During his years as music director in Houston, Christoph Eschenbach founded the Houston Symphony Chamber Players: musicians from the orchestra, with himself at the piano. On this album for Koch International Classics they take on the three masters of the Second Viennese School.

The centrepiece is Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, in Felix Greissle’s arrangement for chamber ensemble. Around it come the Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19, Berg’s own trio version of the Adagio from his Chamber Concerto and his Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 5, and Webern’s Variations for piano, Op. 27. BBC Music Magazine called the Op. 19 and Webern performances “very well played indeed”.

The cover is Gustav Klimt’s Garden Path with Chickens, painted in 1916, the same Vienna in which this music was born. The painting itself was lost in the fire at Schloss Immendorf in 1945.

koch international classics · 3-7496-2
houston symphony chamber players · christoph eschenbach