The Second Chamber Symphony has never had a very firm foothold in the record catalogue. The most recent version was Boulez's with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and this is only available as part of a three-LP set (CBS 79349, 1/83). So the ECO's fine new version, beautifully recorded and with just the right size of orchestral forces, is doubly welcome.
This is the work that Schoenberg began in 1906 just after the First Chamber Symphony and put aside, apparently under pressure from developments in his musical language which made it seem irrelevant. Despite attempts to pick up the threads in 1911 and again in 1916, the continuation of the second movement and its retrospective coda were only added in 1939. Another factor associated with this unusual history must surely be the appropriation of the Chamber Symphony's E flat minor tonality, and the principal motif and mood of its first movement, in the third movement of the Second String Quartet. In the quartet, moreover, the finale's famous ''Air of another planet'' makes a more compelling follow-up than the initially jaunty second movement of the Chamber Symphony (however stern a contrapuntal talking-to Schoenberg subsequently gives it).
Still, nothing that Schoenberg wrote at this time is less than absorbing to listen to, whether it's the musical density, or the tortuous psychological states, or the interaction between those two which interests you. And the melancholy conclusion is both disturbing and memorable. Jeffrey Tate and the ECO are scrupulously attentive to balance and details of articulation—the indispensable foundation for any performance of this intriguing score and they never lose their poise amid ferocious problems of rhythmic synchronization.
Verklarte Nacht fares less well. To some extent the orchestra seem to be going through the motions of their performance with Ashkenazy (on Decca), and where there are divergences these are not always improvements. I especially deplore the alteration of Schoenberg's rhythm which enables the violas to get their difficult arpeggiated pizzicato together. Above all the performance lacks sweep and it sags disastrously at the declaration of transfiguring love in the later stages. Also I feel that any chamber orchestra performance is liable to get the worst of both worlds—having neither the flexibility of solo instruments nor the richness of a full-sized string section—which is one of many reasons why Karajan and Berlin Philharmonic strings (on DG) are far and away preferable to this or the other listed comparisons.'