What is one to make of a composition that goes by the name of "Work"? Above all, how can one make such a work palatable, how can one convince somebody beside oneself that an incredibly complex, breathtakingly suspenseful piece of music lies in store behind this title, which is certainly the simplest and most repellent heading imaginable? The facts are very clear: Heinrich Kaminski premiered his String Quintet in F sharp minor in Munich in 1917. Ten years after its premiere he returned to his quintet, relaxing its polyphonic interweaves. At almost the same time his publisher encouraged him to produce a string orchestra version of his symphonically dimensioned music. Kaminski assigned this task to his pupil Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling, who completed it to the contentment of all those concerned.

The reworking experienced its premiere as the "Work for String Orchestra" in 1929. An apparently clairvoyant reviewer wrote already after a first hearing, "The whole musical body supplied the radiant colors to the pictures. Behind this iridescent façade there stands the strong musical personality of the composer, there stands the same ecstatic individual in an otherworldly state of transport, for whom music is spontaneous chance expression: genuinely and truly born of innermost conviction."

- CPO