (re-arranged for solo piano) to the operatic works of Verdi, Wagner, and Johann Strauss. But his own music came first.

Famous Liszt piano compositions include the Annéés de la pèlerinage (Years of Pilgramage), the Hungarian Rhapsodies and the Transcendental Etudes, finger-busting works inspired by the violinist (and fellow showman) Niccolò Paganini. He even experimented with atonality in late works, setting the stage for the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.


Liszt's concerts (he popularized the concept of the "piano recital") caused women to scream and throw clothes in a precursor of Beatlemania. They were his primary source of income. But he found time to compose orchestral works. Deciding that symphonic form was too restrictive, he created the "symphonic poem." (This may have been the idea of Belgian composer Cesar Franck.) The popularity of Liszt's tone poems (which include the Faust Symphony, the Dante Symphony and Les Preludes) showed the way for later composers like Richard Strauss.

Liszt only wrote one opera: Don Sanche. It premiered when he was 14 and quickly dropped from sight. However, he remained heavily involved in that genre. During Wagner's Swiss exile, Liszt conducted the world premiere of Lohengrin. Still later, he became Wagner's father-in-law and most prominent musical advocate. Liszt's transcriptions of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and the Pilgrim's Chorus from Tannhäuser led to this "music of the future" being played outside the opera house in the century before recordings existed.

This bicentennial year promises a great deal of exciting Liszt music. There are concerts scheduled, (Jean-Yves Thibaudet at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 2, Evgeny Kissin in March), and of course, new recordings on their way. The most prominent of these is from the acclaimed British label Hyperion: Leslie Howard's 99-disc Complete Piano Works of Liszt. It comes out on February 8.

Strauss Relief: Five Great Recordings

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss is in the news this week, with the City Opera reviving Intermezzo, the composer's 1924 opera based loosely on his own life. It's about a conductor and his troubles with his quarrelsome wife. Strauss wrote the libretto himself.

Strauss was a brilliant orchestrator, a master of the tone poem and one of the most important German opera composers of the early 20th century. Here's a look at five of the best representations of Strauss' output on disc. And I picked these 'cos they're my five favorite Strauss compositions.

THE TONE POEMS:
Also Sprach Zarathustra
The 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey made the three-note opening of Zarathustra one of the most recognizable moments in music. There's only one definitive recording, made in 1959, by Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic. This is the one that was in the movie. Accept no substitutes. It is bundled with good performances of three other works: Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, and the Dance of the Seven Veils from the opera Salome.


Ein Alpensinfonie
Strauss' other Nietzche-inspired tone poem is an account of a 22-movement journey up and Alp, and then down as the hikers are chased by a raging thunderstorm and a 150-piece orchestra. There are a number of recordings, but this 2001 offering by the Vienna Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann has more depth of detail and nuance than the others.


THE OPERAS:
Der Rosenkavalier
Strauss' bourgeois comedy of manners has many find representations on disc. The best modern recording features the Dresden Staatskapelle under the baton of Bernard Haitink. This EMI set preserves Anne Sofie von Otter's great interpretation of Octavian. Kiri Te Kanawa is a tremendous presence as the Marschallin, and Kurt Rydl is a marvelously funny Baron Ochs. The recording is in fine stereo, and is completely uncut.


Die Frau Ohne Schatten
Sir Georg Solti's last major opera recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. This Frau was released at the end of an era, when superstar conductors got high-end orchestras and all-star casts together to record the greatest lesser-known works of the catalogue.

Here, the complex score of Frau is presented uncut and in luminous sound. There is no better way to learn Strauss' most difficult and uplifting opera than this fine three-disc set, which reveals the layers of orchestration and vocal writing in exquisite detail.

Ariadne auf Naxos
This Deutsche Grammophon recording was the last opera recording made by Italian maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli. Although it remained in limbo for a number of years following a contract dispute, the maestro's untimely death (in the pit while conducting Aida in Berlin) paved the way for its posthumous release. He was blessed with the Dresden Staatskapelle, an orchestra which truly loves Strauss. The cast features Deborah Voigt in the title role and the crystalline Natalie Dessay in the hellishly difficult role of Zerbinetta.

CD Review: Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays Ein Heldenleben

Bernard Haitink

This live recording pairs Richard Strauss' self-regarding tone poem Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life") with Anton Webern's lush Im Sommerwind. It is a showcase for the 81-year old conductor Bernard Haitink, who draws beautiful sounds from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Haitink, who is finishing up a 4-year run as the CSO's Principal Conductor, has a particular touch for the late Romantics, with an affinity for Strauss' music. (His 1991 recording of Der Rosenkavalier is one of the finest in the catalogue.)


Ein Heldenleben is one of three autobiographical tone poems written by Strauss, that chronicle various aspects of his life in an odd form of "musical journalism" for large orchestra. (The other two are the Sinfonia domestica and the Alpine Symphony.) It is a popular Strauss work, but one that is regarded as "problematic" by music critics. That might be because the ever-blunt Strauss included a withering portrait of journalists in the second movement: "The Hero's Adversaries."

Mr. Haitink conducts Ein Heldenleben with passion and conviction. The opening is a stirring experience. The Love Scene is a mini-violin concerto within the work (really a portrait of the composer's wife, Pauline). Soloist Robert Chen plays with elegance, drawing out the long melodic lines that recall the best passages of Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau Ohne Schatten Everything is perfectly balanced in The Hero's Battles, as surges of trumpets and horns clash with the string section in full flight. The winds take center stage for The Hero's Works of Peace, which quotes liberally from earlier Strauss works.

Im Sommerwind is the last gasp of tonality from Anton Webern before he embraced the discordant musical ideas of his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. This 12-minute tone poem demands the full resources of both the orchestra and listener. Written in Webern's characteristic, compressed style, there is enough music here for an entire symphony. The work shifts between bird calls, percussive scrapes, and the buzzing of cicadas in the low winds. Lyric passages in the strings depict the rustle of leaves and grass, and the whole has a golden sheen of a hot day when the passing wind brings no cooling relief. It is a perfect pairing with Ein Heldenleben and rounds out this excellent document of Mr. Haitink and his Chicago forces in their element.