MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... 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


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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: AmazonUK AmazonUS


Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Die Prinzessin and Afrika – Children’s stories - written and spoken by Arnold Schoenberg
With spoken memories of Schoenberg’s children: Nuria, Ronald and Lawrence.
Music by Arnold Schoenberg in historical and new recordings.
Speakers: Arnold Schoenberg, Nono Schoenberg, Nuria Schoenberg, Ronald Schoenberg, Lawrence Schoenberg, Mirjam Wiesemann, Tara Weismann, Romeo Merz, Lorenzo Liebetanz
New recordings
Verklärte Nacht op. 4 (1899); Streichquartett Nr.3 op. 30 (1927); Die Eiserne Brigade (1916); Nullele Pullele variationen (1934):
DoelenKwartet; Anne Huser (viola II), Floris Mijnders (cello II), Maarten van Veen (piano)
Kammersinfonie Nr.1 op. 9: members of the Philharmonisches Orchester der Hansestadt Lübeck/Roman Brogli-Sacher
Historic Recordings
Suite op. 25 (1921/23): Niels Viggo Bentzon (piano)
Suite op. 29 (1925): Gustave Plaquet (clarinet), Marcel Jean (clarinet), Andre Dupont (bass clarinet), Henri Bronschwak (violin), André Focheux (viola), Jacques Neilz (cello), Jean Manchon-Theis (piano), Max Deutsch (conductor)
Streichquartett Nr.3 op. 30: Kolisch String quartet
Trio op. 45 (1946): Koldofsky Trio
CYBELE SACD AB-005
[61:58]

Experience Classicsonline



 
As a release directed towards children this is quite a serious prospect, even for those over the age of 12 as indicated, and for those whom German is their mother tongue. Entirely in spoken German, and with booklet notes and texts also entirely in German, this release would seem to have a limited interest for a wider market. This would be something of an injustice however, as there is a good deal of fascinating and historically vital material included, and some superb performances of Schoenberg’s music. Indeed, recognition for the qualities of this release have already been obtained via the Leopold ‘Gute Musik für Kinder’ Media Award 2009/2010 from the Association of German Music Schools, and the Echo Deutscher Musikpreis Klassik 2009.
 
Cybele’s audio books go right to the source, and this disc contains rare recorded material from the Schoenberg family’s own collection. There is the original voice of Arnold Schoenberg reading both main texts, coming across a little roughly through the low-tech but effective means of a Webster wire recorder illustrated in the booklet. There are also spoken memories of his children Nuria, Ronald and Lawrence made by Cybele in 2007, and music by Arnold Schoenberg in both historic and new recordings. My German isn’t up to following everything in detail, but Schoenberg reads his fairy tale Die Prinzessin with plenty of expression and dramatic content. On the evidence of this it sounds as if he would have been quite fun as a father. For those who would prefer a more modern recording, the story is also dramatised with well acted childrens’ voices, and bits of Schoenberg’s music interlaced to come up with something akin to a sort of mini ‘Peter and the Wolf’, with a sort of wolf, but without the explicit leitmotifs. The story is that of a bad-tempered princess and her scatter-brained servant Wolf. One afternoon the princess is playing tennis with the countess and hurts her knee. Having taken to her bed, she asks Wolf to fetch a hot water bottle. Wolf takes forever and when he finally returns there’s no bottle because he couldn’t decide whether to bring the blue or the brown one. Will the princess ever recover?
 
Ronald or Ronny Schoenberg’s German is spoken with a hefty American accent, and to a lesser extent this also applies to Lawrence. This is something which, once acquired, one never loses as I know from Americans and Canadians who have become naturalised in The Netherlands, but still speak the language with a distinctive and instantly recognisable twang. The other significant text is Afrika, also delivered by Schoenberg and again followed by a more up to date version with children’s voices in full SACD glory.
 
Of the musical extracts, the opening pre-1950 recording of the piano Suite Op.25 is particularly impressive, showing Niels Viggo Bentzon’s prowess as a powerful performer as well as a stunningly inventive composer. Another fascinating moment is the world premiere recording of Schoenberg’s string quartet fragment Nullele Pullele from 1934, a jolly and romantic little number which has no perceptible connection with 12-tone composition. The memories of Schoenberg’s three children make for intriguing listening, and as with all of these audio books such extra information gives us a much rounder picture of the composer as a real person rather than a set of facts and historically significant anecdotes in a book. The memories cover the inevitably sometimes mundane and often humorous recollections of past events from a remarkable family: learning musical instruments, travels, school, cars, death. The reminiscences are interspersed with commentaries which put some of the family members’ words into context, and once you’ve tuned in to the pattern of the programme the whole thing has a well considered and effectively paced structure.
 
As ever with this kind of Cybele production, the whole is very much equal to the sum of its parts, and its parts are essential listening for true Schoenberg scholars. It’s certainly not ‘too good for children’, but I can imagine some being initially a bit put off by the ‘horror’ feel of some of the old recordings - a disembodied and distorted voice coming at you from the past. This isn’t a CD you would particularly buy for the musical content, as the pieces are very much present in the service of the texts and aren’t rendered uninterrupted. As yet another fascinating narrative document and historical artefact however this is indeed a reference library essential, and a handy little lesson in the German language at the same time.
 
Dominy Clements
 

 


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.