Boulez Ensemble & Thomas Guggeis

Johann Strauß
Wein, Weib und Gesang
Arrangement by Alban Berg

Alban Berg
Chamber Concerto
for Piano, Violin, and 13 Wind Instruments

Johann Strauß
Schatzwalzer
Arrangement by Anton Webern

Maurice Ravel
La Valse
Poème choréographique for Two Pianos

Johann Strauß
Kaiserwalzer
Arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg

For the season finale, the Second Viennese School meets the Viennese waltz. In May 1921, Arnold Schoenberg came up with an unprecedented idea to raise funds for his “Society for Private Musical Performances”: instead of programming the customary fare of avant­-garde works, he enlisted the help of his former students Alban Berg and Anton Webern to present music by the “Waltz King” Johann Strauss in new chamber arrangements.

Thomas Guggeis and the Boulez Ensemble close the season with three of these sparkling pieces, which they combine with Maurice Ravel’s apocalyptic homage to the Viennese waltz, La Valse from 1920, and Berg’s 1925 Chamber Concerto, with soloists Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien.