Pieces
Schoenberg'sFive Pieceswere a Mercury Living Presence  specialty. They were recorded first in mono, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra  under Rafael Kubelik (a great performance recently reissued on CD), and then  again in stereo--this version is also excellent. It's all the more amazing when  you consider that in the 1950s and early '60s they were considered by most  concertgoers to be the musical Antichrist. Today it's a little hard to see what  the fuss was about. They are actually quite beautiful, sort of atonal Debussy,  and along with the Berg and Webern pieces, these may have been the first  professional recordings that really did justice to the works of the Second  Viennese School. They still sound great--a tribute to both Antal Dorati and  Mercury.--David Hurwitz