“Serial Verdi” - a would-be crushing put-down aimed at Schoenberg's 12-note opera from the post-war avant-garde - might actually be a selling-point for some listeners. As far as this new recording goes, the description seems relevant not only to the orchestral blood-and-thunder of the Dance Round the Golden Calf, but to Chris Merritt's rather strenuous vocal demeanour as Aron. This would be fine for Manrico in Trovatore, but it's rather too distant from the hypnotic lyricism needed - the marking dolce is crucial - if Schoenberg's spiritual and political drama is to punch its full weight.

Pierre Boulez's second recording of Moses und Aron (DG, 10/96) remains the outstanding version, and that also has Chris Merritt, then at his considerable best. Nevertheless, this Naxos release provides a good sense of live stage performance, and its strengths underline the un-Verdian aspects of Schoenberg's knotty yet starkly emotional score, as in the very first scene, with its complex choral textures combining rhythmic speech and song. The Stuttgart forces, bolstered by the Kraków Radio Chorus, are forthright and confident, the whole enterprise well controlled by the conductor Roland Kluttig. Tempi are sometimes broader than the score suggests, and the post-Mahlerian extravagances of the Dance Round the Golden Calf risk outstaying their welcome, but Kluttig doubtless had the needs of his singers in mind, and all the minor roles are well characterised.

As Moses, Wolfgang Schöne impresses, avoiding any tendency to excessive ranting and raving. Stricter observance of the contours of Schoenberg's speech-song notation would have done no harm, but the degree of precision expected, or necessary, is always an open question. Schöne and Merritt are both particularly effective in the quick-fire debating of the opera's last scene, preceding Moses's final outburst of despair, with its ultra-expressive single-line string accompaniment. The absence of a libretto is a pity, given the vital importance of verbal communication, or lack of it, to the drama. But the recording itself does well to convey so much of the raw dramatic force of one of the 20th century's most remarkable operas.