MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
RECORDING OF THE MONTH


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Moses und Aron (1932)
Moses – Dale Duesing (baritone)
Aron – Andreas Conrad (tenor)
Chorwerk Ruhr
Bochumer Symphoniker/Michael Boder
rec. live, Ruhrtriennale 2009, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum,
Willy Decker (director)
Region Code: 0; Aspect Ratio 16:9; LPCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 Surround
EUROARTS 2058178 [106:00]

Experience Classicsonline


Let’s be honest: no-one turns to Moses und Aron for a little light relief. It’s hard going, even for those who know it well, and while it has had strong outings on CD from, say, Solti and Boulez, it requires a lot of effort from the listener. It’s one of those works which, more so than most operas, benefits from seeing as well as hearing, so DVD is a perfect format for it and for a work so cerebral and philosophical it is right and proper to see it in a production like that presented here. Schoenberg is a composer I admire rather than love, but I found this DVD an utterly gripping experience that shed new light on this often perplexing score and led me to reassess it as a work that speaks powerfully to us today.

Leaving aside the difficulty (for want of a better word) of its serialist music, the main issue with Moses is that the story is not really what it is “about”. The sequences of narrative, familiar from the book of Exodus, take a back seat to the often intense philosophical discussions that permeate the text. Borne of Schoenberg’s own problems in communicating with his god, the work is essentially about the difficulty of identifying with a concept so infinite and unquantifiable as God. The character of Moses defines God from the outset as being “eternal, omnipresent, invisible, unimaginable”, but Aron and the Israelites are uncomfortable with this undefinable notion – God is often referred to as Moses’ “idea” – and this ultimately leads to the episode with the Golden Calf, the ultimate expression of God as an object. Director Willy Decker puts this dichotomy squarely at the centre of his production. When Aron first meets Moses in the desert, after the episode of the Burning Bush, he uses Moses’ staff as a giant paintbrush to draw images on the floor of the stage, already trying to pin down the indescribable. The Golden Calf itself is projected as an image before the three-dimensional one appears, and when it does Aron and the chorus of Israelites draw, write and scribble all over the calf and the floor surrounding it. Upon descending from the mountain Moses drags a giant sheet of paper on which are written the Ten Commandments; the sheet is then torn to pieces by Moses and the Israelites. Decker’s concept of making concrete the central conflict of the drama is not only helpful to the viewer but it gives us visual themes to follow as the production unfolds and lends it uncanny power.

In fact, Decker’s use of the physical space is a tour-de-force throughout. The opera is performed in what appears to be an enormous warehouse. The audience sit in tiered seating facing one another and, at the beginning, the performers are scattered among the audience. The two banks of seating gradually pull apart so that the action takes place in the midst of the audience, something that must have made the live experience tremendously involving. The orchestra perform on a platform at one end of this space and during the entrance of the Golden Calf the entire orchestra is moved from one end of the stage to the other as the calf is paraded through their midst. Decker spares us none of the violence or degradation of the orgiastic dance around the calf: I don’t remember ever seeing so much nudity or such widespread use of blood on an operatic stage, and the spectacle is at once thrilling and terrifying to watch. The cameras, and there must have been many of them, are in all the right places at once and the DTS sound is fantastic, creating a real sense of space and the movement of the characters within it.

The performances, both individual and collective, are excellent. Dale Duesing barely sings throughout the whole evening, but his declamatory use of Sprechgesang sets his character apart from the world of those around him and he gives the role a craggy grandeur that is very impressive. Andreas Conrad is rather dark for a tenor and he perhaps isn’t as ideally agile as one would like Aron to be, but he carries plenty of presence and he is a good foil for Duesing. Perhaps the most outstanding performance of the evening, however, comes from the chorus, such a vital part of this work. The demands Schoenberg makes of them are formidable but they rise to them with passionate commitment, be they singing their sordid hymn to the calf or playing the spooky voice of the burning bush at the beginning. They are also fantastic actors and they throw themselves into their collective frenzies, naked or otherwise, with abandon. Piloting the whole ship, Michael Boder ensures that the music never gets out of control and his orchestra play brilliantly.

As far as I can see there is only one other DVD of Moses on the market: Daniele Gatti’s Vienna production. I haven’t seen it, but I was so utterly convinced by this one that I won’t be rushing to acquire it. This is an altogether outstanding release: a thumping, exciting, visceral experience, but a challenge too and something any serious music lover should rise to.

Simon Thompson


 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.