These recordings, made in Vienna between 1989 and 1992, are technically superb; DG manage an even finer blend of clarity and tonal depth than they achieved for James Levine and the BPO in 1986 (8/87—nla). A further attraction is the rarity value of the VPO in Webern. My main regret is that the disc doesn't include more of his music—the Symphony, or even the early Im Sommerwind—as well as, or in place of, the Schoenberg.
In A Survivor from Warsaw Abbado's narrator, Gottfried Hornik, is considerably more histrionic than Boulez's relatively detached but still powerful Gunther Reich on Sony, while Abbado's male chorus sounds larger, and is more forwardly placed, than Boulez's. Yet I find the strongly-wrought emotions of Abbado's account almost excessive beside Boulez's more contained but highly dramatic reading.
In the Webern works the DG sound is inevitably superior to Sony's remastered analogue tapings, now more than 20 years old. But Boulez's performances have much to offer, and the context he provides, the complete works with opus number, is invaluable. Abbado reveals his particular virtues from the very beginning of the Passacaglia; scrupulous attention to detail, and a compelling flexibility and intensity that underlines the music's Mahlerian affinities. The Op. 6 and Op. 10 pieces are notable for the refinement of the solo playing, especially from woodwind and horns. In Op. 6 Abbado keeps the music on a tighter rein than Levine, and to stunning effect, not least in the overwhelming funeral march (No. 4). The romantic undertow of the Bach arrangement is not shirked, and I find this fully in line with Webern's intentions. In the great set of Variations, Op. 30, I continue to admire Boulez's power and sensitivity, but the flat perspective of his version leaves Abbado's no less cogent reading a clear winner in recording terms.'