Classical Records (Feb. 1977)

reviewed by: ROYAL S. BROWN ABRAM CHIPMAN R. D. DARRELL PETER G. DAVIS SHIRLEY FLEMING ALFRED FRANKENSTEIN KENNETH FURIE HARRIS GOLDSMITH DAVID HAMILTON DALE S. HARRIS PHILIP HART PAUL HENRY LANG ROBERT LONG IRVING LOWENS ROBERT C. MARSH ROBERT P. MORGAN JEREMY NOBLE CONRAD L. OSBORNE ANDREW PORTER H. C. ROBBINS LANDON HAROLD A. RODGERS PATRICK J. SMITH SUSAN THIEMANN SOMMER

---- Pierre Boulez-a genuine involvement with Bartok's score

BARTOK: Bluebeard's Castle, op. 11.

Tatiana Troyanos (ms)

Biueuearc Siegmund Nimsgern (b)

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, cond. [Paul Myers, prod.] COLUMBIA M 34217, $6.98.

Comparisons: Ludwig. Berry. Kertesz Lon. OSA 1158 Hellwig, Koreh, Susskind Bartok 310 /11.

Single-opera composers are not necessarily victims of their own incompetence, giving up a difficult genre after one unsuccessful shot at it. On the contrary, some great com posers whose gifts did not lie in that direction have gone on pursuing it for years (think of Haydn), while others, having once and for all said something central in this very specific form, have passed on to other things with scarcely a backward glance. Beethoven is the obvious example: it's true that he was tempted by other operatic projects after Fidelio, but significant, I think, that none of them ever came to anything. Bartok is another, and on a scarcely less exalted level.

Quite what crises or pressures lie behind the somber drama of Bluebeard's Castle, which he composed at the age of thirty, seems not to have emerged as yet, but something there must have been, for this one opera of his, with its parable about the essential self-destructiveness of human relationships, has the unmistakable ring of a personal statement. A statement of such importance, too, that it demanded and produced its own distinctive musical language.

Most of the harmonic procedures in Bluebeard's Castle may be found in miniature in the piano music of the immediately preceding years, but here, suddenly, the amalgam of Strauss and Debussy and Hungarian folksong is deployed with complete confidence on a far larger scale, and with a new individuality that transcends all questions of derivation. It can hardly be an accident that Bartok's next stage work, the ballet The Wooden Prince, should seem like a step backward: The pressures bud been dif - fused, and the amalgam that works so perfectly in Bluebeard has begun to separate.

Nor is it an accident that the only opera of this very private man should have been set in the small but distinguished tradition of interior drama, which stems from Wagner's Tristan, passes through Debussy's Pelleas, and takes on a more specifically Central European cast with Schoenberg's two dramas. Erwortung and Die glackliche Hand. Perhaps the relation of Bartok's opera to these last would have been more obvious had he called his two characters The Man and The Woman, but artistic tact prevented him from asserting quite so blatantly the universality of what he had to say. He and his librettist Bela Balazs chose to associate their drama with the traditions of French symbolism, in which the general is clothed in the particular, rather than that of German Expressionism, which proclaims its universality to the world.

Even so, the scenic realization of the work is vulnerable, particularly to the ef forts of busy producers who cannot trust to the simple symbolic action, and above all the sequence of simple lighting effects (a literal spectrum of experience) that the score specifies. Rejected by the prize committee that was originally set to judge it and little played between the wars, Bluebeard has been steadily winning a place in the reper tory-but this is largely due to the LP record, which leaves us free to imagine the work as it was originally conceived, and to concentrate on the changing nuances of the relationship between Bluebeard and his young bride Judith without worrying where they are or straining for their words, as we usually have to in the theater.

No. I don’t understand Hungarian, but another advantage of having Bluebeard on records is that with a translation in hand we can all follow the action in detail with out losing the very individual sound, and above all the individual rhythms, of the Hungarian text. And whether or not Tatiana Troyanos really knows Hungarian, I have to say at once that she is the best Judith I have ever heard: no less intense an interpretation than Christa Ludwig's (on the London recording), but even more finely shaded, and with a controlled plangency of timbre that I find quite thrilling. For nearly twenty years I have cherished an admiration for Judith Hellwig's performance on the mono Bartok Records set, but she was really too much of a soprano for this mezzo role; Troyanos manages to get altogether more character into the lower part of her range. Indeed, the only fault I can find with her is that she clings too long to the as tonished (and astonishing) top C with which Judith reacts to the opening of the fifth door, the revelation of Bluebeard's power. Ludwig does the same-but then. I suppose it's natural that mezzos should want to make the most of a high C if they have one.

As Bluebeard, Siegmund Nimsgern, a young German baritone who has worked a good deal with Boulez. and whom U.S. col lectors may know from his appearance in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder as well as in several Bach cantatas. is scarcely less good than Troyanos. in a part whose very passivity makes it all the more difficult to characterize by voice alone. I prefer his dignified coolness to Waller Berry's rather too avuncular Barak-like performance on the London disc, even if neither of them quite matches the majesty of Endre Koreh on the old Bartok recording.

Pierre Boulez is in some respects an ideal conductor for this work, in other respects less so; just as with his interpretation of Pelleas. one senses here that orchestral strands are being balanced with unusual care, while the underlying dramatic ebb and flow of the music sometimes seems a little stiff and unconvincing. Bartok's score is peppered with tempo changes and metronome marks, and I've no doubt one could demonstrate that Boulez is as often true to these as Kertesz (London) or Susskind (Bartok); indeed, the impression of discontinuity may well be a prejudice based on other work I have heard from Boulez.

Clearly this is a score he admires and is genuinely involved with.

Whether he has quite succeeded in communicating that involvement to the BBC Symphony Orchestra is another matter.

There is a lack of bite and intensity to some of the wind and string phrasing that sounds to me almost like the result of boredom though it could equally well be a side effect of the quality of the recorded sound, which is by all odds the most dubious point in what should be a first-rate record. In the first place the reverberation is quite simply too long-not that of a good concert hall. let alone a theater, but of (I suspect) one of those barnlike London town halls in which so much of the repertory gets recorded these days.

This reverberation clouds a good deal of the high wind and string detail in the score, but is most clearly and startlingly demonstrated where what should be a short, sharp chord (as. For example, before the sixth door opens to reveal its lake of tears) is heard booming away into the distance. I am not referring to the actual "door noises," though those also seem to me too long drawn out for the music's good (a melancholy long, withdrawing roar like that of Dover Beach. rather than Bartok's specified sobbing sigh); no, this is undamped reverberation that we should all regard as a serious blemish in a concert hall. I have to add that a spot of pre-echo can also be heard on my pressing before one or two entries, not only such loud and inevitably difficult moments as the fifth door's panoply of sound breaking in on Judith's stunned silence (figs. 76 and 77) but even at a relatively quiet one like Fig. 21, where she first notices the "seven great doors." These are technical blemishes that should have been avoided, yet I do see that the work poses real problems to the engineer. With over half an hour's very wide ranging music on each side something is al most bound to get lost. On the London disc, which in general has clearer definition, it’s the bass; there is a missing octave or so of response at the bottom that deprives Bartok's orchestration of its full weight and occasionally even deprives his harmony of its root (cf. the passage from Fig. 26 on). The new Columbia is so much better in this respect that I only wish it could have been better all around. I cannot honestly say that the Bartok version is still the best: Recording techniques really have advanced a little since the Fifties, and its fuller passages now sound rather boxed-in. But there are still things to be heard on that old version which perhaps only the luxury of four sides made possible, and which may make it worth while for connoisseurs to track it down.

For most of us, though, the choice will be between the London and the new Columbia, and with some reservations I find my self leaning in the direction of the latter, above all for Troyanos. After all, this is a work about intense personal experience, and of all the artists involved, she seems to me the one who embodies it most completely.

J.N.

Brahms: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 1, in D minor, Op. 15. Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta, cond. [Ray Minshull, prod.] LONDON CS 7018, $6.98 Tape: lie CS5 7018, $7.95.

BRAHMS: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 1, in D minor. Op. 15.

Claudio Arrau, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond.

SERAPHIM S 60264, $3.98 [from ANGEL S 35892, 1961] BRAHMS: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 1, in D minor, Op. 15. Bruno Leonardo Gelber, piano; Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Franz-Paul Decker, cond. CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CS 2102, $6.98 [from ODEON SMC 91337, 1966].

Fantastic as it’s that Arthur Rubinstein can still play the Brahms D minor Concerto as well as he can, his earlier recordings make it impossible to ignore the substantial de cline, both pianistic and dramatic. Zubin Mehta is a considerate partner, much more accomplished technically and attentive to Rubinstein's rubato than Barenboim was in the pianist's recent Beethoven cycle (RCA CRL 5-1415, May 1976), and he begins the performance auspiciously with an introductory tutti of compelling power. As soon as the pianist enters, though, the pulse slackens, and despite many golden moments of broad lyricism and arching grandeur only the slow movement really comes off. One textual note: Rubinstein now follows Backhaus and Brendel in interpolating a low B flat in bar 238 of the finale, over lapping the first note of the orchestral fugato.

For the broadly lyrical approach to this work, the choice lies between Rubinstein's ...

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Critics Choice---The best classical records reviewed in recent months

BACH: Concerto Reconstructions (ed. Hogwood). Marriner. MG° ZRG 820/1, Dec.

BACH: Harpsichord(s)/String Concertos. Leppard. PHILIPS 6747 194 (3), Dec.

BACH: Italian Concerto; B minor Partite. Kipnis. ANGEL S 36096, Jan.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7. Ferencsik. HUNGAROTON SLPX 11791, Dec.

BRAHMS: Piano Sonata No. 2; Paganini Variations. Arrau. PHILIPS 9500 066, Dec.

BRUCKNER: Requiem in D minor. Beuerle. NONESUCH H 71327, Nov.

CHOPIN: Preludes, Opp. 28, 45. Posth. Perahia. COLUMBIA M 33507, Nov.

CHOPIN: Preludes, Op. 28. Pollini. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 550, Nov.

DvoRAK: Quartets: Opp. 96, 105. Prague Qt. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 632, Dec.

FELDMAN: Various Works. Various performers. ODYSSEY Y 34138, Dec.

GERSHWIN: "Gershwin Plays Gershwin." RCA Victrola AVM 1-1740, Dec.

Gluck: Operatic Arias. Baker; Leppard. PHILIPS 9500 023, Jan.

GRIEG: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1. Abravanel. Vox OSVBX 5140 (3), Nov.

HANDEL: Organ Concertos (16). Rogg; Armand. CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CSQ2 2115 (2) and 2116 (2), Jan.

HAYDN: Piano Works. McCabe. LONDON STEREO TREASURY STS 15343 /5 (3), Jan.

HAYDN: Piano Works. Kalish. NONESUCH H 71318/28, Jan.

HAYDN: Trios H. XV:14/15. Beaux Arts Trio. PHILIPS 9500 034, Jan.

JANACEK: Choral Works, Czech Philharmonic Chorus; Veselka. SUPRAPHON 1 12 ' 486. Dec.

MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde. Baker, King; Haitink. PHILIPS 6500 831, Jan.

