Reviewed by: RICHARD FREED, DAVID HALL, GEORGE JELLINEK, IGOR KIPNIS, PAUL KRESH, ERIC SALZMAN
J. S. BACH: St. Matthew Passion. Karl Erb (tenor), Evangelist; Willem RaveIli (bass), Jesus; Jo Vincent (soprano); Ilona Durigo (contralto); Louis van Tulder (tenor); Her man Schey (bass); Amsterdam Tonkunst Choir; Zanglust Boys Choir; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, Willem Mengelberg cond. PHILIPS 6747-168 three discs $23.94.
Performance: Imposing
Recording: Good for its age (1939)
The St. Matthew Passion is one of those monumental works that literally demand stereo, what with its drama enacted on various levels (action, narration, contemplation), its double choruses, its divided orchestras. And, since there are a number of fine stereo versions in the catalog to suit virtually all tastes, Philips's reissue of an actual performance recorded on Palm Sunday, 1939, is not intended to compete with them. Historically, however, this is a significant set because of its conductor Willem Mengelberg, who was something of a giant in those days, and tenor Karl Erb, the outstanding Evangelist of his time.
Mengelberg's reading was found "eccentric" by some critics when this recording first appeared here some twenty years ago on Columbia SL-179. "Romanticized" would be a fairer assessment, perhaps, for it is character istic of the nineteenth-century view of Bach: large forces deployed in a large-scale manner. Mengelberg's tempos seem quite sensible, and, if he goes in for some violent dynamic...
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The first listing is the one reviewed; other formats, if available, follow it.
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...contrasts or heavy retards, he is by no means the only conductor to have done so. At least he offers a dramatic performance.
Erb's Evangelist is worthy of its fame profoundly moving, with every word eloquently projected. It cannot be denied, how ever, that several Evangelists in the modern recordings (Pears, Hafliger, Altmeyer) are comparable to Erb's, which was once a unique recorded achievement.
Mengelberg's singers may not number such outstanding vocal personalities among their ranks as Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, and Nicolai Gedda (who are heard on the Klemperer-directed Angel S-3599), but they form a well-balanced ensemble without any weak points. Sonically, the vocal numbers are reasonably well captured, but the choral and orchestral reproduction cannot satisfy today's demands despite Philips' clean reprocessing in electronic stereo. It should also be added that this version is far from complete: several important arias and choruses are omitted, particularly in Part Two. As a historical memento, though, it is eminently listenable.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BEETHOVEN: Seven Bagatelles, Op. 33; Six Bagatelles, Op. 126. Glenn Gould (piano). COLUMBIA M 33265 $6.98.
Performance: Irresistible
Recording: Very good
The Op. 33 Bagatelles are among Beethoven's earliest creations: one or two of them were apparently written before his teens (but revised in his early thirties, when the set was published). They are not heard frequently, and Glenn Gould communicates their sunny inventiveness and wit with such charm that he must be forgiven the insistent vocal obbligato that accompanies his keyboard work. The lat er and more substantial Op. 126 set is ornamented with a similar vocal contribution, but the freshness and imaginativeness of Gould's characterization of these six pieces is even more striking than in the earlier seven. Some of his tempos are conspicuously unorthodox, but they are without exception irresistibly persuasive-particularly in No. 4 in B Minor, whose rumbustious humor is so much more delectable at Gould's jaunty but unhurried pace (a la Gottschalk, leaning toward rag time) than in the scramble of a true presto.
The recording, which does keep Gould's light baritone to a murmur, presents a realistic image of his instrument. There are several more important piano records among this year's releases, but none, I think, more down right enjoyable than this one. R.F .
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. Arthur Grumiaux (violin); Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, Colin Davis cond. PHILIPS 6500 775 $7.98.
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. Henryk Szeryng (violin); Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink cond. PHILIPS 6500 531 $7.98. 7300 275 $8.98.
Performances. Both excellent in their differences
Recordings: Both excellent
As if it were not strange enough to have a la bel competing with itself at all, we have here not only two of the best musicians in the business as competing soloists, but both of them recording with the same orchestra. Moreover, this is each violinist's third time around on records with the Beethoven concerto.
