Leaving Home - Orchestral Music In The 20th Century - Vol. 1 - Details

A journey into atonality

This is not quite what I expected. I was expecting a concert with some short introductions to each piece from the conductor's rostrum. What we get is a lecture from Simon Rattle, illustrated at the piano, with interspersed orchestral pieces. Sometimes these are whole short pieces or movements uninterrupted, at other times orchestral fragments are interwoven with his exposition. The DVD starts with some historic footage of Viena to set the scene. Since this is historic the quality is poor. For some reason on my TV the picture was placed up at the top of the screen with what looked like interframe blanking showing at the bottom. This was instead of the normal letter box with black bars top and bottom.

The musical performances are excellent as one would expect from this orchestra under Rattle. The pieces may not be to ones taste if you are still very much attuned to classical music from the Baroque to the Romantic. I used to detest modern music having had my ears blasted with the latest rage in musical experimentation (music concrete) from the 50s through to the 70s. Having now got used to, and quite enjoy, some more modern composers such as Paert, Ratavara, Goretski, Tavener, etc I find that I can now approach some of the earlier modern music. I was always OK with Tristan and Isolde, commonly granted as the birth of Atonality, and this is where this DVD starts. I find now though that I can enjoy some of the early Schoenberg, and in particular Transfigured Night, also featured on this disk. Rattle gives an interesting insight in to the development of atonality which is worth giving a try if you have found this music difficult to approach.

The video part of the disk lasts 50 minutes, but there are two audio tracks, Transfigured Night and a Webern violin concerto (I didn't get on with this).