MASSENET: Esclarmonde. Sutherland, Aragall; Bonynge. London OSA 13118 (3), Jan

MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; B flat Scherzo; Turkish March. Berotf. ANGEL S 37223, Dec.

Nielsen: Saul and David. Christoff; Horenstein. UNICORN RHS 343/5 (3), Nov.

ORFF: Carmina Burana. Kegel. PHILIPS 9500 040, Dec.

RACHMANINOFF: Isle of the Dead; Symphonic Dances. Pre m. ANGEL S 37158, Jan.

SCHUBERT: Sonata, D. 850; Landler (4). Ashkenazy. LONDON CS 6961, Dec.

SCHUMANN: Sonata (Concerto Without Orchestra).

SCRIABIN: Sonata No. 5. Horowitz. RCA RED SEAL ARL 1-1766. Jan.

STRAUSS, R.: Horn Concertos. Damm; Kempe. ANGEL S 37004, Nov.

ARTURO T OSCANINI: And the Philadelphia Orchestra. RCA RED SEAL CAM 5 - 1900 (5). Jan.

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... recording with Leinsdorf (RCA LSC 2917 or VCS 7071) and the newly reissued Arrau/ Giulini. Though Claudio Arrau recorded the D minor Concerto before and after, this middle version is the one that preserves this master Brahmsian's greatest achievement with the demanding score. Carlo Maria Giulini's framework, lyrical but intense, creates interest as Haitink's (Philips 6500 018) does not. Arrau is obviously caught up in an emotional experience here, and his broad, strong account of the solo part has far more line and arching continuity than in the other versions. Compare the flow in the left hand at bar 123 of the first movement with the heavy, plodding detache in the Haitink performance. Arrau stretches phrases characteristically, and in truth I would prefer the finale's second theme played more in tempo. but for all that the reading has lyricism and grandeur.

Seraphim's transfer is brighter and more vivid than the 1961 Angel original. The sound lacks the immediacy of the more recent Philips engineering, but it’s kind to both piano and orchestra.

My own preference in this work has al ways been for performances that reflect the then twenty-five-year-old composer's emotional strife-among current recordings, the Fleisher/Szell ( Y 31273) and Serkin/Szell (Columbia MS 7143 or MG 31421). Bruno Leonardo Gelber's 1966 version is of this type, and I am even more impressed with it on rehearing. The Argentinian pianist, twenty-five at the time, balances astonishing power with impeccable legato and beautifully controlled voicing. His octaves are perhaps the most gripping on record, and energy is always tempered by weight and breadth.

Franz-Paul Decker doesn't quite clarify the brass details in the first-movement introduction as Szell always managed to do, but he provides energetic musicianly sup port with the Munich Philharmonic. Connoisseur Society's new transfer has opened up the Odeon original; the slight tubbiness I noted then has disappeared entirely. H.G.

Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, in D, Op. 77. Gidon Kremer, violin; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von KaraJan, cond. [Michel Glotz, prod.] ANGEL S 37226, $6.98 (SQ-encoded disc).

At twenty-nine, the Riga-born Gidon Kremer, a onetime student of the late David Oistrakh, has racked up an impressive list of credentials, including a number of Soviet recordings not yet released here. Violinistically. at least, he is an accomplished player, with a suave, rather lushly golden tone that recalls both Oistrakh and Viktor Pikaizen, another Oistrakh pupil. His into nation is excellent, his bow control reliable.

Yet I confess to disappointment. I rather like a leisurely approach to this massive concerto-as exemplified by the superb Oistrakh/Szell recording (Angel S 36033)- but for all Kremer's beautiful sound he seems unable to direct it in any meaningful, compelling manner. A case of mike fright, perhaps? Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic give considerate backing, although I find their framework for Ferras (DG 138 930) more sinuous and aristocratically shaped. An-gel's sound is massive and a shade mushy in its ambience.

H.G.

CHARPENTIER: Louise. For an essay review, see page 92.

DUFAY: Missa "Se la face ay pale"--See Recitals and Miscellany, David Murrow.

Franck-- Symphonic Variations-See Liszt: Hungarian Fantasia.

GLAZUNOV: Chant du menestrel--See Shostakovich Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, No. 2.

Haydn: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra- See Liszt: Hungarian Fantasia HAYDN: Quartets for Strings (6), Op. 50. Tokyo Quartet. [Cord Garben, prod.] DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2709 060, $23.94 (three discs, manual sequence). Quartets: No. 1.10 B flat': No. 2. in C ; No. 3. in E flat; No. 4, in F sharp minor; No. 5. in F. No. 6. in D. [from 2530 440, October 1974]

What distinguishes Haydn's Prussian Quartets, composed (in 1784-87) shortly after Mozart dedicated six quartets to his much-admired elder friend, is the marvelous thematic elaboration and motivic logic, which nevertheless does not change or diminish the natural flow and simplicity of the texture. Even in the tumultuous and scintillating presto finales. Haydn creates fascinating little nooks in which wondrous tiny intimate asides appear.

Space does not permit the analysis these six quartets deserve. but I must at least mention the dark F sharp minor. No. 4, whose pregnant opening theme shows an obvious kinship with the "fate" motif of Beethoven's Fifth. It was in the finale of this same quartet that Haydn once more essayed a fugal finale, but while the fugues in his op. 20 are vigorous and clearly baroque-inspired pieces, this one is gently elegiac, pure chamber music. In the finale of No.- 6 Haydn uses bariolage, the rapid repetition of the same tone but alternating on two strings; the witty piece is composed with a dazzling virtuosity that demands the same quality in the performance.

The Tokyo Quartet is a first-class group, and Deutsche Grammophon records the musicians and their magnificent matched Amati instruments (what a viola tone!) to perfection. They have a lively sense of style and tempo. their ensemble work is elegant, and except for a few pinched high notes in the first violin, their tone is attractive. If they learn to distinguish a little more positively between portamento and non-legato and similarly between staccato and simply detached tones, they will be well-nigh impeccable.

It’s surprising, though, that even such fine musicians don’t know the really simple rules of ornamentation in the Haydn era. Appoggiaturas are not infrequently accented on the wrong note; sometimes the distinction between embellishment and integral melody notes is hazy: trills are a bit perfunctory and begin with the wrong note.

I don’t mean to single out the admirable artists of the Tokyo Quartet, for few of their brethren in chamber music know how to execute such things correctly. A quartet playing Haydn and Mozart could easily make a one-page digest of the common embellishments and their variants; that's all they would need for correct realization of admittedly vague eighteenth-century musical orthography. P.H.L. HAYDN: Symphonies: No. 99, in E flat; No. 100, in G (Military). New York Philharmonic,

---------- The Tokyo Quartet-a first-class group with a lively sense of style and tempo

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Leonard Bernstein, cond. [Richard Killough, prod.] COLUMBIA M 34126, $6.98. Tape: WO MT 34126, $7.98.

Leonard Bernstein has always seemed to me to be at his very best in Haydn sym phonies, which call forth his own inner most musicality and humanity. He responds spontaneously to Haydn, apparently without feeling the necessity to gild this particularly.

This is far from the traditional "classical" eighteenth-century approach, yet I find nothing offensive to taste. The impressive emotional and dramatic impact of the slow movement of Symphony No. 99 is something Bernstein finds in the music, not something imposed from without. In both symphonies here, as elsewhere in his growing Haydn discography, there is a joie de vivre shared instinctively by a great com poser and a great conductor. Now past mid way through his gradual traversal of the Haydn "London" symphonies. Bernstein continues to probe into the humanity of this music as few other conductors have man aged: indeed I find this record the richest in the series to date, not only for the more profound No. 99, but also for the recognition that No. 100 is more than "military" high jinks.

The New York Philharmonic plays extremely well here, its articulation quite up to some of Bernstein's bracing tempos.

Classical purists won’t hear the polish of Szell's remarkable Haydn performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, but his was a totally different approach. Surely there is a place for both. P.H. HAYDN: Variations in F minor-See Mozart: Sonatas for Piano.

Liszt: Hungarian Fantasia; Totentanz; Paganini Etude No. 3 (La Campanella); Waltz from Gounod's "Faust." Gyorgy Cziffra, piano; Orchestre de Paris, Gyorgy Cziffra Jr., cond. CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CS 2092. $6.98

FRANCK: Symphonic Variations. GRIEO: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, in A mi nor, Op. 16. Gyorgy Cziftra, piano; Budapest Symphony Orchestra, GyOrgy Cziffra Jr., cond. CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CS 2090, $6.98.

RACHMANINOFF: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 2, in C minor, Op. 18; Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5. BIZET-RACHM: L'Arlesienne Suite No. 1. Minuetto.

MENDELSSONN-RACHMANINOFF: A Midsum mer Night's Dream: Scherzo. Gyorgy Cziffra, piano; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Gyorgy Cziffra Jr., cond. CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CS 2093, $6.98.

The most satisfying of these records is the Liszt collection. Cziffra plays the Totentanz with a kind of manic intensity and discreetly gauges his interpretive liberties in the showy Hungarian Fantasia. His cavalier approach is perfectly valid, though there are other, equally effective ways of dealing with this material--e.g., the patrician Solomon and Campanella versions of the Fantasia and the much swifter, straighter Watts/Leinsdorf Totentanz. La Campanella is a bit broken up at the end, but Cziffra's trills are indeed consummate.

The old Petri and Barere accounts of the Faust paraphrase may have more sweep and continuity, but neither matches Cziffra's delicacy and atmosphere in the fragrant middle section. (Elsewhere, though, his sonority is flinty and jangling.) The Franck/Grieg disc can also be recommended. Along with the extremely rhetorical, gesturesome phrasing there is craft, incisiveness, and fire. Certainly this Grieg concerto is (appropriately) more restrained than Cziffra's previous recording, with Vandernoot.

The Rachmaninoff C minor Concerto must be approached with caution. The opening movement proceeds at a snail's pace, encumbered with over-rich sound and irrelevant details. For no discernible reason, the development section suddenly accelerates to something approaching normal tempo, only to fall back into lethargy. The lovely slow movement is stiffly phrased, which does not, however, preclude a liberal indulgence in tortured rubato. The difficult finale takes off in a cloud of gravel (though many notes in difficult passages are jettisoned). All told, a hopelessly disjointed reading, in no way comparable to the similarly broad but well disciplined (and better played) Rubinstein/Ormandy version (RCA ARL 1-0031). The encores are better: The Rachmaninoff G minor Prelude is broadly accented and strongly projected: the Bizet-Rachmaninoff L'Arlesienne Minuetto is full of interesting contrasts and chiaroscuro. Only in the Mendelssohn-Rachmaninoff Mid summer Night's Dream Scherzo does Cziffra's flurried, self-indulgent rhythm hurt: this piece requires the utmost in sym metry and digital precision, as heard in the recordings of Rachmaninoff himself, Moiseiwitsch, and Bolet.

Gyorgy Cziffra Jr. continues to impress as an ideal accompanist. Even in the hopeless Rachmaninoff concerto he follows his father uncannily, and he gives ample evidence of interesting ideas of his own-note how he grades and shades the tuttis in the third movement of the Grieg concerto, with ...

Leonard Bernstein Responding spontaneously to Haydn

...a less-than-virtuosic orchestra. The engineering is spacious and attractive through out, and my copies were excellently pressed.

