Arnold Schoenberg Berliner Philharmoniker & Kirill Petrenko

• Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951): Transfigured Night, Op. 4:
• 1 Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4: Grave 05:59
• 2 Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4: Molto rallentando 06:00
• 3 Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4: Pesante - Grave 02:15
• 4 Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4: Adagio 09:21
• 5 Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4: Adagio. Molto tranquillo 04:00
• Chamber Symphony No. 1 for 15 Solo Instruments, Op. 9:
• 6 Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 for 15 Solo Instruments, Op. 9 20:39
• Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra:
• 7 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Ob rechts, ob links, vorwärts oder rückwärts (Gabriel, Chorus) 04:30
• 8 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Gleichviel! Weiter! (Gabriel, Chorus) 05:18
• 9 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Ich suchte die Schönheit (Ein Berufener) 02:45
• 10 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Du bist immerhin zufrieden mit dir (Gabriel) 00:43
• 11 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Geboten gehorchen (Ein Aufrührerischer) 01:23
• 12 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Dies Entweder und dies Oder (Gabriel) 00:52
• 13 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Alter Weisheit, Gesagtem (Ein Ringender, Gabriel) 02:47
• 14 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Gegen seinen und euren Willen (Gabriel) 01:56
• 15 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Ich sollte nicht näher (Der Auserwählte) 02:49
• 16 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Hier hast du Auge und Ohr (Gabriel) 02:08
• 17 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Herr, verzeih meine Überhebung! (Der Mönch) 02:10
• 18 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Wie du doch schwankst (Gabriel) 02:24
• 19 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Herr, mein ganzes Leben lang (Der Sterbende) 02:59
• 20 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Nahst du wieder dem Licht? (Die Seele, Gabriel, Chorus) 03:09
• 21 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Großes symphonisches Zwischenspiel. Langsam 06:21
• 22 Schoenberg: Jacob's Ladder, Oratorio for solo voices, choruses and orchestra: Sehr ruhig 01:23
• Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31:
• 23 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Introduktion 01:45
• 24 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Thema 01:07
• 25 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation I. Moderato 01:14
• 26 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation II. Langsam 01:41
• 27 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation III. Mäßig 00:41
• 28 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation IV. Walzertempo 01:18
• 29 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation V. Bewegt 01:59
• 30 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation VI. Andante 01:32
• 31 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation VII. Langsam 02:32
• 32 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation VIII. Sehr rasch 00:39
• 33 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Variation IX. L'istesso tempo; aber etwas langsamer 01:04
• 34 Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31: Finale 05:44
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36:
• 35 Schoenberg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36: I. Poco allegro 13:28
• 36 Schoenberg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36: II. Andante grazioso 08:12
• 37 Schoenberg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36: III. Allegro 12:24
• Total Runtime 02:27:11

Info for Arnold Schoenberg

Provocation! Anarchy! Scandal! All too often we encounter Arnold Schoenberg in writings as an enfant terrible, as a radical innovator who sacrificed late Romantic tonality for his highly complex system of “composition with twelve tones related only to each other”. In this edition, the Berliner Philharmoniker and chief conductor Kirill Petrenko demonstrate that in Schoenberg’s music “heart and brain” – as the composer entitled one of his essays – are in fact in balance, and that the twelve-tone technique is also entirely at the service of expression. Released in the aftermath of the 150th anniversary year of the composer’s birth, it presents five central works that illustrate all of Schoenberg’s stylistic periods.

As Schoenberg rejected repetition, his work is characterised by constant change. He sought a different expression for each subject: agitated passion characterises the lovers’ dialogue in Verklärte Nacht, sparkling humour the free-tonal Chamber Symphony. In the Variations, op. 31 – Schoenberg’s first orchestral work in twelve-tone technique, premiered by the Berliner Philharmoniker with Wilhelm Furtwängler –, each variation has its own individual character. The Violin Concerto (here with soloist Patricia Kopatchinskaja), on the other hand, written in exile in America, reflects the composer’s uncertainty in the face of a foreign culture, material shortages, and a world once again on the brink of war.

Die Jakobsleiter, another key work composed around the time of the First World War, impressively depicts the confrontation between a doubter and his God. Its twelve-tone nature becomes secondary to the poignant, almost existential experience that Schoenberg achieves through the precise design of spatial sound, among other things: the positioning of the main and remote ensembles that he demanded strikingly anticipates what can only be reproduced in our recordings today using HighResAudio.

Wolfgang Koch, baritone (Gabriel)
Daniel Behle, tenor (One Called)
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, tenor (A Rebel)
Johannes Martin Kränzle, baritone (A Caller)
Gyula Orendt, baritone (The Chosen One)
Stephan Rügamer, tenor (The Monk)
Nicola Beller Carbone, soprano (The Dying)
Liv Redpath, soprano (The Soul)
Jasmin Delfs, soprano (The Soul)
Gijs Leenaars, Rehearsal
David Bui, conductor of the Remote Orchestra
Gregor Mayrhofer, conductor of the Remote Orchestra
Giuseppe Mentuccia, conductor of the Remote Orchestra
Friedrich Suckel, conductor of the Remote Orchestra
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin (Konzert for Violin and Orchestra op. 36)
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko, conductor

Kirill Petrenko
was born in Omsk, Siberia, in 1972 and studied piano at the school of music there. He appeared in public as a pianist for the first time at the age of eleven with the symphony orchestra in Omsk. In 1990 he moved with his family (father violinist, mother musicologist) to Vorarlberg, Austria, where his father accepted a position as an orchestral musician and music teacher. Petrenko continued his studies in Feldkirch, then studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

His first engagement took him to the Wiener Volksoper as assistant and Kapellmeister immediately after graduation. From 1999 to 2002 Kirill Petrenko was general music director at the Theater Meiningen, where he attracted international attention for the first time in 2001 with a production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, directed by Christine Mielitz with sets by Alfred Hrdlicka. In 2002 Kirill Petrenko began his tenure as general music director of the Komische Oper Berlin, where he conducted a series of impressive productions until 2007.

Petrenko’s international career developed rapidly during his years in Meiningen and Berlin. In 2000 Kirill Petrenko made his debut at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, in 2001 at the Wiener Staatsoper and the Semperoper in Dresden, in 2003 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, the Bayerische Staatsoper and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and in 2005 at the Frankfurt Opera. From 2006 to 2010 he presented a cycle of Tchaikovsky’s three Pushkin operas with Peter Stein in Lyon.

After leaving the Komische Oper Berlin Kirill Petrenko worked as a freelance conductor.

In addition to his operatic career Kirill Petrenko has also appeared on concert stages throughout the world. He has collaborated with leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra Santa Cecilia in Rome, the RAI Orchestra in Turin and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kirill Petrenko has also conducted concerts at the Bregenz and Salzburg Festivals. From 2013 until 2015 he conducted the new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.

Kirill Petrenko began his tenure as general music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper on September 1, 2013. Since then he conducted, besides a huge number of revivals, the premieres of Die Frau ohne Schatten (Richard Strauss), La clemenza di Tito (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and Die Soldaten (Bernd Alois Zimmermann), Lucia di Lammermoor (Gaetano Donizetti), South Pole (Miroslav Srnka, world premiere), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner), Alban Berg’s Lulu, Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico and Richard Wagner’s Parsifal.

In June 2015 Kirill Petrenko was elected as the next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic as of the 2019/20 season.

Booklet for Arnold Schoenberg