Even so, this is no case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. For a starter, Szeryng uses the Joachim cadenzas, while Grumiaux opts for the Kreisler. Szeryng favors both a wider vibrato than in his 1965 Mercury recording and an almost expansively romantic approach to the music-an essentially Mittel Europa view that evokes memories of Adolf Busch.
Here one can discern, perhaps, the influence of conductor Bernard Haitink. Grumiaux and Colin Davis, for their part, are all aristocratic elegance and enchanting lyricism, bringing to an essentially classically styled reading a shade more rhythmic tautness than is the case with the Szeryng-Haitink team.
In short, then, we have two fine and dif ferent readings to choose from here, both graced with full-bodied and well-balanced sound. Of course, there are still Heifetz, Ois trakh, Milstein, Stern, etc., etc. D.H.
BRITTEN: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (see PROKOFIEV)
DEBUSSY: Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra; Danse Sac, et Danse Profane; Clarinet Rhapsody; Saxophone Rhapsody. Aldo Ciccolini (piano); Guy Dangain (clarinet); Jean Marie Londeix (saxophone); Marie-Claire Jamet (harp. in Dances); French National Radio Orchestra, Jean Martinon cond. ANGEL S-37065 $6.98.
DEBUSSY: feta (Pointe Dansi); Images pour Orchestre. French National Radio Orchestra, Jean Martinon cond. ANGEL S-37066 $6.98.
Performances: Strong
Recordings: Good
Angel's Debussy orchestral series with Martinon and the French Radio Orchestra began with an album of arrangements and oddities; these are the second and third albums. Volume 2 consists of three relatively obscure concerted works, the early Fantaisie--apparently never performed in Debussy's lifetime and curiously unpopular since-as well as the Clarinet and Saxophone Rhapsodies and the Sacred and Profane Dances, all "occasional" works of modest merit. Volume 3 begins with Jeux, once equally obscure but now quite thoroughly rehabilitated. (Jeux, a kind of Sucre du Printemps in tennis shoes, was premiered within a few days of the Stravinsky heresy and was consequently overshadowed by it.) Of the Images pour Orchestre, only the Iberia is really popular, although the complete set turns up rather often these days and was recently recorded by Boulez in his Debussy series with the New York Philharmonic.
It is difficult not to compare the two new performances of Jeux. since Boulez was largely responsible for the restoration of that un usual work to favor. Martinon is altogether more engaging and, in a sense, more "French" (in the cliche meaning). He makes a nice sound, he aims to please, and he succeeds. The electric tension, the clarity of rhythm and color. and the special energy that Boulez brings is missing; Martinon's Jeux is softer and more flowing. And the French Ra dio group is not really as good an orchestra as the New York Philharmonic. In the Images, the same differences hold, but in the lesser music Martinon is exceptionally convincing.
These are attractive performances and recordings, and the listener who prefers his Debussy in the pure, traditional. "French-impressionist" manner may even prefer them to Boulez's versions. -E.S.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
HADZIDAKIS: For a Little White Seashell, Preludes and Dances for Piano, Op. 1. SKAL KOTTAS: Suite for Piano, No. 3. PONIRIDY: Rythmes Grecs. Nicolas Constantinidis (piano). MUSICAL. HERITAGE SOCIETY MHS 3055 $3.50 (plus 750 handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society. 1991 Broadway, New York, N.Y.100211.
Performance: Greek music lives
Recording: Very good
The piano music of three twentieth-century Greek composers writing in widely different styles makes for a fascinating program. Manos Hadzidakis, horn in 1925, achieved world fame through the sensuous allure of his music for the movie Never on Sunday, and themes ...