H.G.

Liszt: Concertos for Piano and Orchestra; Totentanz. For an essay review, see page 95.

MOZART: Quartets for Strings, Nos. 20-23. Juilliard Quartet. [Steven Epstein, prod.]

COLUMBIA MG 33976, $7.98 (two discs, manual sequence). Quartets: No. 20, in D. K. 499; No. 21, in D, K. 575: No. 22. in 8 flat, K. 589; No. 23, in F, K. 590.

Of the four quartets recorded here. K. 499 (1786) falls between the six dedicated to Haydn and the last three, so-called "Prussian," quartets: it follows Figaro and pre cedes the Prague Symphony. In an age when quartets were composed in sets of six, such a single, isolated work is bound to have characteristics of its own, and indeed this one does differ from its neighbors. It’s much more relaxed, in a generally gay mood, and, because of the not uncommon notion that artistic value is lowered by playfulness, this quartet has been some what neglected.

The little canonic intertwinings in the opening Allegretto and its wealth of ideas, the fine contrapuntal needlework in the minuet and trio, the broad smiling themes in the Adagio, and the spirited motivic play in the rondo all place this quartet at the peak of the art of chamber music. And there are varied secret connections between the movements, too, unexpected patches of development. motifs that seem insignificant when first presented suddenly appearing as major entities: in other words, what strikes the uncritical mind as carefree merriment is in reality a highly sophisticated and artful creation.

The three "Prussian" quartets of 1789-90 (a set of six was originally contemplated) were composed for Friedrich Wilhelm II, king of Prussia. who was a good cello player. This commission of course demanded that the cello part of the quartets should be prominent and elaborate. and Mozart obliged. But he also turned to a new and unusual quartet style of soaring mel ody combined with contrapuntal splendor.

The magnificent opening melody of K. 575 is the motto for the whole group. Not only does it engender the subsidiary themes, but ' its influence is still felt strongly in the fi nale: even the minuet is a finely stylized echo of this original theme. The procedure, though perhaps not so concentrated, is the same in the B flat Quartet. K. 589: on the other hand, the curve of tension mounts higher than in the previous quartet, and the counterpoint becomes passionate, the whole reaching its climax in the last movement.

The third quartet. in F. harks back to the theme of the first work in the trilogy, but by the simple device of making forte what was piano in that original theme, and vice versa.

Mozart gives it an altogether new physiognomy. Since he now concentrates on the faster-moving tail end of the theme, what was before an appendix turns into the principal idea. Here again it’s the finale that crowns the composition, yet this time it’s not the usual rondo, but a spacious sonata structure. Particularly attractive in this quartet is the symbiosis of simple homophony with highly mobile polyphony.

All three quartets have minuets of unusual weight, length, and elaboration.

The Juilliard Quartet, heard in its first recording since Joel Krosnick replaced cel list Claus Adam, clearly perceives that K. 499 is really a divertimento in an artistically heightened quartet style and plays it accordingly: the syncopation dancelike, the fretwork in the pleasant Adagio delicately flowing, and the multiple themes in the finale neatly delineated. In the first "Prussian" quartet, the performers never lose sight of the importance of the first theme: in the B flat Quartet they shrewdly recognize that the first movement is a quasi-minuet and avoid dramatics. In the Larghetto, Krosnick plays the royal cello part nobly: the linearity of the trio is brought out with clarity; the turbulent rondo is plain-spirited music-making as it was intended to be. The Juilliard ensemble continues this genial playing in the last quartet, properly carrying the same spirit even into the songlike portions, while dealing with the coquettish staccatos and splashing garlands of up beats and ornaments with finesse: their grace notes and trills are exemplary.

This is chamber music playing at once aristocratic and easygoing that gives the listener undimmed pleasure. The sound is unexceptionable.

P.H.L.

MOZART: Sonatas for Piano: in D, K. 311; in C. K 330. Fantasy in D minor, K. 397.

HAYDN: Variations in F minor, H. XV11:7.

Alicia de Larrocha, piano. [Michael Woolcock, prod.] LONDON CS 7008, $6.98.

De Larrocha's sparkling tone, lively rhythm and tempos, and uncommonly good articulation bespeak a natural affinity for Mozart's world of sound. Her intuitively musical work would, however, be even more compelling if she would delve a bit deeper into detail.

It may seem picayune to carp about lifting the left hand before the first rather than the second of the three repeated E flats in measure 14 of K. 330's second movement, but scrupulous attention to such fine points of part-writing can immensely enhance the harmonic tension of this sparely poignant music. Similarly, the occasional substitution of a dominant-seventh chord for Mozart's plain dominant (an unreliable text?) can dilute the composer's typical lack of sentimentality. I don’t wish to imply that these are inadequate, or even seriously flawed, performances. But it does seem a shame that so memorably endowed an art ist doesn't make that extra little effort to come closer to the music's letter--and, by inference, its spirit.

The Haydn F minor Variations are if any thing even more gorgeously played than the Mozart works. All are crisply, glisteningly reproduced.

H.G.

Mozart. : Zaide, K. 344 (with Symphony No. 32, in G, K. 318; March in D, K. 335, No. 1). Zaide Edith Mathis (s)

Gomatz Peter Schreier (t)

---- Bernhard Klee Experienced hand for Mozart's Zaide

Sultan Soliman Principal Singer Three Slaves Alle m Osmon Werner Hollweg (1)

Armin Ude (1)

Joachim Vogt (t)

Wolfgang Wagner (t)

GJnter Koch (t)

Ingvar Wizen (b)

Reiner Suss (bs)

Berlin State Orchestra, Bernhard Klee, cond.; dialogue directed by Johannes Knittel. PHILIP S 6700 097, $15.96 (two discs, manual sequence).

MOZART: Der Schauspieldirektor, K. 486; Lo Sposo deluso, K. 430 (ed. E. Smith). Ileana Cotrubas, Ruth Welting', and Felicity Palmer', sopranos; Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Robert Tear', tenors; Clifford Grant, bass; London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond. PHILIPS 9500 011, $7.98.

While so many fine eighteenth-century op eras, complete and viable, slumber on library shelves, one has to wonder about the desirability of recording the torsos of Mozart's abandoned operatic projects--not only the present Zaide and Lo Sposo de luso, but also L'Oca del Cairo and II Regno delle Amazzoni. All four of these found lings have librettos unable to stand the light of day, and while they contair some good music-what Mozart work after his twelfth year does not?-on the whole their value is more historical than intrinsic.

Take Lo Sposo deluso. It has only five numbers, of which only the trio. a fine piece fully composed by Mozart, rises above buffa routine. The three arias have been "completed and orchestrated by Erik Smith," and his work is by no means unskilled, but were it not for the other side (about which more presently) this record would scarcely be worth bothering about.

Zaide is one of those harem plays of which the eighteenth-century public could not get enough; its libretto is atrocious even by the standards of this dismal genre. Mozart left much more music for this Singspiel than for the three little buffas, and some of it’s very good indeed. For the missing overture. Smith has plausibly substituted one of Mozart's symphonies (No. 32 in G, K. 318), and for the missing finale the March. K. 335, No. 1, but unfortunately he also felt compelled to "reconstruct the framework of dialogue in order to place the musical numbers in their dramatic and emotional con text." Both the spoken dialogue (which takes up a third of the recording, though it seems like more) and Zaide's lengthy "melologues"-a sort of accompanied recitative spoken rather than sung-are performed by four actors, whose voices differ markedly from the singers' and whose exaggerated "acting" delivery and clear enunciation make the silly text even more painful to hear.

Philips would have done well to forget about "completion" and record Zaide's outstanding numbers as plain good musical pieces on one disc. The singing cast is excel lent. Edith Mathis is attractive and accurate in a high and difficult soprano part, a real opera seria diva-in a Singspiel! Peter Schreier, Ingvar Wixell, Werner Hollweg, and Reiner Suss are able and reliable contributors, and the ensembles are impeccable. Conductor Bernhard Klee is an experienced opera hand who knows how to keep proper balance between stage and pit.

The orchestra is very good, and so is the sound, though it’s a bit too close.

Turning to the Davis disc, we now can enjoy ourselves without excuses or qualifications. Der Schauspieldirektor (better known as The Impresario), depicting the auditioning of two prima donnas, was a popular subject repeatedly set to music.

Mozart's version (1786) was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II. who, like Mozart, was familiar with the jealousy and intrigues of opera singers; he wanted to entertain a knowledgeable aristocratic audience at a party.

This brilliant parody is composed with all the skill that only Mozart could bring to the task. The parodistic intent is immediately evident in the fine, large-scale, noisy, bustling, and grandly symphonic overture.

obviously out of all proportion to the two arias and two ensembles that follow. The arias, taken from fictitious operas in the seria style, are spacious and melodious, in the plaintive-amorous Neapolitan vein, with only the sudden coloraturas betraying the parody. In the superb trio the two candidates begin to compete, while the tenor impresario tries to calm them down; the contrast between the coloraturas and his simple, soothing singing is very effective.

Peace finally prevails in the final quartet, as the bass joins them, protesting that he too is an exceptional buffo principale.

The performance is sparkling. Ruth Welting wobbles a bit at the beginning, but then she bravely launches into the dizzying coloraturas. Ileana Cotrubas is steady, bright, and virtuosic, while the two men, tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson and bass Clifford Grant, are good partners. Davis keeps lively tempos, the London Symphony responds brilliantly to his bidding, and Philips be stows its best sound on the enterprise. This is real fun and worth the price of the whole disc. P.H.L.

NIELSEN: Orchestral Works. Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt, cond. [David Mottley, prod.] SERAPHIM SIC 6097 and 6098, $11.94 each SQ-encoded three-disc set (manual sequence). Album 1: Symphonies: No. 1, in G minor. Op. 7; No. 2. Op. 16 (The Four Temperaments); No. 3, Op. 27 (Sintonia es pensive) (with Kirsten Schultz. soprano; Peter Rasmussen. baritone). Andante lamentoso. Bohemian-Danish Folk Melody, Helios Overture. Op. 17. Album 2: Sym phonies: No. 4. Op. 29 (The Inextinguishable); No. 5. Op. 50; No. 6 (Sinionia semphce). Saga Dream. Op. 39. Pan and Syrinx, Op. 49. Rhapsodie Overture.

Comparison--symphonies: Schmidt/London Sym. Uni. RHS 324/30 Less than a year after Unicorn released the first integral Nielsen symphony cycle (re viewed at length in April 1975), EMI issued an eight-disc set (SLS 5027 in England) con taining the six symphonies, the three con certos, and a number of shorter works.

With the new Seraphim issue of the first half-dozen discs from that package (com prising everything except the concertos and the early Symphonic Rhapsody), one can buy the symphonies (plus five filler works) for half the price of the fillerless Unicorn box (which does, however, include a bonus disc--Robert Simpson's illustrated lectures on the symphonies). Although Herbert Blomstedt is in fact Swedish, he has since 1967 been chief conductor of the excellent Danish Radio Sym phony, which has this music in its bones in a way that Unicorn's London Symphony didn't, despite the presence of the Danish conductor Ole Schmidt. The meticulous and sonorous DRSO is also more even handedly recorded; Unicorn's engineering remains superlatively vivid and warm, especially rich in the bass, but it does slight the woodwinds and violins. Unicorn offers a brilliant and enveloping illusion of front back depth that the EMI engineering, at least in two-channel playback, cannot match.

