''Neue Wiener Schule'', proclaims the heading. Today, the ''new Viennese school'' ought to be the likes of H. K. Gruber and Kurt Schwertsik, though even they have been around for several years. Nevertheless, it is Schoenberg, Berg and Webern who continue to have novelty ascribed to them, even though, of the works on this LP, only Webern's Op. 5, wholeheartedly radical for its time, continues to impress for the brilliance of its innovations. In the music by Schoenberg and Berg, by contrast, it is the intense expressiveness drawn from the confrontation and interaction of tradition and innovation that strikes the ear most forcefully today.
It is also Webern's Five Movements which most effectively survive translation from string quartet to string orchestra, the vital contrast of texture enhanced rather than blurred. It receives the best performance, too; dramatic, expressive, shaped by the conductor in a way that allows immediacy its full impact without losing sight of larger goals.
The Berg and Schoenberg are less convincingly done. The fuller textures of the Lyric Suite movements are too solid in this rather murky recording, so that, in the allegro, the ''Trio estatico'' quite fails to erupt from its shadowy surroundings as it should. Stodginess is also prevalent in the Schoenberg, to an extent that calls into question the value of such arrangements of delicately balanced, richly contrapuntal chamber textures. At its worst, there is a rhetorical exaggeration in this interpretation completely at odds with the often pugnacious vigour of the original. The coda to the scherzo lacks bite, that of the finale lacks genuine repose. As for Eva Csapo, I would like to hear her perform the work with a quartet. The result would surely be less stressful, and a better recorded balance between singer and players easier to achieve. Here, backwardly placed, she sounds strained, with insufficient power in the lower register. The orchestra is evidently an able group of young players: plenty of more suitable works await their attention.'