FRITZ HEINRICH KLEIN (1892-1972): Die Maschine - Enie extonale Selbstsatire for Piano Four Hands, Op. 1, 12 extonale Klaverstücke, Op. 4, Andante rubato, HANS ERICH APOSTEL (1901-1972): Variations from Lulu (arr. four-hands), Kubiniana, Op. 13, THEODOR W. ADORNO (1903-1969): 3 Short Piano Pieces, ALBAN BERG (1885-1935): Sonata, Op. 1.

Description: The third volume in this "Teachers & Followers" series brings three of Berg's pupils. Like Berg's music which many listeners find more easily approachable on first hearing than that of Schoenberg and Webern, the music of these three composers can seem more "tonal" than it is. Klein's "extonality" is based on twelve-tone chords rather than twelve-tone rows, lending his Klavierstücke of 1922 an almost Romantic Expressionist quality. His Die Maschine of the previous year comes out as an 11-minute exercise in the kind of Soviet avant-garde "Machine Music" so briefly popular at the time. The other significant contribution here (Adorno is limited to three minutes) is Apostel's set of ten piano pieces from 1946, suggested by pencil drawings by Alfred Kubin which manage both to suggest pictorial associations and to stick to the Second Viennese School's preference for "absolute" music. Steffen Schleiermacher (piano), Markus Zugehör (four-hands pieces).