When orchestras (to say nothing of audiences) were still baffled by these pieces, performances of them often sounded pretty terrible: precariously scrawny high violins, fluffed entries from players counting for dear life and the sort of tone-quality that comes from not knowing why on earth you should be playing this note rather than another so who cares what the note actually sounds like? There was a vicious circle, of course, with listeners being confirmed in their view that yes, Schoenberg and his followers did write ugly music. Nowadays it is played very beautifully indeed, and there is just a trace of a second vicious circle building up: if Schoenberg et al sound as gorgeous as Mahler really, how come they can't write a Mahlerian tune? The slight feeling of compensating for this by overstating lyricism and drama, the fly in the ointment of Levine's sumptuous Schoenberg and Webern on DG, is almost wholly absent from Rattle's. No, I don't mean that he's put the clock back 40 years and induced the CBSO to play badly, nor that he has eschewed lyricism and expressiveness, but a recognition of the ways in which Schoenberg and Webern were un-Mahlerian seems implicit in his handling of them.
This comes out most obviously in the differences between them, of course (in Levine's hands Webern's Op. 6 might actually be by Schoenberg) but also in a care for qualities other than line and dramatic incident: the firm pulse and sense of momentum in the second Schoenberg piece (Levine loses this rather by his habit of lingering over phrases that he's particularly fond of), the spareness of texture and importance of silence in the Webern; here he is helped by using—like Karajan (also DG, and a very strong and beautiful performance) but unlike Levine—the somewhat reduced orchestra of Webern's revised score.
Rattle's lyricism, tender and at times poignant though it is, is cooler than Karajan's or Levine's and runs no risk of the heaviness of feature that spoils the latter's account of the last of the Schoenberg pieces and the fourth of Webern's. Might we expect, then, a slightly understated account of the Lulu Suite? A trifle, perhaps: the Ostinato could have had a more nightmarish wildness, the concluding Adagio lacks a touch of dramatic edge, but there is plenty of compensation: the fine balance between voluptuousness and real tenderness in the Rondo, the rich complexity of the Variations (which include a wicked private joke: the hurdy-gurdy imitation is pronounced, so to speak, in the unmistakable accents of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies), the beautifully moulded instrumental detail throughout (a pity that Arleen Auger's coolly pure-voiced contributions are so recessed into the orchestra).
In fact on CD at the moment Rattle has no real competitor in the Berg (Abbado's fine DG account of it having come up very acid-edged and harsh in the transfer from LP), and the whole collection is thoroughly welcome. The recording is clear but natural, with a commendably wide dynamic range. The CBSO, of course, lack the last millimetre or two of plushy deep pile that the BPO allow Karajan and Levine to luxuriate in, but I cannot say that a slightly leaner Schoenberg strikes me as a lesser Schoenberg. Webern positively gains from the more sinewy sound; even in Berg, where Mahlerian overtones are appropriate one is reminded that there's not all that much fat on Mahler's orchestra either.'