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A Pair of "Kreutzers"
BECAUSE of what struck me as uneven ness in the total production of Deutsche Grammophon's big 1970 bicentennial release of all of Beethoven's works for piano and violin, I tended to undervalue Wilhelm Kempff and Yehudi Menuhin's splendid account of the Kreutzer Sonata when I listened to it back then. I am happy to report that that marvelous recording can now be better appreciated-and richly enjoyed-on its own. As it happens, Deutsche Grammophon's reissue comes at the same time as the first installment in another "integral" survey of the Beethoven violin sonatas, on London, and I would think one or the other of these records might well head the list of currently available Kreutzers.
Menuhin and Kempff had never performed with each other before they made their Beethoven recordings, but each had been playing the music for decades (and each had made two earlier recordings of the Kreutzer), and, as Menuhin remarked, "We understood each other instantly." That is exactly what their Kreutzer suggests: their mutual concept, both impassioned and expansive, has the soaring feel of inspired improvisation-big, unrestricted. quintessentially romantic in the best sense. Vladimir Ashkenazy and Itzhak Perlman, on the other hand, have performed together and have recorded jointly before; both are superb artists and superb collaborators, but after exposure to the winged intensity of the Kempff/Menuhin performance, the younger performers may seem relatively detached-even a little cautious-in their approach.
To start with the final movement (after all, that is where Beethoven began): Ashkenazy and Perlman play only a shade below the traditional presto speed, but their version seems to lack momentum: Kempff and Menuhin play at a conspicuously slower pace, and theirs shines with life. Vitality, in this case, is more a matter of spirit than of velocity. In the opening movement this is felt no less forcefully:
Perlman is the smoother of the two violinists, but Menuhin is the more fiery, and the occasional roughness of his tone only underscores this exciting quality; those big, beefy pizzicatos of his make other fiddlers' efforts sound perfunctory-a small point, perhaps, but one that plays its part in defining the character of the performance. Kempff, of course, never threatens to boil over at the keyboard, but at the unhurried pace he and Menuhin favor, the calm authority and delicacy of the pianist make him an effective counterbalance for the violinist's more impulsive thrusts. Ashkenazy and Perlman, to a degree, simply reverse this balance, with the violinist the more "tidy" and the pianist essaying the grander strokes. Personally, I find the sense of pulse in the Kempff/Menuhin recording more compelling. I'm aware, though, that some listeners will find this version exaggerated; for them the polished, if less adventurous, Ashkenazy/Perlman will yield its own measure of satisfaction. Both of the lighter sonatas are delightfully done, and the recorded sound in both cases is very good indeed.
-Richard Fred
------------ YEHUDI MENUHIN: expansive; Perlman: polished
BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 9, in A Major, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer"); Sonata No. 8, in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3. Wilhelm Kempff (piano): Yehudi Menuhin (violin). DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 135 $7.98.
BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 9, in A Major, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer"); Sonata No. 2, in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2. Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano); Itzhak Perlman (violin). LONDON CS-6845 $6.98.
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... from that score, including a fragment from the title song, can be heard in the miniatures that make up his suite of preludes and dances called For a Little White Seashell. But what seasons the suite is the tang of Prokofiev.
Indeed, one of the pieces is entitled Conversation with Prokofiev and wittily calls up the manner of the Russian master. The five pairs of preludes and dances that make up the suite employ such Greek forms as the syrtos, the mandinada (or dialogue), a lively hallos, and a calamationos in 7/8 time; a sousa (which means "spring") closes the action with bright, leaping figurations. Economy of means and fluent charm mark this attractive work.
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) studied in Germany under Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg, and it is Schoenberg's influence that can be heard in the "polychords" and driving complexities of his dark music. Yet popular Greek motifs underlie the minuet, the theme with variations, and the march that make up his Suite for Piano, No. 3, written in his later style, which was atonal but not serial.
This composer was largely ignored in his life time, but his advanced music has recently been getting the attention it well deserves.
The third aspect of Greek music to be heard here is the open. energetic, and highly folkish one of George Poniridy, now in his eighties. His Rythmes Grecs is constructed of six short sections evoking the music of various regions in ancient and modern Greece, but vigor and invention do not allow the suite to be a mere musical travelog.
