Various Artists - Vienne 1900 - The Times

Mahler also makes a cameo appearance in a tempting and thoughtful album called Vienne 1900, although the Viennese compositions featured, often bending tonality this way and that, date from either side of the century’s divide. Here the instrumental forces are minute, and often smaller than the composers intended; Schoenberg’s hectic Chamber Symphony is winningly played by a hothouse quintet. Other highlights include Zemlinsky’s early, endearing Clarinet Trio, clearly written when he was wearing Brahms’s trousers. The Berg selections also please, particularly his Op 1, the torso of a post-romantic piano sonata, tossed off with a lovely flourish by Eric Le Sage, the most hard-working of the exuberant and stylish musicians, who joined forces at the annual French chamber music festival held at Salon-de-Provence. The present recordings date from July 2018. It was another world.