Von Heute auf Morgen (“From Today to Tomorrow”) is one of the least performed (and recorded) of Schoenberg’s major compositions. With its long, unbroken span the longest of his 12-note works, by some way, when he wrote it in 1928-9 – its demands on performers are nevertheless those of technique rather than stamina. Emphatically a piece for singers with orchestral accompaniment, it should, the composer claimed, be sung with beauty of tone, without shouting or exaggeration. Yet the intensity of the expression, and the generally fast tempos, make a relaxed, conversational style difficult to achieve. The music is certainly not monotonous, any more than it is expressionistic. This is an opera with a light touch, mixing comic and serious aspects, and the music shifts constantly between recitative and aria-like writing. But it remains hard for performers whose bread and butter is earned with very different materials to achieve an idiomatic result in this story of marital misunderstanding, aggravation and – in the end – reconciliation.
By engaging reputable contemporary music specialists, CPO have gone some way to meeting this problem, and Michael Gielen conducts an account that sweeps compellingly forwards while not stinting the eloquence and lyricism. In the principal roles, Christine Whittlesey and Richard Salter undoubtedly overpoint the text in the early stages: I would willingly have sacrificed some of that brittle verbal clarity for a more legato line. But they offer a high degree of accuracy, the moments of tenderness later on are well done and, with two strong singers in the subordinate parts, the cumulative sections of the opera are extremely convincing. The recording as such, linked to the making of a film for television, does no one any favours, and greater parity between voices and orchestra would have been welcome, but it is adequate.'