There is strong competition for these performances on other CDs. Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic have recorded both works magnificently for DG—the Metamorphosen is already regarded as a classic account—and the recent Previn/Philips Metamorphosen was, I thought, outstandingly successful, especially in conveying the tensions underlying this deeply personal elegy for a civilization destroyed. The Tate/EMI performance is also a notable interpretation, well recorded.
Yet, oddly enough, since it would seem to be an obvious pairing, this is the first CD on which the Strauss and Schoenberg are available together. But that is not the disc's only claim on our attention. These are excellent performances by the English String Orchestra and if William Boughton does not bring the intensity of either Karajan or Previn to the Strauss, he quite remarkably preserves the chamber-music ambience of both works. In Metamorphosen, for instance, the interweaving of the 23 solo strings has an admirable clarity, with some exceptionally rich and warmly phrased playing by the first viola. And while I usually find that the orchestral version of Verklarte Nacht, impressive as it is, loses something by its enlargement from the original string sextet, here there is less sense of inflation—the intimacy of the original is in large measure preserved, and that is no mean achievement.
The Nimbus recording is also of very high quality, capturing the gutty sound of the strings without recourse to coming in too close on the soloists. Thus, one hears the solos in the Strauss very clearly but still within the right perspective. The final pages of the Schoenberg, too, where the texture must shimmer, are also very finely played and recorded.'