These are two of the most important landmarks in the late Romantic string repertoire - Strauss’s moving elegy for a world torn by war and Schoenberg’s passionate love poem in music. Acclaimed for their recordings of English romantic works William Boughton and the English String Orchestra here carry through the same intensity and drive in gripping performances of these great works. "William Boughton is revealed as a world-class conductor - squarely in the Boult tradition" Reviews "This CD contains two of my favourite works for String Orchestra,Richard Stauss's Metamorphosen and Arnold Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht. They are performed by the English String Orchestra conducted by William Boughton in 1988.They are on the Nimbus label. The playing is superb in both works and the sound is wonderfully clear which is so important in a work for strings only. I did fear the Nimbus acoustic could be too reverberant,but not so.The sound is beautiful and you can bathe in it. The Strauss is very popular already.I also have the Karajan version with the Berlin Phil and indeed it is wonderful.The oschestra sounds so much bigger than the ESO. But remember that Strauss wrote this for 23 strings and this smaller version is a fascinating alternative.You can hear the separate strings and lines more clearly than the Berlin account. I love this work so much I am delighted to have two versions of it and I recommend the ESO performance alongside the Berlin one. The work by Schoenberg is possibly the only one I can recommend by this composer,but I do recommend it wholeheartedly! It is a wonderful Romantic work for strings,lasting 27mins and it pairs beautifully with the Strauss work.There is nothing to fear in this work.No 12-tone row,no atonality just wonderfully lyical,lush string music. I do believe it should be as well known as the Strauss work.It also is wonderfully played and recorded by the ESO. This is an ideal pairing of two great works for string orchestra and I cannot recommend it too highly."-GMB The Washigton Times