Goodbye prejudice!

The radical break with the past was certainly less important to Othmar Schoeck than the solid craft he learned from Max Reger. Born in Brunnen on beautiful Lake Lucerne in 1886, Schoeck remained in the romantic realm and stuck to the melodious - precisely because of his preference for lieder. With the CD Summer Night, the chamber string orchestra I Tempi from Basel now presents an under-appreciated strand of his work: there are three works for string orchestra, all written in the mid-1940s shortly after the end of the Second World War.

The opening work is a suite for string orchestra in A major op. 59. Schoeck often cultivates a contemplative, sceptical tone, to which a movement entitled "Pastorale tranquillo" fits well. The instrumentation is outstanding. Schoeck thus creates a latent inner tension, which is released in two faster movements. In the third movement in particular, "Tempo di marcia allegro", there is a completely new tone, which - as the author of the very good booklet, Chris Walton, is right - bears traits of Sergei Prokofiev's music. Parallels to "Montague and Capulet" from Romeo and Juliet are almost too obvious.

The Concerto for Cello and String Quartet op. 61, completed two years later, is stronger than the Suite. Soloist Christoph Croisé finds a suitable and, above all, always flexible tone for these soundscapes, in which he must constantly alternate between standing unobtrusively in the foreground and integrating into the orchestra. The chamber orchestra I Tempi, which penetrates deeply into the delicate music, and the sound engineer Karsten Zimmermann also deserve special praise. They all managed a balancing act in the Zurich radio studio. Giving the music the necessary sonic opulence while at the same time not depriving it of its analytical transparency is a technical and aesthetic challenge that was mastered in an almost artistic manner.

The CD, which begins with the eponymous Pastorale Summer night op. 58, can be recommended to the domestic sound fetishist as well as to those who simply enjoy good and well-played music. Any prejudices in the direction of "Schoeck the conservative" should quickly disappear in view of all these qualities.