Blomstedt opens Symphony No. 1 with weight and vehemence, building to an exciting stretto in the first movement's coda.

Schmidt is less firmly profiled here, though the two conductors are well matched in the second and fourth movements. The scherzo's trio benefits from the more austere recording of the Danish brass. In No. 2 ...

Carl Nielsen A first-rate set of orchestral works

... (The Four Temperaments), Blomstedt chooses tempos that seem uniformly lei surely, vitiating even more than Schmidt the stark movement contrasts. The problematic drum roll in the Andante malinco nico-one of the triumphs of the Unicorn recording, with its lovely birch-twig rustle--is all but inaudible here. The DRSO passes all the minor hurdles over which the LSO stumbled, but I still prefer the Garaguly version on Turnabout (TV-S 34049), which is fortunately an inexpensive supplement.

The new No. 3 (Espansiva) has some surprises. Blomstedt whips through the first movement with enormous gusto (the marking is Allegro espansivo), stressing the trumpet punctuations in the transition to the second theme in a way that makes the opening rhythmic motto a kind of obsessive idee fixe. In the pastoral second movement, the wordless solos of soprano Kirsten Schultz and baritone Peter Rasmussen are recorded more backwardly than I've ever heard, almost blending into the instrumental lines instead of floating freely above them. In the finale, Blomstedt reverses the recent trend (cf. Bernstein, Schmidt, and Francois Huybrechts-the latter on a British Decca disc not released here) toward a broader tempo.

Blomstedt's No. 4 (Inextinguishable) may be the version we've been waiting for. (Schmidt, in fairness, had fewer conspicuous failings than his predecessors, and the recording is still of demonstration caliber.) The discipline and detail of the contrapuntal riots in the outer movements easily outclass all the previous recordings. Pulse and intensity level are nicely matched in the middle movements. And nobody--not even the pioneering Grondahl with the DRSO--has made such sense of the final coda; the diminuendo and slowdown are for once a grandly valedictory gesture rather than an anticlimax.

No. 5 is outstandingly rendered in both sets. Schmidt remains exhaustingly fe rocious, with nonpareil percussion effects.

Blomstedt is a bit steadier and cleaner, like Horenstein (Nonesuch H 71236) slightly more aloof and objective in conception. No. 6 (Semplice) too is something of a standoff.

Unicorn's sonics have the edge for sheer color and presence. and Schmidt has the jollier time with that nasty little Humoreske, whose trombone glissandos seem apologetic under Blomstedt. But in the slow movement, the opening viola passage gets a darkly resinous tone with the DRSO lacking with the LSO-Blomstedt generally approaches this movement more grimly. In the bizarre finale. Schmidt maintains a giddy quality of desperation, while Blom stedt's irony is more of the velvet-glove variety.

Most of the Seraphim filler works are not otherwise represented in Schwann. The Andante lamentoso (subtitled "At the bier of a young artist") is perhaps less effective in its string-orchestra form than in the wind version recorded by the West Jutland Chamber Ensemble (DG 2530 515, April 1976), The Bohemian-Danish Folk Melody, though a late work, is an innocuous trifle. In the well-known Helios Overture, a piece of immense grandeur, Blomstedt carefully controls the archlike shape and regal pride. avoiding the excitable excesses of the deleted Martinon/RCA and Ormandy/Columbia versions.

Blomstedt's rendition of Saga Dream, that strange combination of Sibelian late Romanticism and Nielsen's own late-period acerbic surrealism, has more mobility, cohesion, and atmosphere than Horenstein's (the filler to his Nonesuch Fifth Sym phony). Blomstedt has the field to himself in both Pan and Syrinx (another mini-tone poem of oddly mated sonorities) and the Rhapsodie Overture (which could pass in spots for a nineteenth-century Russian work), though both were played with more aggressive brilliance by the Philadelphia Orchestra on Ormandy's deleted Columbia disc of the First Symphony.

If all the above suggests that these Seraphim sets belong on your must-buy list, let me enter a caveat: It’s not certain that An gel will issue the remaining material-the three concertos (which are excellently per formed, especially the flute concerto) and the first recording of the Symphonic Rhapsody (composed three years before the First Symphony). For those who want to be sure of having all this material. I can add that the English pressings are slightly brighter and more open than the Seraphim. A.C.

RACHMANINOFF : Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. No. 2--See Liszt: Hungarian Fantasia

ROSSINI: Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra. For a review, see page 106.

Sallinen; Sinfonia ; Chorali. Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Okko Kamu, cond. : Helsinki Philharmonic Or chestra, Paavo Berglund, cond.'. [Robert von Bahr, prod.] Bs LP 41, $7.98 (distributed by HNH Distributors) .

The music of the Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen (born in 1935, studied at the Sibelius Academy under Aarre Merikantu and foonas Kokkonen. the latter a com poser who deserves exposure) communicates immense expansion and unity, as if musical time were being slowed down to such an extent that it defines itself in almost spatial terms. Basic musical ideas are reduced to a bare minimum, with thematic and rhythmic motives rarely lasting more than a few seconds before being picked up and obsessively repeated in orchestral con texts that very slowly metamorphose into new tonescapes.

Sallinen is a master of mood. His intense, extraordinarily orchestrated Sinfonia (1971) has its spiritual roots in the Sibelius Fourth Symphony, that masterpiece of Nordic gloom and atmosphere, yet the style remains unique and quite modern. The opening idea, a bleak F sharp minor chord repeated in the strings, hauntingly reap pears throughout this single-movement work until it’s finally boiled down to an ominous F sharp unison. Contrasting fragments in the winds weave in and out among linear string figures. joined Expressionistically in the final third by a clock-chime motive and a grotesque waltz beat.

Mstislav Rostropovich Authentic Shostakovich

Chorali (1970), for thirty-five wind instruments, harp, celesta, and percussion, is a more austere piece, with chorale-like themes used more for contrapuntal poten tial than for chorale-style harmonies. The three-movement Sinfonia III (1974-75) breaks with Sallinen's preference for a single continuous pulse, but here again motivic fragments are repeated, overlap, wind in and out of other configurations, and ultimately accumulate to form an expansively cohesive whole. Stock musical figures are sometimes suggested, but then transformed: the ostinatos that open the second movement, For example. lead into string passages of deep, lyrical expressivity.

As amply displayed here. Paavo Berglund and Okko Kamu are two of the day's most promising conductors. Both can bring out the full dramatic potential of this kind of music, and both are helped by excellent, taut orchestral playing (and brilliant engi neering). Kamu works up his Finnish Radio Symphony to an almost terrifying frenzy by the end of Sinfonia III. This disc should ap peal to anyone interested in contemporary music. R.S.B.

SHOSTAKOVICH: Concerto for Cello and Or chestra. No 2, Op 126.

GLAZUNO V: Chant du menestrel, Op. 71. Mstislav Rostropov ich, cello; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. [Thomas Mowrey. prod.] DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 653, $7.98. Tape: we 3300 653, $7.98.

SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartets for Strings: No. 8, in C minor. Op. 110; No. 15, in E flat minor, Op. 144. Fitzwilliam Quartet. [Peter Wadland and Raymond Ware, prod.] L’OisEAu-LYRE DSLO 11, $6.98.

The three Shostakovich works on these discs share a gloomy, even morbid quality especially characteristic of the composer's later years. Even the sometimes dazzling instrumental effects of the Second Cello Concerto, completed in 1966 just before Shostakovich suffered a major heart attack, mitigate neither the dark solemnity of the opening nor the black humor of some of the later sections. As instances of the con certo's brittle acidity (the scoring features a large percussion contingent, with a brass section reduced to two horns). one thinks of the three cadenza-like passages, each scored for solo cello plus a percussion instrument--a persistently interrupting bass drum in the first movement, a continuous tambourine roll in the third, and later in the same movement, snare-drum punctuation.

It’s surprising that this strange, enigmatic, and yet often achingly lyrical work has taken ten years to reach commercial disc: curiously, it has not been recorded in the Soviet Union.

The 1974 Fifteenth String Quartet, Shostakovich's last (he wrote only three more works after it), is even more difficult for the listener. The layout--one Adagio molto and five Adagio movements--can be off-putting, and the tone throughout is al most unsparingly bleak and sad, with the four instruments rarely playing a tutti pas sage. Such devices as the overlapping, single-note crescendos that open the second movement ("Serenade") cannot help but be a jolt; the bone-chilling parallel trills of the sixth movement ("Epilogue") create an atmosphere of Sibelian gloom.

If listening to the Fifteenth Quartet is rather like sharing a fatalistic meditation, listening to the Eighth, which for all its melancholy moves from the inside out, can be considered a more "normal" musical experience. One of Shostakovich's rare works to be written outside of Russia (it was com posed in Dresden in 1960). it’s probably his most popular quartet. The textures are rich, the themes uncommonly elaborated, the flow fairly smooth for Shostakovich. This is also an "autobiographical" quartet, opening fugally (in much the same way as the Fifteenth) with a thematic monogram first used in the First Violin Concerto: as the music progresses, snatches from a good half-dozen earlier works are quoted.

It should be said immediately that L’Oiseau-Lyre has produced the closest approximation I have yet heard to the sound of a live string quartet. Fortunately, the Fitzwilliam Quartet deserves this sonic excellence. As in its earlier Shostakovich disc (Nos. 7, 13. and 14: DSLO 9. May 1976). the exceptionally full-toned playing has a dynamic intensity that never flags, even in the quietest sections. Occasionally the group's enthusiasm results in un-idiomatically excessive intensity, and there are a few into nation problems, but I would still describe these performances as superlative. I look forward to more releases from this young group.

The technical problems of the cello concerto are as formidable as can be found in non-avant-garde music and are perhaps all the more treacherous for their relatively "conventional" surroundings. We’re fortunate to have a recording by the dedicatee, whose craft left its stamp on and inspired the work. (Rostropovich was one of Shostakovich's closest friends.) Others are sure to play it in the future (although I know of no one who has tried), but no other rendition will be as authentic, as "close to the original," so to speak. I do rather wish that a less stiff conductor than Seiji Ozawa had been chosen (Gennady Rozhdestvensky, for example), but it’s Rostropovich who, in the almost nonstop cello part, sets the pace and tone, and the entire performance benefits immeasurably from the playing of the Boston Symphony. This extraordinarily clear and well-balanced Deutsche Grammophon recording was made but two days after the composer's death: the filler, Glazunov's Chant du menestrel (The Minstrel's Song, 1900), had been played as an encore at Tanglewood in what turned out to be a Shostakovich memorial concert.

R.S.B.

STAMITZ, J.: Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, in B flat. Symphonies: in G; in D, Op. 3, No. 2; in D, op. 4, No. 2. Alan Hacker, clarinet; Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, harpsichord and cond. [Peter Wadland and Raymond Ware, prod.] L’OisEAu-LyRE DSLO 505, $6.98.

Though recent research no longer upholds its primacy in the formation of the classical style, the Mannheim School and its chef d'ecole, Johann Stamitz (1717-57), remain a distinguished chapter in the history of mu sic.

