it." At the suggestion of the conductor Otto Klemperer, Schoenberg's "posthumous" contribution to the symphonic works of Johannes Brahms was composed in Los Angeles between May 2 and September 19, 1937, which he occasionally referred to jokingly and yet with pride as the "Fifth Symphony" of his great role model: the arrangement of Brahms' Piano Quartet in G minor, op. 25. In the anthology Conversations with Klemperer (1974), edited by Peter Heyworth, a telling remark by the conductor of the premiere survives: "One doesn't even like to hear the original quartet anymore, the arrangement sounds so beautiful." What may sound to diehard Brahmsians as pure blasphemy and negation of all limitations of an arranger, Schoenberg created for large orchestra in an act of selfconfident reshaping, although he himself modestly - and also as an understatement - formulated: "I had only to transfer this sound to the orchestra, and I did nothing else." About the incentive to work on the piece we further learn: "1. I like the piece. 2. it is rarely played. 3. it is always played very badly, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing of the strings. I wanted to hear everything for once, and I achieved that." Schoenberg's uncompromising liberties in reading the original are considerable - and yet the original score remains almost dogmatically untouched as far as its compositional text is concerned. What is new is the interpretation of musical depth perspective, which "abruptly violates chamber music discretion", according to conductor and musicologist Peter Gülke; the discourse Brahms intended for four players is now transposed to a large orchestra with percussion. "My intentions: To remain strictly in Brahms' style and not to go further than he himself would have gone if he were alive today." Therese Muxeneder, Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna
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