From Amazon.com
If you liked
Morimur, the intellectual examination of the so-called "hidden" chorales in Bach's Chaconne, then you'll buy the premise behind this CD as well. It purports to examine "connections and musical/spiritual affinities between Bach and Anton Webern," but it's probably a good idea to forget that, since it's close to incomprehensible, and the performances here are stunning enough not to be affected by a gimmick. Indeed, the Hilliard's one-voice-to-a-part reading of Bach's Cantata No. 4 is about as gorgeous, moving, and transparent a performance as you'll ever hear. Webern's arrangement of the fugue for six voices from Bach's Musical Offering (recorded at the start and end of the CD) is also beautifully played, this time by the Münchener Kammerorchester, and it is, indeed, a wonderful, rich arrangement. Two early works by Webern serve as part of the contents of the sandwich whose bread is the Musical Offering: the 1905 String Quartet, here orchestrated by Poppen, and Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5, which Webern himself orchestrated in 1930. The booklet explains something about life and death and the relationship between the key-structures of all the works here; if there had been no notes at all this would still be a beautiful CD. Music this well-played needs no excuse or relationship to anything, and the notes--and premise--are little more than frustrating.
--Robert Levine