Of the works recorded here, the early G major Symphony is negligible, but the Sym phony in D, Op. 4, No. 2, is genuine sym phonic writing-original, with good ideas.

and with a nascent sense for thematic development. The Symphony in D. Op. 3, No. 2, gives us the full Mannheim treatment: the rolling crescendos, the "rockets," and that rising excitement so typical of the classic symphonic allegro. In both of these sym phonies, the sonata idea is present in practically all movements except the minuets, which are not the French dances from the old suite, but typical Austro-Bohemian orchestral pieces.

The B flat Clarinet Concerto takes us close to the world of Christian Bach and the young Mozart, but it’s short-winded when compared to the works of those two. Curiously, Stamitz makes no attempt to exploit the magnificent low register of the clarinet: Vivaldi's clarinet concertos, which ante date Stamitz's (pace Christopher Hogwood, this is not "the earliest known concerto for the clarinet"), require far more from the soloist. Alan Hacker plays nicely on an old clarinet-his jerky trills and grace notes may result from the instrument's lack of keys.

The performances by the Academy of Ancient Music, using "authentic" instruments exclusively, are anything but deadly "historical." Though the players observe all the strictures of the new cult, they play not only with precision, but with feeling, verve, and expression. The tiny orchestra of four teen strings and the usual number of winds sounds fine, though the authentic flutes and oboes are mostly covered even by this small body of strings. One may ask, of course, how this miniature band is reconciled with Daniel Schubart's famous description of the Mannheim orchestra: "Its forte is like thunder, its crescendo a cataract." Nevertheless, since these symphonies were played all over Europe by similar small orchestras, our academicians are perfectly justified in giving us distant thunder and small cataracts.

A large bag of the best sunflower seed to the Lyre Bird for the intelligent and informative little pamphlet written by Hogwood that accompanies this well-engineered recording.

P.H.L.

STRAUSS. J.: Die Fledermaus.

Julia Yarady (s)

Luca Popp (s)

Orlotsky Allred Dr Blind Etsenstein Dr Falke Frank (plus speaking roles)

Bavarian State Opera Chorus, Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber, cond. [Hans Hirsch and Hans Weber, prod.]

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2707 088. $15.96 (two discs, manual sequence). Tape: 01) 3370 009, $15.96.

This recording starts off so promisingly, with a well-judged, stylishly played over ture, that one hopes very much to like it- and important parts of it are very likable.

Carlos Kleiber conducts with energy, wit, and affection, pointing up apposite details ...

Ivan Rebroff ("ms") Rene Kollo (t)

Ferry Gruber (t)

Hermann Prey (b)

Bernd Weed (b)

Benno Kusche (be-b)

... in the scoring: the mock-ominous pizzicatos of the lower strings under Adele's lament in the first two numbers, the yawning melodies in the bass at the end of Frank's melodrama. He sets tempos incisively and inflects them subtly. The orchestra plays very well (barring the traditional Germanic oboe tone) and summons gracious, stylistically apt portamentos in the music of sentiment and humor. The chorus sings well.

With one exception (Ferry Gruber as Dr. Blind), none of these singers has recorded any role in the work before. One had begun to think that, in all of Europe, nobody but Renate Holm was singing Adele (she has been in the last three recordings)-but of course that isn't so. and Lucia Popp, though no longer as imposingly accurate as when she first came to our attention, is a pleasant change, if hardly as characterful a chambermaid as Karajan's Erika Koth.

The promising newcomer in the cast is julia Varady, an uneven but vivid Rosa linde. At times her sound is forced, and in the third act her upper notes thin out a bit.

But she enters well into the spirit of the piece. spreading a gentle parodistic porta mento over the farewell trio in Act I (an exaggeration that the orchestra cheerfully seconds) and digging into her third-act denunciation of Eisenstein with a nice edge.

Less successful is the apparently-intended to-be-humorous whooping in the Friska of the Czardas. which one is inclined to interpret as an admission that she can't quite cut it straight. There's lots of characterful singing here, however, and one looks forward to hearing Miss Varady again.

In two previous recordings (the deleted Danon RCA set and the recent Bohm on London), Eberhard Wachter failed to make a convincing case for a baritone Eisenstein.

Hermann Prey actually manages to sing everything as written, right up to top A. and with a good deal less effort than Wachter.

Despite this improvement, the idea still re mains without discernible merit: the FaIke/ Eisenstein duo in Act I is bereft of tonal contrast when Prey confronts the similar voice of Bernd Weikl (a solid enough FaIke), and the ensembles and dialogues of the second act really want at least one bright male timbre.

That's a poor idea, but there is worse to come: Orlofsky is impersonated by the Russian Yma Sumac, Ivan Rebroff, singing--no uttering pitched sounds--in the original mezzo range. I've been searching for meta phors to characterize the noise he makes: an owl hooting? an aged soprano making falsetto off her now baritonal range? a whistling teakettle? Whatever it is, it ain't singing. It doesn't sound masculine, even faggy masculine; it certainly doesn't sound feminine either. In fact, it barely sounds at all. "Chacun a son godt" done in this manner might pass as a comic turn on New Year's Eve, but Orlofsky also takes part in important ensemble material: When this Orlofsky leads off the ensemble section of "Briiderlein," musical continuity is torpedoed and Kleiber is faced with the near-im possible challenge of balancing a raft of real voices against this flimsy neuter wheeze. A really off-the-wall piece of mis casting, this.

Since Alfred's attraction for Rosalinde is supposed to be based on his voice, Rene Kollo, whose sustained notes quaver in the breeze, is hard to accept-and also hard to listen to, trying our patience with much slidy and out-of-tune singing. Benno Kusche isn't very steady either, but then Frank's part is predominantly patter. so he manages to bring it off.

A modicum of dialogue, spoken quite well by the singers. provides sufficient dramatic continuity as well as "air space" be tween the musical numbers. The party scene is pervaded by a gentle scrim of crowd sounds, never distractingly. The original ballet music is replaced by a rousing. pointed playing of the polka Unter Donner und Blitzen. The standard cuts are made, once again to my intense disappointment: won't someone, just once, give us the whole score?

--------- Pierre Monteux An idiomatically crude Sacre

For all the promise in that overture-fre quently upheld later in the playing and pacing. and occasionally in the singing-this Fledermous doesn't really come off as a consistently absorbing theatrical or musical experience. For that one must turn to the Karajan set (London OSA 1249 or. with an amusing if irrelevant "Gala Sequence." OSA 1319). And for the lightest, most stylish musical performance. I still find myself returning to the dialogueless Krauss set of a quarter-century ago (Richmond RS 62006. mono). D.H.

STRAUSS, R.: Don Juan, Op. 20; Till Eu lenspiegel, Op. 28; Der Rosenkavalier: Suite. Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Or mandy, cond. [Max Wilcox, prod.] RCA RED SEAL ARL 1-1408. $6.98 Tape: se ARK 1 1408, $7.95; . ARS 1-1408, $7.95.

Ormandy's earlier Columbia versions of all three favorites are still in print (Don loan in MS 6324 of 1962: Till and the Hosenhovolier Suite in MS 6678 of 1965), and I suspect that only his devoted fans continue to prefer his readings of the two tone poems. For me. his Don lacks impetuosity. his Till folkish humor. and both veer between extremes of over-intensity and overindulgent expressivity. Even the incomparable tonal magic of the Philadelphians, radiated so magnetically throughout. especially by the wind players, is betrayed in the fr high-register string passages. Surely the sumptuous Philadelphian strings have never sounded that harsh in live audition! (The recording quality unevenness is just as evident in the cassette edition, which in all respects apart from the non-Dolby tape-surface noise seems an aural mirror image of the disc.) There is no real competition here. sonic or interpretative, for the recent Solti/Chicago Don and Till (London CS 6978. August 1976) in either disc or cassette editions.

A better case can be made for the Rosen kuvulier Suite, in its 1945 arrangement by Artur Rodzinski and his assistant, the young Leonard Bernstein. The work itself is a special Ormandy favorite, which he continues to play with an exceptional degree of personal involvement. And while this recording also betrays some tonal hardness in its most intense moments, it’s generally more richly sonorous. Moreover, there is far less serious competition: Ormandy's earlier version is more than a decade old; the Steinberg/Capitol (now Seraphim) and Dorati/Mercury versions go back to 1960 and 1957, respectively: Rodzinski's own noted as still available by Schwann-2. Is Westminster mono of 1956. The only other current Schwonn-1 listing. by Leinsdorf for London. is a different suite arrangement, probably the conductor's own.

R.D.D.

Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps. Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. LONDON STEREO

TREASURY STS 15318. $3.98 [from RCA LSC 2085, 19581.

STRAVINSKY: Le Sacre du printemps. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond [Michael WooIcock, prod.] LONDON CS 6954, $6.98. Tape: Ire CS5 6954. $7.95.

STRAVINSKY: Le Sacre du printemps. London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. [Rainer Brock and Gunter Hermanns, prod.] DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 635, $7.98.

Stravinsky: The Firebird: Suite (1919); Jeu de cartes. London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. [Rainer Brock and Hans Weber. prod.] DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 537, $7.98. Tape: so 3300 483, $7.98.

How fitting that London Records, which has led the way in the proliferating Sucre as-sonic-spectacular discography (viz. Mehta. Leinsdorf, Solti. and now Maazel), should return to print a recording made at the site (Paris) and with the conductor (Pierre Monteux) of the work's scandalous 1913 premiere.

I've long preferred Monteux's Paris version, his last, to those from San Francisco and Boston. Its gaunt, monolithic line, its freedom from rhetorical distention, its dry ness of over-all ambience recall the com poser's 1940 New York Philharmonic recording, for me unrivaled by his stereo re make. The late-Fifties Paris Conservatory Orchestra was no virtuoso world-beater, and indeed some of the playing (e.g., the opening bassoon solo) is execrable. Yet crudeness as such doesn't have to be a liability in this work, if the playing is idiomatically crude, as it’s here. Monteux's Sucre remains an important part of the work's performing tradition, and its competitive appeal is enhanced by left-right separation of first and second violins and the budget price. Both of those niceties also grace Boulez' Parisian version (Nonesuch H 71093), a taut and savage reading alongside which his later Cleveland recording (Columbia MS 7293) seems pretty bland stuff.

It seems unlikely that Lorin Maazel, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the latest Lon don recording crew are familiar with any of those recordings-or with the Sucre per forming tradition in general. Despite the score's "dissonance." For example, most conductors (and/or balance engineers) use their judgment or musical instincts to tease out melodic lines from among subsidiary voices, even if all are marked with similar dynamics. In the present rendition, a certain equality of chording occurs in such places as the brass calls at No. 44 ("jeu du rapt") or the strings and winds in the open ing measures of Part II. One might praise the performance for "laying bare the rich ness of the harmonic texture," but to us traditionalists it all sounds haphazard and meaningless.

A second major problem is tempo: Mao zel often exaggerates score directions into plain caricature. The poco rit. before No. 54 in the "Rondes printanieres" is elephantine, quite aside from starting a page or so too soon. The accelerando into the "Glorification de Felue" is italicized (interrupted?) by a measure of unmarked pesante that rendered this listener limp with hysterical laughter. Maazel's idea of rhythm verges on a "cool" kind of "swing" more appropriate to Broadway than to the Champs Elysees. The rubato at the outset is more pronounced than I've ever heard. The Vienna players run into countless problems with attacks and tonal quality-to say nothing of breath, of which the clarinetist runs out in the thirteenth measure of the "Action rituelle des ancetres" and which the flutist keeps stealing in the extended sixteenth note figurations that follow.

