This first symphonic recording featuring Kent Nagano and “his” orchestra is devoted to the highly charged period at the turning point between Romanticism and Modernism.

While we see Franz Schubert as progressive and ahead of his time, with Anton Webern, especially in his early works, the Romantic tradition can still clearly be heard.

The programme consists of two chamber works by Schubert, orchestrated by Mahler and Webern and presented in a new guise, as well as an original, early chamber work by Webern which sounds highly Romantic, tonal, and expressive. Both as an orchestra and in the string quartet, the Philharmonic State Orchestra under Kent Nagano lends this juxtaposition its own distinctive stamp – as well as its own distinctive sound.

An oil painting by the painter and violinist Erich Gargerle (d. 2021) was selected for the cover. As a representative of the “Viennese School of Fantastic Surrealism”, and also as a musician, the Second Viennese School – the milieu and home of Mahler and Webern – served as an essential source of inspiration and strength for him.

“The Schubert-Mahler-Webern triad contains an important piece of music history which, in the way the works are interwoven with each other, we can experience here like under a magnifying glass. It is part of the history of Romanticism in its late phase, shimmering in new colors on the threshold of modernity.” – Kent Nagano