Whatever it says in the booklet, three out of four of these recordings derive from the ‘new music’ series made possible by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; older hands will regret the disappearance of the opulent packaging and copious annotations that accompanied the LPs. This is nevertheless an intelligently conceived reissue: Weill learned much from both Schoenberg and Busoni (his teacher), and the latter’s Berceuse elegiaque was among the pieces given in reduced form at Schoenberg’s Association for Private Musical Performances. The performance given here remains eminently recommendable and, if you don’t know this wonderful music, here is an opportunity not to be missed. On its first appearance in 1968, Prausnitz’s Schoenberg won praise for its subtlety and precision; today we are used to still cleaner articulation, but the recording is sympathetic enough.
The Weill symphonies only returned to circulation in the 1960s and these pioneering accounts have an enthusiastic freshness (and, it must be said, roughness) that subsequent issues have failed to trump. While the First Symphony is indeed ‘derivative’, there’s more of the mature composer in it than some commentators might lead one to expect. The Second is quite simply a masterpiece, although it may need someone with the flair of Sir Simon Rattle to establish it in the standard repertoire. Bertini’s brusque, rough-and-ready approach is scarcely ideal, but he keeps the music going at all times, invigorating and intense in the outer movements, deeply moving (and adequately linear) in the Mahler-meets-Mack-the-Knife of the Largo. Harsh and studio-bound as it is, the sound rather suits the music.'