Abbado's Webern

[Larry Kart]

Does anyone know and have an opinion about Abbado's 1993 DGG Webern disc with the Vienna Philharmonic? (It also includes Schoenberg "A Survivor from Warsaw.") I picked it up after reading someone on rec.classical.recordings praise it, and so far (Six Pieces for Orchestra) I'm knocked out. It's as though I were hearing this music for the first time, in large part because Abbado lets it (if "lets it" is the right phrase) coalesce into music, if you know what I mean, instead of giving us a series of modernist X-rays. And there's great passion as well, e.g. in the second piece. Other recordings I have include Dohnanyi Decca, Craft Columbia, Craft Naxos, and Boulez Sony -- all of which except for Craft Columbia I've now compared to Abbado. Unfortunately, the Abbado disc does not include the Symphony or the Concerto for Nine Instruments; there would have been plenty of room for both.

http://www.amazon.com/Schoenburg-Survivor-Warsaw-Webern-Orchestral/dp/B000001GF3

[J.A.W.]

I know Abbado's interpretation of the Webern works is highly regarded but don't have the CD. I have the Boulez Conducts Webern (DG) and Karajan (DG) versions.

[David Ayers]

I have known that CD for all of its now twenty years and I share your enthusiasm.

[Spontooneous]

What David said. My favorite recording of the Variations. I really wish Abbado had recorded the Symphony too.

[Mark Stryker]

A favorite recording for reasons you elucidate -- it's got passion, linking (rightly) Webern within post-romanticism and implying all of the stuff Webern distills into those pregnant gestures rather than treating them as thin/empty pieces of whispy rhetoric. At the same time, there's plenty of modernist clarity -- Abbado doesn't pretend this music is actually Mahler but remembers it is informed by Mahler.