Leaving Home - Orchestral music in the 20th century 1/7: Dancing On A Volcano (Peter West, 1996) VOSE

The first episode in the series describes a great musical culture in decline in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Vienna. From that decline erupted a musical revolution whose reverberations have continued to this day. The names of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg still strike terror into the hearts of many concert-goers, but with Simon Rattle we hear in this music’s brooding power not only the collapse of the old Austro-German order and the rise of Facism, but also the portents of the music to come in the second half of the twentieth century. Excerpts from: WAGNER: Ouverture to Tristan und Isolde; SCHOENBERG: Verklaerte Nacht; MAHLER: Symphony No. 7; R. STRAUSS: Elektra; SCHOENBERG: Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, No. 2; BERG: Violinkonzert; WEBERN: Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 10 (Nos. 3, 4, 5)