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AGP151 - Alban Berg (1885-1935)






  1. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 1, Langsam [9:22] [MP3]

  2. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 2, Mässige Viertel [9:48] [MP3]

  3. Violin Concerto, 1935 [27:11] [MP3]

  4. Drei Orchesterstucke, op. 6 [20:28] [MP3]

  5. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 1, Langsam [9:22] [FLAC]

  6. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 2, Mässige Viertel [9:48] [FLAC]

  7. Violin Concerto, 1935 [27:11] [FLAC]

  8. Drei Orchesterstucke, op. 6 [20:28] [FLAC]

  9. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 1, Langsam [9:22] [FLAC24]

  10. String Quartet, op. 3, movement 2, Mässige Viertel [9:48] [FLAC24]

  11. AGP 151 notes [TXT]



NOTES

The Avant Garde Project returns from its summer sabbatical with an installment of works by Alban Berg. All three works are available in other recordings on CD, but these recordings appear to be out of print.

The Alban Berg Quartett's reading of Berg's String Quartet, op. 3 is a dynamite performance and recording of this great work. The files in the first two tracks of this installment are CD-standard 16 bit/44.1kHz. Their recording of this work is so nice that I've also included files in 24-bit resolution (files 9-10). The recording is from 1974, just a few years after the quartet formed, and features Günter Pichler, Klaus Maetzl, Hatto Beyerle, and Valentin Erben. It was published on Teldec Records (6.41301). The recording of the string-quartet version of Berg's Lyric Suite on side B is available on CD at a very reasonable price in a 5CD retrospective of performances by the Alban Berg Quartett entitled "Hommage".

The recordings of Berg's Violin Concerto and Drei Orchesterstücke feature the Kölner Rundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester conducted by Hiroshi Wakasugi, with Ulf Hoelscher on violin for the concerto. These recordings are nicely detailed and balanced but a bit on the dark side. It is an EMI recording, published by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1979. The recording was produced by Dr. H. Lang and engineered by O. Nielsen and H. Rantz.

Aside from a few moments of scattered tracking distortion, both transcriptions are very clean. I didn't scan the LP cover notes, because neither of them provides information you couldn't readily find on the internet or in books (remember them?).