Dancing on Volcano album review – a glorious technicolor snapshot of pre-war German music | Classical music

Mef this recording by Ensemble Modern by HK Gruber represents a snapshot of German music between 1920 and 1933, and is a perfect example of something the Nazis could not follow. “Too modern, too jazzy, too Jewish,” they exclaimed. It is not surprising that all four writers ended up in the United States.

First published in 1922, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No 1 was criticized by one critic as containing “the vulgarity and frivolity that is possible for a very special composer”. Gruber embraces his neo-classical spikiness and jazz-age energy in a delightful performance. Korngold, as he described in his 1920 musical version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is Hindemith’s polar opposite. In an entertaining read, Gruber infuses the author’s Viennese neo-Romanticism with the smoke of acerbic wit.

Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, which began under Klemperer in 1930, is eight minutes of angst. Johannes Schöllhorn’s lean-textured chamber version of 1993 is mined for each different version.

The crown jewel is Gruber and Christian Muthspiel’s Kurt Weill Foundation-sanctioned adaptation of The Seven Deadly Sins. Wallis Giunta is more opera diva than Weimar chanteuse but there’s no shortage of her voice, while Amarcord’s male quartet kvetch and wheedle as her brutal family. Gruber’s razor-sharp but flexible interpretation drips with critical smoke.

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