Alban Berg, Wozzeck, Houston Symphony, Hans Graf

There is little doubt. Many would agree with me that Alban Berg's Wozzeck (Naxos 8.660390-91 2-CDs) is the greatest opera of the 20th century. In spite of its pioneering modernity--or more rightly because of its supremely appropriate adoption to a harrowing dramatic theme, it has been staged over the world continuously since its premiere in 1925. The uncanny, seamless fit between the expressionist music and tragic portrayal of a social misfit makes for riveting, bone-chilling fare.

There have been a number of performances on record since the advent of the LP. The Boulez with the Paris Opera and the Karl Bohm with the Orchester des Deutschen Opernhauses Berlin and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau  stand out in my mind as the definitive, pace setting winners. But now we have a new one on the budget Naxos label with soloists and the Houston Symphony under Hans Graf.

Roman Trekel in the role of Wozzeck, Anne Schwanewilms as Marie and Marc Molomot as Captain Hauptmann are convincing both dramatically and musically. The orchestra brings us a full, well-rounded interpretation, not perhaps as edgy as Boulez but fully in tune with the score and its remarkable fitness to the drama.

There are several moments in the opera that I have found remarkable in themselves. The whistling, the out-of-tune piano in the bar-room scene and the final scene with children playing and singing in chilling contrast to the brutal murder that marks the climax of the opera. Graaf  and company underscore the whistling very well. The bar piano seems a little under recorded, as does the children's choir and dialog at the end. No matter.

This version introduces anyone unfamiliar with the essential work nicely, and its middle-level expressivity marks a decided contrast to the Bohm and the Boulez, so much so that it is worth having as another take on the music. Either way Graaf's version is a winner.

Webern, Vocal and Chamber Works, Robert Craft

It may well have been a day like today, sunny and spring-like, when I visited the Lincoln Center Music Library and found in the huge holdings of LPs at the time the complete works of Anton Webern (1883-1945), as recorded by Robert Craft. I was 18 and pretty well familiar with Schoenberg and Berg, his compatriots in the Viennese 12-tone school, but I was in for something special nonetheless, as Webern has a completely original brilliance all his own. As I listened to the terse, lucid, mostly miniature works one after the other I felt I had discovered one of the wellsprings of modernity. Of course this was and remains very much true.

Time went by and I eventually acquired the Craft set, then the later set of complete Webern as recorded by Boulez, but nothing matched that initial discovery. The Boulez version was excellent, but like much of Boulez's versions of other modernists, there is a good deal of Boulez's own brilliance in the interpretations, so that Webern gets squarely situated in the serialist, Darmstadtian sensibility that he had made possible. The Robert Craft versions were more matter-of-fact, perhaps less interpretive but also perhaps closer to the original Webern intentions. Over the years both versions got my scrutiny and appreciation, and both seemed necessary.

Now these many years later I discover that Robert Craft has done a second version of the Webern cycle which has been released on Naxos. I come to the music as the final volume of the series is released, Vocal and Chamber Works (Naxos 8.557516). As it happens I especially liked Craft's versions of the vocal works on the first version of the cycle, and that holds true again for the new recordings. The song sets and Webern's "Cantata No. 1" cover a wide period from 1908 through 1939.

Robert Craft's versions are if anything even more insightful here, with Tony Arnold and Claire Booth singing the parts very convincingly, the Simon Joly Chorale sounding very good, and the intricate instrumental background coming off quite well in the hands of Jacob Greenberg, piano, the various instrumentalists and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

In addition the volume covers nicely Webern's "Six Bagatelles" and "String Quartet" as performed by the Fred Sherry Quartet.

As a bonus we get the Webern revoicing of Schoenberg's 1906 "Chamber Symphony," which shows us exactly how attuned Anton was to the sound qualities of piano, winds and strings.

As always the miniaturist every-note-counts brevity of Webern is wonderfully on display. Robert Craft outdoes himself on this second go-round; nothing is unessential on this final volume of the Naxos series.

No student of modern music should be without this one. And for the Webern enthusiast the versions so effectively set out here are a vital addition to the Webern recorded repertoire.

Smashing! Get this one if you can. And no doubt the whole set is worthwhile, too.