After all this. Abbado comes as a refreshing breath of spring. Tempos are nicely judged, changes and contrasts stated calmly rather than announced with hortatory zeal. It all works in an integrated way, and there's a sense of both driving momentum and choreographic freedom. The LSO is absolutely on the mark all the time, as witness the acute rhythmic judgment of the timpanist in the "Danse socrale" or the flutes' flutter-tonguing twenty-one measures before the end of the "jeux des cites rivales." The DC team has provided some of the most transparent sonics the work has yel had: The guero is as clear at No. 70 as in the Leinsdorf recording (Landon SPC 21114), but without the gimmickry or over loading typical of Phase-4.

Abbado's Firebird/jeu de cartes coupling does full justice to both dance scores. The 1919 suite from Firebird compares interestingly with Stokowski's Phase-4 version, also with the LSO (London SPC 21026-the venerable maestro's eighth recording of music from this ballet!). The violin tone Stokowski coaxes near the beginning of the "Ronde des princesses" is ra% ishingly sultry. Abbado secures cooler string sonorities but brings to wind and brass passages a more limpid and plangent refinement. Stokowski, Abbado. and Bernstein (Columbia MS 6014) are my current favorites in the 1919 suite: of the three. only Abbado in cludes the modulating chorale passage connecting the "Danse internale" to the "Ber ceuse.' In jeu de cartes, Abbado is brisk and witty and characterizes the various epi sodes no less vividly than the composer (Columbia M 31921): the LSO even manages neater string playing than Stravinsky's Clevelanders. a telling feat. A.C.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. No 1. For an essay review, see page 95.

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Gianfranco Masini Rossini's "Romanticism of the Soul"

by Andrew Porter

"ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND," Chorley once remarked, "has never been fortunate as an opera heroine." Time has proved him wrong. He wrote apropos of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux (1837), an opera that, like Brit ten's Gloriona, is about Elizabeth and Essex. Elizabeth and Leicester figure in Donizetti's Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth (1829) and Maria Stuarda (1834) and are also the leading figures of Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghil terra (1815). But whereas in Maria Stuarda the queen's rival for the tenor's affections is Mary Stuart, in Rossini's opera it is-oh. indignity!--a daughter of Mary Stuart, a daughter unknown to history called Matilda. Leicester, campaigning in Scotland, found her in a cottage, and, since "to see and love her was the work of an instant,-- he married her.

The Philips album note, like Weinstock, repeats Stendhal's assertion that the source of Giovanni Schmidt's libretto was Scott's Kenilworth-but Kenilworth was published only six years after the opera appeared; the matter was provided by a play by Carlo Federici, apparently based on a novel by Sophia Lee, The Recess. The plot can quickly be told: Matilda, disguised as a youth, and her brother Henry (a tiny role) have, to Leicester's dismay, turned up in London amid a band of Scottish hostages. Leicester confides his secret to the treacherous Duke of Norfolk, who immediately revcils it to the queen.

Furious, she imprisons her favorite--but then comes to visit him, "as Elizabeth, not the queen," to show him a secret passage through which he can escape.

During their colloquy Norfolk's perfidy is revealed. He steps forward from one hiding place to stab the queen, Matilda and Henry advance from another to save her life, and Elizabeth pardons the lovers. Henceforth cares of state, not those of the heart, will be her concern.

Elisabetta is an important opera.

Tancredi and L'Italiana in Algeri (both 1813) had established Rossini's fame in veins both serious and comic through out Italy-except in Naples, where no opera of his had yet been heard when the impresario Barbaia engaged him, in 1815, as musical director and resident composer of his two theaters there. Rossini stayed in Naples until 1822 and composed ten operas, nine of them seri ous, for Barbaia. Elisabetta was the first of them.

As a foreigner from the north. Rossini had to prove himself to the proud, patriotic townsmen of Cimarosa, Paisiello (still living, in retirement there. until 1816), and Zingarelli (then head of the Conservatory). He studied his means, and he triumphed. The delicacy and pathos that are to be found in Tancredi and the sophisticated play of musical wit in L'Italiana and 11 Turco are largely missing; power and brilliance were the forte of the Neapolitan company, and to these he catered.

His own brilliance and boldness are very much in evidence. Nothing is carelessly composed. The instrumentation is always considered, and often of great beauty. The harmonic progressions are sometimes surprising, and on occasion can seem more "sought" than easy and natural. The ornamentation of the melodies is written out so fully that there is little more to be added. All recitatives, for the first time in Rossini, are string accompanied. The forms take some un expected turns, which did not pass un noticed by Donizetti and Verdi.

Once Rossini's position was assured, he could-in the third act of °tell° (1818), decisively in Mose (1818)-tackle the "reforms" by which he recast opera seria in the more romantic and more dramatic mold that ensured its survival well into the nineteenth century, and could do so with a new brilliance and power deriving from Elisabetta. Massimo Mila has remarked that, while we look to La Donna del logo (1819) for the romantic expression of nature that was to reach its climax in Guillaume Tell, "in Elisabetta we find the beginnings of a 'romanticism of the soul' that was subsequently to nourish the operas of Bellini. Donizetti, and Verdi." In the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II of England, the Italian Radio presented the BBC with a performance of Elisabetta (Maria Vitale its heroine) that was often broadcast. The Philips recording might be regarded as a preliminary fanfare for Elisabetta Se conda's jubilee. During her reign there have been several revivals of the piece.

The recording derives from a production at the 1975 Aix-en-Provence Festival, given in the arena of Arles, and was made, in London. between the first and second Arles performances. Only the chorus and orchestra, the principal tenor (in Arles, the young Swede Costa Winberg was Leicester). and the bit part of William. Captain of the Royal Guard, are different.

It’s a performance on a high level, which combines the dramatic life of a real theater cast with the accuracy attainable in a studio. Cabelle sounds very young, very fresh in her entrance cavatina; some of the downward runs are slithers rather than defined decorations, but the fault is not serious; in gen eral she is exquisite. The cavatina leads to an earlier version of Rosina's "lo sono docile," which is very attractively done, and it’s not the only passage familiar from 11 Barbiere: The two operas share an overture, and its bright, animated crescendo recurs in the Act I finale of Elisabetta to the text "Fatal day! Un foreseen disaster! The sun that rose serene and smiling now sets disturbed, gloomy, spreading a pall of woe!" Cabelle's transition from the radiant, smiling woman of the first scene, pre pared to greet the conquering hero whom she loves, to the brilliantly ma licious and dangerous tyrant who leads the first finale is superbly achieved. The famous cavatina of Act II, "Bell'alme generose" (familiar to ballet-goers as Lise's principal motif in La Fille mal gardee), is sung very gently and with the utmost beauty of tone. Stendhal's reference to "a lava-stream of roulades ... a sort of illustrated catalogue of all the technical accomplishments that Col bran's magnificent voice could master" is absurd; the piece is a tender andante, embellished with delicate embroidery that Caballe sings to perfection.

Elisabetta was composed for two so pranos and two tenors all of the first caliber. At La Scala in 1827 the prime donne were Meric-Lalande and Caro lina Ungher; in Paris, Fodor-Mainvielle and Cinti-Damoreau. Ileana Cotrubas was to have been the Matilda of the Arles production, but when she fell ill Valerie Masterson, a Constanze, Ma non, and Violetta of the English National Opera, was invited to take her place. (As the Countess Adele in Le Comte Ory, Miss Masterson had already shown her merit in a Cinti-Damoreau role.) She is delightfully fresh, clean, and true. I think one could probably guess from the singing that she is English. but intend that as no harsh criticism. Everything is precisely and sweetly turned. The two women's voices are well contrasted in the central duet (where Matilda's is the higher role), but the two timbres join to make smoothly coherent garlands of thirds.

This duet has often been noted as a fore runner of "Mira, o Norma." The role of Leicester (like that of Otello) was composed for Andrea Nozzari. "remarkable for brilliancy and grandeur," and that of Norfolk for Manuel Garcia. Carreras sings the former with the expected dash and charm.

How astonishingly swift has been this young Spanish tenor's rise to the top, from his Barcelona debut six years ago.

In the Salzburg Festival Don Carlos he takes the part that was once Domingo's; at Covent Garden, he assumes the repertory that was once Pavarotti's. Some Italian crities have begun to cry beware: He is doing too much too soon! I hear no sign of it yet-but only an increasing fire and power achieved with no loss of charm or flexibility. Question marks in his performance here are only over the tuning of some notes in the recitatives.

Ugo Benelli's timbre has dried. There is some sense of strain in the way he hits the accents of the short solo set within the introduzione. But Norfolk, the villain of the piece, does not really need charm, and Benelli does give him liveliness. He is vivid in the fine aria of Act II. This good tenor piece is followed by one even better, for Leicester in prison. (Imprisoned tenors visited by visions-Florestan, Jacopo Foscari, Dalibor-seem to have provided a regular source of inspiration to composers.) As Leicester falls asleep. cor anglais and flute voice his troubled dreams. Then the two tenors come together for an animated duet, which is in far too trippingly buffo a vein for the situation but provides a very happy example of Rossini's skill in spinning out an accompaniment figure through one key after another.

Gianfranco Masini's conducting is graceful, elegant, excellently poised.

and powerful where it needs to be. The score of Elisabetta has a good deal of careful instrumental writing in it (Rossini's early study of Mozart seems to be bearing fruit), and by the London Sym phony Orchestra it’s bewitchingly played. The versatile Ambrosian Singers are in top form. The recording, lively and clear, represents a nice easy balance between voices and voices and between voices and orchestra. The stereo placement becomes perhaps a shade obvious in the "asides," from various places of concealment, in the prison scene.

A few pages of recitative are cut, but otherwise the opera is given complete.

There are too few appoggiaturas. in my view: Carreras is especially prone to sing "blunt endings" as written where one expects an approach from the note above or from a fourth below. There is a slip or two in the English translation of the libretto.

ROSSINI: Elisabetta. regina d'Inghil terra.

Elisabetta Matilde Enrico Leicester Norfolk Guglielmo Montserrat Caballe(s)

Valerie Masterson (s)

Rosanne Crefteld (ms)

Jose Carreras (1)

Ugo Benelh (t)

Neil Jenkins (1)

Ambrosian Singers, London Symphony Orchestra, Gianfranco Masini, cond. [Erik Smith, prod.] PHILIPS 6703 067, $23.94 (three discs, manual sequence).

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WAGNER: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

For an essay review, see page 89.

WALDTEUFEL: Orchestral Works. Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra, Willi Boskovsky, cond. [John Mordler, prod.] ANGEL S 37208, $6.98 (SO-encoded disc). Tape: I. 4 XS 37208, $7.98.

Waltzes: Espana. Op. 236. Les Patineurs. Op. 183: Estu- diantina, Op. 191: Acclamations, Op. 223. Polkas: Minuit: Bella Bocca, Op. 163; L'Esprit trancais, Op. 182. Galop: Prestissimo.

