Chamber Symphony No. 1 (Schoenberg)

The first British performance was on 6 May[1][2] (or possibly on 16 April)[3] 1921, at the Aeolian Hall, London, conducted by Edward Clark, Schoenberg's champion and former student.

Some critics and conductors have claimed that an ensemble formed of ten winds and only five strings is inherently unbalanced; however, some of the voices are doubled so that no instrument is playing one-on-one against another.

1 is one of the most recorded of Schoenberg's works and has received attention from conductors including Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Zubin Mehta, and chamber groups such as the Hyperion Ensemble, Hagen Quartett and Orpheus.

A 1998 performance conducted by Robert Craft on the Koch International Classics label and reissued in 2007 on Naxos received a positive critical response.

[15] She notes that even in Boulez's comparatively fast recording Schoenberg's metronome marks are still not always achieved, suggesting that they are perhaps impossible to perform.