Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Schönberg and Brahms – they sound like separate worlds. However, the twelve-tone composer was partly responsible for saving the late Romantic for the Modern Age. With Brahms’s »Tragischer Ouvertüre« and the American minimalism of John Adams’s »Harmonielehre« the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin finds a frame for Schönberg’s songs, whose huge contrasts demonstrate the remarkable breadth of his music.

It is a fascinating relationship: the lecture »Brahms the Progressive« that Arnold Schönberg first gave in 1933 on Frankfurt Radio led to a re-evaluation of Brahms’s work. His contact with the broadcaster had been arranged through Hans Rosbaud, the boss of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, who had performed numerous Schönberg works in his concerts. It was Rosbaud who had also produced the world premiere of Schönberg’s »Four Songs for voice and orchestra« op. 22 the year before – a poignant cycle that had been written immediately before the outbreak of the First World War.