In terms of style, the Schoenberg Piano Quartet orchestration is rather like a private conversation re-scripted for the theatre. Only the most sensitive Brahms conductors can make it work and this excellent performance has the same absorbing qualities that informed Eschenbach’s Houston Brahms symphony cycle for Virgin (10/92 and 6/94, now available, unbelievably, at super-budget price), namely singing lines (such as at 3'04'' into the first movement), impressive delicacy of texture (the closing moments of the exposition, from around 5'14''), an enthusiastic response to animated musical argument (as near the onset of the first movement’s development section, at 7'08'') and a keen ear for aural perspective. As in the symphonies, tempos are generally quite broad – certainly in comparison to my favoured digital recording of the transcription, under Michael Gielen (once available on Intercord through EMI’s Special Import Service) – although the “Intermezzo” second movement is both keenly accented and properly pensive (it is the one movement where Eschenbach is actually swifter than Gielen).
Eschenbach grants considerable weight to the brass lines, while in the Andante con moto, burbling woodwinds (say, at, 2'09'') are extraordinarily clear and the repeated wind chords at 2'19'' oddly reminiscent of Bruckner. Only the Rondo alla zingarese third movement seems to me marginally under-powered, although it, too, is crystal clear. Certainly Schoenberg’s desire “once to hear everything in the piece” (a stated reason for making the transcription in the first place) is vividly realized and the recording captures the whole dazzling spectacle, from glittering high percussion, through tactile col legno strings to sonorous low brass. Webernian fastidiousness, allied to musical phrasing and refined orchestral playing, make this my preferred available recording of the piece, pending the reappearance of Gielen’s wildly spontaneous account (which is some four minutes faster than Eschenbach’s) on EMI.
The couplings are both highly appropriate and superbly performed. Best, at least to my ears, is Schmucke dich which, although heavily modified contrapuntally, has a mellow grandeur that is inherent in the original. Komm, Gott, with its bony textures and filled out harmonies, is both rugged and celebratory and the St Anne Prelude and Fugue’s principal glory is its variously orchestrated triple fugue – although I have to say that I find the Prelude’s restlessly shifting textures both distracting and ungainly. Still, Eschenbach and his players do all four transcriptions proud and, viewed as a whole, this excellent CD can be recommended virtually without reservation.'