Angel was the first to remind present-day listeners that Waldteufel should rank not too far below the Strausses in the pantheon of great dance-music composers. But its fine 1958 waltz program (S 35426) by Henry Krips and the Philharmonia Promenade Orchestra has been lamentably out of print for some years now (it has recently turned up as an EMI import). and the only recent all Waldteufel program, last October's London collection of seven familiar and unfamiliar waltzes in Gamley's caricature arrangement--performances, does the composer scant justice. Hence, the time is overripe for Angel to come to the rescue once again, this time by calling on the expertise of one of to day's leading symphonic dance-music specialists, Willi Boskovsky.

He does both Waldteufel and himself proud from the very beginning by programming not only the composer's three best known waltzes (if rarely in versions as enticing as these), but also one almost never heard nowadays: the yearningly sensuous, hauntingly lovely Acclamations. Even better still. Boskovsky interleaves these waltzes with lighter dances that have been left almost entirely forgotten (and unrecorded): a dashing galop and three polkas, at least one of which, the now bubbling, now suavely chiming Minuit, is a little masterpiece of its genre. Boskovsky even succeeds in making the Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra sound better than I have ever heard it before-and the recorded sonics are exhilaratingly big and rich in stereo, still more expansively auditorium-authentic in quad.

It has been a long wait, Waldteufelians, but Boskovsky and Angel make that wait worthwhile. Now let's pray that they turn their attention to some of the other eighteen waltzes once recorded in the pre-LP era, as well as to more polka and galop discoveries.

R.D.D.

Recitals and Miscellany

JEROME BUNKE: Three Centuries of Clarinet. Jerome Bunke, clarinet; Hidemitsu Hayashi, piano. [Michael Nelda, prod.]

MUSICAL HERITAGE MHS 1887, $3.50 plus 955 postage (Musical Heritage Society, MHS Building, Oakhurst, N.J. 07755). Bamoraet Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. VA R MAU Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, in B flat. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Six Studies in English Folksong. Wagner (attrib.): Adagio.

Jerome Bunke is a young clarinetist of impeccable technical and tonal mastery who as yet plays with such imperturbably cool objectivity that he projects scarcely any distinctive personality-a lack emphasized by the decisiveness and individuality of pianist Hidemitsu Hayashi and by the vivid engineering.

--------------- David Munrow-an astonishing legacy of early-music recordings.

There is stiff recorded competition in two works: Bernstein's rather synthetically contrived early (1941) sonata (Drucker and Hambro, on Odyssey Y 30492) and the Weberian Adagio attributed to Wagner (two different Brymer versions, with string-ensemble accompaniment, Argo ZRG 604 and Vanguard VSD 71167). The most significant repertory contribution here thus becomes the work by Jan Vailhal (1739-1813), one of the earliest clarinet sonatas. It's agreeable, even mildly Haydnesque music of scarcely more than historical consequence.

On the other hand, the six Vaughan Williams Studies, originally for cello and piano. are alone delectable enough to warrant the present disc's purchase. These miniatures take up a bare seven minutes, but every one-perhaps most of all the haunting No. 5-is sheer delight.

R.D.D.

LAWRENCE MOE: A Procession of Voluntaries. Lawrence Moe, organ of St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe ( London). CAMBRIDGE CRS 2540, $6.98.

Most Americans, unless they attend Episcopal churches strongly influenced by Anglican musical traditions, are unlikely to be familiar with the extensive literature of organ voluntaries-formally loose, relatively short compositions, usually in two movements, which are played as church-service preludes and post lodes. Ironically, the best - known example in this country. Jeremiah Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary (long attributed to Purcell). is usually heard only in an orchestral transcription with real trumpet lead. (A trumpet or cornet voluntary, by the way. is one featuring trumpet or cornet stops-those organ pipes that imitate the timbres of the trumpet or cornetto families.) The great period of English voluntary composition was the eighteenth century. so its appropriate that one of the first two all voluntary programs I've encountered on American records (there are many in Eng land itself) represents both a batch of the leading representative composers of that era and an organ dating from 1764 and 1800 that has been restored, as far as possible, to its original specifications. It's a sonically lovely instrument, enchantingly recorded in a warm, not-too-large church ambience.

The present program includes a couple of notably fine voluntaries by William Boyce and John Stanley. Not all the music is of comparable quality, however. The other examples-one each by John Alcock (1715-1806) and William Walond (c. 1725-70). and even the two by the better known Maurice Greene (1695-1755)--are in consequential at best. Nor is their paucity of musical interest compensated to any marked degree by Moe's consistently unmannered but never really arresting or grip ping performances.

Nevertheless, I still can commend this re lease with fewer reservations than I have with the only competitor I have heard: the all-voluntary program played by Haig Mardirosian on the organ of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, Capitol Hill. Washington, D.C. (MHS 1854). There the playing itself is more spirited, and the nine selections (none duplicating Moe's) represent William Goodwin, Thomas Roseingrave, John Travers. and John Bennett as well as Boyce, Stanley, Greene, and Walond. But the instrument used--anachronistically nineteenth century in tonal character--is neither musically appropriate nor pleasing in itself. R.D.D. DAVID MUNRO W: Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early Music Con sort of London, David Munrow, dir.

ANGEL SBZ 3810, $20.98 (two discs plus book).

DAVID MUNROW: The Pleasures of the Royal Courts. Early Music Con sort of London, David Munrow, dir. [Mark Sutton, prod.] NONESUCH H 71326, $3.96.

DAVID MUNROW: The Art of Courtly Love. Early Music Consort of London, David Munrow, dir. SERAPHIM SIC 6092, $11.94 (three discs).

DAVID MUNROW: The Medieval Sound. David Munrow. Gillian Reid, and Christopher Hogwood. various instruments. ORYX EXP 46, $6.98 (distributed by CMS Records).

Dufay: Missa "Se la face ay pale." Early Music Consort of London. David Munrow, dir. SERAPHIM S 60267. $3.98.

Of the many new stars that have appeared in the early-music field during the past decade, none burned more brightly than that of David Munrow. wind player extraordinary and founder of the Early Music Consort.

Too brightly, perhaps. for last May at the age of thirty-three Munrow took his own life, leaving us with an astonishing legacy of twenty-eight recordings (many as yet un released here) and the tragic promise of even greater performances to come.

As an instrumentalist. Munrow came to early music at a most propitious time.

Scholars and performers were just beginning to explore the vast range of instrumental color and the seemingly limitless opportunities for virtuoso improvisation available to the medieval or Renaissance musician. Instrument makers were being persuaded to try to construct authentic replicas of shawms. viols, Krummhorns, and lutes. Munrow's skill (he seems to have been able to learn to play almost any wind instrument remarkably well in a very short time) and his rich musical imagination found a fertile field waiting. Drawing together similarly talented musicians like keyboard player Christopher Hogwood. lutenist James Tyler. countertenor lames Bowman, and string player Oliver Brookes, he founded the Early Music Consort, a marvelously musical ensemble with a repertoire that spanned four centuries, from the music of the Crusades to the court of Henry VIII. At the same time. Munrow's interests led him back to the instruments themselves, not only to museum antiquities and modern restorations. but to folk survivals similar to the pipes and harps heard in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. He and his colleagues amassed a formidable collection, read everything they could find on the subject, and, most remarkable, mastered more than seventy instruments from the bagpipes and the cowhorn to the racket t and the tromba marina. The result of this research is il t'ro-disc album. "Instruments of the Middle Ages." issued by Angel together with a hefty ninety-seven-page booklet also available separately from Ox ford University Press for $12.95. The pack age is sure to become a classic and a standby for music-history classes, hut the casual listener should not be put off by these formidable academic credentials. The set also makes a perfectly delightful introduction for the uninitiated and a source of endless fascination for the amateur enthusiast.

Unlike many collections of examples. the discs make excellent listening on their own.

Munrow has recorded complete pieces that are independently satisfying. bringing them together with an ear for total effect its well as didactic purpose. One disc is devoted to the Middle Ages, one to the Renaissance, with each group's examples of woodwinds, keyboard. brass, and strings illustrating different instruments. Solo sounds, often from modern folk instruments like a dulcimer from Hong Kong. Andean pipes, or an oud from Damascus. are featured on the medieval disc. The Renaissance fondness for families of instruments gives the listener an opportunity to hear full complements of such exotica as four racketts or a family of ra usch p fe i fen.

The pictures that illustrate Munrow's lucid. lively, and informative prose add an extra dimension to the listener's pleasure.

The author suggests you may prefer just to look and listen, and indeed the text takes more time to absorb than the music. Nevertheless, the guide is more than a bargain. especially in conjunction with the recordings.

Most fascinating of all are the sounds of the instruments: the sweet watery tone of the gemshorn, the serpent's noisy growl, the raucous swirling cadence of the Oriental shawm. or the tang of the wire-strung ban dora. Many of the medieval selections draw on melodies for troubadour songs, which sound a little odd without the words but make admirable vehicles for displaying the variety of sounds our ancestors may have heard. One of my favorites was a perky tune by Thibaut of Navarre played on a six holed Peruvian pipe accompanied by the cheerful jangling of the Jew's harp.

If the complete Angel package is out of your price range and you would still like a taste of Munrow's inimitable style. you might enjoy a sort of sample of the Early

Music Consort's wares on Nonesuch's "Pleasures of the Royal Courts." Snatches from the trouveres, the courts of fifteenth century Burgundy and sixteenth-century Germany combine with lusty dances and carnival songs enjoyed by the Medici and selections from sixteenth-century Spain.

Bowman joins Brookes. Hogwood, Mary Remnant, and Munrow, who plays several recorders in addition to the gemshorn krummhorn, kortholt. shawm, and dulcian, on this program of easy-listening entertain ment.

If it’s the instruments themselves that intrigue you. you may want Oryx's "The Medieval Sound," which features Munrow alone playing various early woodwinds.

The plan of the disc is somewhat similar to the Angel album. but the selections are completely different, and Munrow even introduces some other instruments--a Chinese shawm, For example. There's no guide let, although the jacket has some nice pictures. but Munrow himself explains the instruments between selections on the first side. The other side is devoted to suites of popular songs and dances from the times of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The whole disc is most delightful, and it occurs to me that the combination of information, good humor. and virtuoso wind playing would make it an ideal gift for a young person be ginning to play the recorder.

Delightful and various as the instrumental sounds of early music may be, the most important music-one might say the only important music-before 1600 was written for the voice, either in combination with other voices or with instruments. Just as a modern pianist cannot expect a reputation based on performances of Czerny and Thalberg to count for much among serious critics, so a musician specializing in early music cannot rely on the instrumental repertoire to carry his name much beyond the superficial gloss of the virtuoso. Two further releases show that Munrow had the potential to extend his interpretive gifts to the more complex and challenging repertoire of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

"The Art of Courtly Love- lone of the HIGH FIDELITY/Prix Mondial winners for 1976-Ed.] is a three-disc survey of the mu sic of Guillaume de Machaut, his late fourteenth-century followers, and the new sounds from fifteenth-century Burgundy. It’s hard to say what I enjoyed most from this sumptuous feast, but if I had to choose, per haps it would be the elegance of Machaut's incomparable ballades. sung with such style and sympathy by Bowman. Charles Brett. and tenor Martyn Hill. Munrow adds his virtuoso touch in a brilliant recorder obbligato to the familiar virelay "Se je sous pir." and in a surprisingly convincing performance of Machaut's rondeau "Dames se vous m'estes" as a solo for the bagpipes.

