These are good but hardly outstanding performances of music that really does ask a lot of its performers. Marc Albrecht’s view of the Three Pieces has some nicely woozy, impressionistic textures in the opening movement, but the following waltz isn’t demonic enough, and the final march is neither hallucinatory nor scary. It’s just decently played and well paced, but somehow gutless. Christiane Iven sings the Seven Early Songs well. Schilflied is particularly lovely, but she struggles somewhat with the awkward intervals of the Altenberg Lieder, and the voice turns strained. The Strauss waltz transcription is interesting on its own, but seems somewhat out of place in this company (usually it turns up with other, similar arrangements by members of the Second Viennese School). The engineering, like the performances, is good but not outstanding, with a nice, firm bass but a lack of impact and vividness to the brass and wind sections. It’s difficult to be more enthusiastic than that about this release.
