In the mid twentieth century, when few recordings did justice to of the music of Alban Berg, this disc with conductor Marc Albrecht, soprano Christiane Iven, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg would have been revelatory. Albrecht certainly understands Berg's music, and though the Strasbourg orchestra is not a major orchestra, their playing here is a match for all but the very greatest in terms of tone and ensemble. Albrecht's reading of the Drei Orchesterstücke is both precisely played and sensitively interpreted, and his accompaniments in the Altenburg Lieder and Sieben frühe Lieder are models of taste and sympathy. Iven delivers note-perfect yet thoroughly lovely accounts of the songs. Still, when this disc was released in 2009, it had fifty years of great Berg recordings to compete with, and as fine as this one is, it does not surpass Claudio Abbado's magnificent recordings with Juliane Banse, Anne Sophie von Otter, and the Weiner Philharmoniker on Deutsche Grammophon. PentaTone's super audio sound, though, is nearly as clear and immediate as Deutsche Grammophon's digital recording.

© Jim Leonard, All Music Guide