Fifty­two minutes is all it takes to cover Webern’s orchestral music‚ at least if the early tone­poem Im Sommerwind and the Concerto for Nine Instruments – virtually chamber music‚ but needing a conductor – are excluded. Yet the prevailing brevity is deceptive. The journey from the Passacaglia (1908)‚ where Webern’s instinct for compression and his inherited late­Romantic expansiveness come into conflict‚ and on to the radically concentrated‚ potently expressive Variations (1940)‚ remains one of the most far­reaching in 20th­century music. It’s very good to have it made available at super­budget price. The best performances here are those of the Symphony and the Variations‚ in which Takuo Yuasa’s scrupulous balancing of constantly fluctuating textures and tempos doesn’t inhibit a natural sense of flow‚ nor a positive realisation of the music’s often surprisingly robust poetic essence. Even with sound lacking ideal warmth and tonal bloom‚ this account of Op 30 successfully delineates the imaginative orchestral sonorities – a brief tuba solo here‚ the delicate fabric of interacting lines for solo and tutti strings there. The earlier works are less convincing in style‚ though accurate in their attention to detail‚ while the sound balance seems to have been adjusted for Op 10’s much­reduced orchestration (just 17 players‚ including mandolin‚ guitar and harmonium) the playing has less presence than in Op 21 and Op 30‚ and the often nightmarish canvasses of Op 5 and Op 6 – the latter done in the scaled­down 1928 instrumentation – have less dramatic power than in the Boulez versions (Sony‚ 6/91; DG‚ 6/00). In the string­orchestra arrangement of the Five Pieces for String Quartet too much seems dutiful‚ even cautious. But Op 1 has some fine wind and brass playing – those exposed high horn notes ring out clear and secure – and this score’s rather rickety structure hangs together as well as it ever can. In sum‚ reliable and at times inspired readings of music whose historical significance shouldn’t inhibit a keen appreciation of its character and depth.