Arnold Schoenberg's subscription 'Society for Private Musical Performances', which gave 113 concerts between 1918 to 1921, of chamber music and piano pieces by a host of important avant-garde composers, also encouraged the transcription of modern scores for chamber ensemble.The statutes, drawn up by his friend and pupil Alban Berg, were incredibly strict: even applause was forbidden. "Any form of approval, disapproval or acknowledgement is forbidden.The only thing a composer may receive in these venues is the most important of all: to be played" Lastly the programmes were never communicated in advance, so that the judgement of the association's members should not in any way be formed before they had been able to hear the works.The present recording offers two of these chamber versions which appeared on the Society's programmes on 10th, 20th and 23rd January 1921. Oxalys, founded in 1993 by students of the Brussels Conservatory, revives this key-event in association with Belgian soprano Laure Delcampe, who has studied with Walter Berry, Mitsuko Shiraï and Hartmut Höll.