The second disc concentrates on the strange mannered music popular at that peculiar anomaly of the fourteenth century.

the papal court at Avignon. Several selections are cannily chosen to reflect the tie be tween these odd composers and the great poet/musician who preceded them. "Phiton. Phiton." For example. by one Fran ciscus, is modeled directly on Machaut's delightfully serpentine ballade "Phyton. le mervilleus serpent." Two marvelous bird call pieces remind us that Jannequin had many predecessors, and there are fine performances of works by Solage. Hasprois.

and Matheus de Perusio, composers whose exotic harmonic and rhythmic experiments are so akin to our own time that they some times share space on programs of twentieth-century music of the avant garde.

Munrow's choice to emphasize the Avignon repertoire rather than the contemporary Parisian scene makes the shift to the smooth tunes of the Burgundians on the final disc a bit abrupt. Despite the presence of some genuine masterworks. notably Dufay's "Vergine bella" and his lament over the fall of Constantinople, this section seems a little lightweight after the richness of the preceding music.

For a glimpse of the conductor Munrow might have become, Seraphim's release of Dufay's Mass Se la face ay pale is more revealing. This is a luminously clear work of balanced proportions and beautiful lines.

Munrow's reading is classical, in perfect harmony with the dawning Renaissance of Dufay's music. Although he chooses to use cornetts and sackbuts to reinforce the eight-man choir, the instrumental color never intrudes, supplying only a lining of sound to clarify the relationships among the four voices. In the sections for a reduced number of parts, viols accompany the solo singers. Tempos. dynamics, and scoring are handled with a restraint that never lapses into dullness in a most satis fying performance of this wonderful work.

On the disc devoted to Machaut in "The Art of Courtly Love." Munrow has included one piece by another composer, a "deploralion" on the death of the great musician to a text by Eustache Deschamps. "So rare and fine a talent," sings the poet. "Who will take your place? Surely I don’t know him." Those of us who still enjoy the music of Machaut and his followers because they are brought alive by musicians as sensitive and knowledgeable as the late David Mun row must also lament the passing of so rare and fine a man.

S.T.S.

DON SMITHERS AND WILLIAM NEIL: The Trumpet Shall Sound. Clarion Consort (Don Smithers, clarino and piccolo trumpets and cornetto; Michael Laird, clarino trumpet; Janet Smithers, baroque violin and viola; Wil liam Neil, organ). PHILIPS 6500 926, $7.98.

This admirably recorded sequel to the same artists' "Bach's Trumpet" program (6500 925. November 1976) similarly mixes trumpet originals and transcriptions with pieces that let Smithers demonstrate his prowess on the cornetto and that give Neil solo opportunities on the fine baroque-styled or gan of Oxford University's New College Chapel.

The originals are the opening and closing Polish time-telling fanfare Hejnal Kra kowska, Fantini's two-trumpet Sonata delta la Guicciardini, and a Biber two trumpet suite-all played on clarino instru ments. The transcriptions for trumpet are the familiar Purcell (keyboard) Trumpet Tune and Air and Cebell, the Stanley (organ) Trumpet Voluntary in D, and Handel's First Oboe Concerto in B flat. The cornetto transcriptions are two of the two-part fan tasias included in Morley's First Guide of Canzonets. Campian's air "Never weather beaten sail," and Dowland's "Flow, my tears.- The organ solos are John Blow's Fugue in F and Frescobaldi's Capriccio sopra un sog,getto. All of which makes for an olio porida indeed-but one ingeniously designed to tickle the palates of non-purist old-music connoisseurs.

R.D.D.

FREDERICA VON STADE: French Opera Arias'. Frederica von Stade, mezzo- soprano; Lon don Philharmonic Orchestra, John Pritchard, cond. [Paul Myers, prod.] COLUMBIA M 34206, $6.98.

BERLIOZ: Beatrice et Benedict Dieu! Quo viens-ie d'entendre? . . II men sow/lent La Damnation de Faust: D'amour tardente ffamme. Gotwoo: Romeo et Juliette: Depuis flier je cherche en vain Due fais- tu. blanche tourterelle?

MASSENET: Werther Letter Scene Cendrii Ion: Sohn, le suis ici Marano nn: Les Huguenots: Nobles seigneurs.

OFFENBACH: La Perichole: Ah! quel diner le viens de faire' La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein: Diteslui.

THOMAS: Mignon: Connais-tu le pays? Von Stade's first solo recital provides welcome evidence of her developing skill.

While "Connais-tu le pays?" is less convincing than it might be and both Offenbach pieces strike me as downright failures, the rest is mostly impressive.

Von Stade has an individual timbre, is well schooled, has a feeling for drama, and is intelligent without any loss of spontaneity. The variations of emphasis ...

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Frederica von Stade Potentially important, outstanding already

... she makes in the long aria from Berlioz' Beatrice et Benedict immediately mark her as a genuine talent, as does the captivating change of tone color she uses for the middle section of the aria from Gounod's Romeo.

The Werther Letter Scene is even better, a moving account of beautiful music, with the voice darkened expressively, the rhythms vivid, the verbal inflections illuminating. Also very fine is the charming excerpt from Massenet's hardly known Gen drillon.

Technically, Von Stade is well equipped.

She has an excellent command of legato, a well-controlled vibrato, and a wide range of vocal shadings. She can sing fioritura and has a trill (at least in the Gounod; that in the Huguenots aria is less satisfactory). Her only real fault is that she tends to leave the voice insufficiently supported at the end of long phrases that end quietly.

Interpretively she can encompass both Berlioz' betrayed, distraught Marguerite and Meyerbeer's perky page boy. But it’s in matters of interpretation that she still needs to mature. That there is too little liveliness in the Meyerbeer, f or example, is partly the fault of John Pritchard. who provides leaden accompaniments throughout, but a lot of the blame must go to the singer, who especially in ebullient music, tends to be heavy-handed. In the Offenbach pieces she exaggerates the comedy and sounds unconvincing. Another kind of stylistic problem obtrudes in the Mignon aria, where she is far too fussy in music that requires. above all, a simple, direct lyricism. Finally, though Von Stade's French is very good, it could still stand improvement: She needs to distinguish the open e from the closed e and to work on her pronunciation of the mute e, which at the moment is often annoyingly incorrect.

Von Stade is potentially an important singer and must, it seems to me, be judged by the highest standards. However, even by those, such performances as the Letter Scene are outstanding already. Good sound; texts and translations.

D.S.H.

+++++++++++++++

Theater and Film

--- Stephen Sondheim

SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM. Original London cast recording. Julia McKenzie, David Kernan, and Millicent Martin, vocals: Tim Higgs and Stuart Pedlar, pianos. Comedy Tonight; You Must Meet My Wife; Company; Being Alive; Anyone Can Whistle; Send in the Clowns; Pretty Lady; several more. [Thomas Z. Shepard, prod.]

RCA RED SEAL CBL 2 1851, $9.98 (two discs, manual sequence). Tape: Ire CBK 2-1851, $11.95; CBS 2 1851, $11.95.

Critical opinion on both sides of the ocean was very kind to Side by Side by Sondheim, a London-based musical collage of some of Broadway composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim's best efforts. There are few more ardent Sondheim fans than I, but I must say that I found this album somewhat of a disappointment.

No doubt acquaintance with the originals has hampered my ability to appreciate the vastly different sound of these snatched out-of-context excerpts. Indeed, Sondheim's unique feeling for over-all context is one of the reasons I admire his work. lie himself has said, "I'm not particularly interested in art songs or pop songs that stand on their own," which should provide a clue to the general feeling of nakedness this al bum communicates. Furthermore, the show suffers from what to me is an insur mountable drawback, namely the thread bare, two-piano accompaniments, which make the whole thing sound rather like a glorified rehearsal. It may work as cabaret entertainment, but it makes a considerably less than satisfactory impression on disc.

Some of the songs are sung with fine style, particularly those done by David Kernan. "You Must Meet My Wife" from A Little Night Music has a delightful ironic lilt, and Kernan proves a gifted balladeer in the poignant "I Remember" from Evening Primrose, a once-shown TV musical. The husky-voiced Millicent Martin gives a droll rendition of "I Never Do Anything Twice." a song Sondheim contributed to the film The Seven Percent Solution.

The rarities--including "Can That Boy Foxtrot" and "There Won't Be Any Trumpets" (quite a lovely piece) cut from the final versions of Follies and Anyone Can Whistle, respectively--may make this set indispensable for some. As for me. I'll stick to the original-cast albums, thank you just the same.

R.S.B.

LOST HORIZON: Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin. John Aildis Choir, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Gerhardt, cond. [George Korngold, prod.] RCA RED S EAL ARL 1-1669, $6.98. Tape: 011 ARK 1 1669, $7.95; i.ARS 1-1669, $7.95. Quadriphonic: ARD 1-1669 (Quadradisc), $7.98. Lost Horizon; The Guns of Navarone; The Big Sky; The Fourposter; Friendly Persuasion; Search for Paradise.

There is no denying the aural pleasure to be had from some of Dimitri Tiomkin's bell filled, chorus-punctuated. Oriental-flavored but irretrievably Occidental score for the Frank Capra Lost Horizon (1937). But on the whole, it sounds like so much of the lushly grandiose music churned out almost daily in early Hollywood that I found it difficult to become involved on any level, even though I am quite fond of the film itself.

Tiomkin, it seems to me, has always shown an understanding of the trappings of musico-cinematic romanticism without ever really communicating the soul to be found in most of the scores by Korngold and in some by Steiner and Newman, to name the three most famous members of this school.

I must add that the suite arranged by conductor Gerhardt tends to ramble in a way that further weakens whatever innate dramatic impact might exist in the work.

By far the best cut on Side 2 is the rousing, brilliantly recorded prelude for The Guns of Navarone, a true showpiece for any stereo system. (Columbia once devoted a complete LP to this score.) The Big Sky has one or two good moments of mood but is pervaded by amazingly uninteresting melodies, and the finale is almost numbing in its harmonic monotony. The Fourposter overture bounces along nicely enough, but the "Love Scene in the Barn" sequence from Friendly Persuasion plods along with saccharine musical padding until the film's famous melody, complete with harp glis sandos and shimmering strings, finally appears to give the goings-on a small amount of soupy respectability. The choral finale for the Cinerama Search for Paradise closes the disc on a note of Goody Twoshoes optimism. It’s a miserable shame that Tiomkin's music for The Thing, recorded but not used for this release, could not have replaced one or two (or three or four) of the Side 2 cuts as a change of pace revealing a rather different side of the composer.

R.S.B.

-------------

(High Fidelity, Feb 1977)

Also see:

Pathfinder: Ed Miller, by Norman Eisenberg (Feb. 1977)

The New Releases: Wagner's Masters Get Their Due, David Hamilton; New Life for Louise Conrad, L. Osborne; How Do You Like Your Liszt? by Harris Goldsmith

Varese in New York, Louise Varese; The Music of Edgard Varese, Robert P. Morgan

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