In 1918 Arnold Schoenberg founded the Verein für musikalische Privatauff hrungen (Society for Private Musical Performances) in Vienna. At the age of forty-four, Schoenberg was widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of his time.
After his experiences in the ultra-conservative Viennese music life, culminating in the horrors of the infamous Scandal-concert of March 31, 1913, Schoenberg must have felt that the time had come to introduce a different way of presenting new music to an interested audience. With Schoenberg as president and a board of nineteen friends and students, an innovative format was developed: weekly concerts that would be open only to members of the Verein, with critics not allowed and audible approval or disapproval not permitted. The programs would remain secret until the evening of the concert.
On this new recording we can hear Schoenberg’s arrangement of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and conductor Henk Guittart’s own arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde. This is Volume 5 of Etcetera’s Verein für musikalische Privatauff hrungen. Ludwig Mittelhammer puts in a stunning performance in Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