Greek pianist Nicolas Constantinidis proves equal to all the challenges inherent in the complications and shifts in musical lan guage in the course of his absorbing concert, and the album notes are unusually insightful and informative. P.K.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT HANDEL: Chamber Cantatas: Delirio am oroso: Nel doke del' oblio. Magda Kalmar (soprano): Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Sandor Frigyes cond. HUNGAROTON SLPX 11653 $6.98.
Performance: Very good
Recording- Excellent
Among the chamber cantatas the young Han del wrote on his arrival in Italy (around 1707 1708) are. according to Paul Henry Lang, many authentic masterpieces. Furthermore, Lang says. "they represent an idea bank in which Handel deposited funds that lasted for the remaining half century of his life." The accuracy of these remarks hit home almost immediately as I listened to this Hungaraton release and discovered that the orchestral background to one of the arias in Delirio amoroso was identical to the bouncy tune of the fourth movement of Handel's Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in D. Op. 1, No. 13.
Delirio amoroso is rather lengthy, consist ing of a French-style operatic overture, four full arias with appropriate recitatives, and some orchestral interludes. The orchestral writing provides for virtuosic stints for the solo violin, cello, recorder, and oboe. Nel dolce del' oblio is short and calls only on the violin soloist for exposed solo passages. Both are pastoral pieces set to negligible texts, but both are musically interesting-parts of Delirio amoroso quite strikingly so.
Magda Kalmar, a young Hungarian soprano, is a well-trained singer with an agreeable vocal timbre. Her intonation is pure, and her coloratura technique, while not dazzling, is expert enough to give an impressive ac count of her quite demanding part. The first-desk players of the Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra (particularly oboist Peter Pongracz, violinist Janos Rolla, and recorder soloist Laszlo Czidra) carry out their assignment with distinction, and the engineering is ideal. G .J
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
HAYDN: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1; String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4 (" Sunrise"). Amadeus Quartet. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2530 089 $7.98.
Performance: Exemplary
Recording: Very good
One would expect all six of Haydn's Op. 76 quartets to be as abundantly represented on records now as his twelve "London" symphonies, but, according to Schwann, there is only one "integral" recording of this magnificent demi-dozen at present, and until the release of the present disc No. 2 in D Minor and No. 3 in C Major had for some time been the only parts of Op. 76 available separately. No one familiar with the Amadeus recordings of those two works (both paired with Mozart quartets on Deutsche Grammophon) should need any encouragement to buy the new record of Nos. 1 and 4 beyond the mere announcement of its availability. The Amadeus has recorded far more Mozart and Beethoven, but has reached its highest level, I think, in its exemplary Haydn, perhaps because the group's collective musical personality most nearly matches Haydn's own-with emphasis on style, taste, and a peculiarly aristocratic vitality. Such younger ensembles as the To kyo Quartet and the Alban Berg Quartet will undoubtedly have a good deal to say about this music in the years ahead, but this beautiful record can stand as a model of all that is best in the playing of string quartets. Now Nos. 5 and 6, please. R.F.
HAYDN: String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 74, No. 3; String Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3 (see Best of the Month, page 72)
KODALY: Summer Evening; Hungarian Rondo; Suite from Hary Janos; Ballet Music;
Theatre Overture; Dances of Marosszek; Dances of Galanta; Peacock Variations; Concerto for Orchestra; Minuetto Serio; Symphony in C Major. Philharmonia Hungarica, Antal Dorati cond. LONDON CSA 2313 three discs $20.94.
Performance: Lithe and vital
Recording: Excellent
Unlike his lifelong friend, Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodfily appears to have achieved the greatest and most effective concentration of his creative gifts in his choral works, most notably in the Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), Budavari Te Deum (1936), and the Missa Brevis (1945).
The orchestral works were more or less peripheral to the core of his interests, particularly after World War One. Nevertheless, the eleven works recorded by Antal Dorati and the Philharmonia Hungarica for London, making up the whole of Kodaly's output for symphony orchestra, do have their special points of fascination and occasionally display high achievement.
Foremost in the category of high achievement I would place the Concerto for Orchestra, a terse and mettlesome piece that com bines Classical tradition and Magyar folk roots in a brilliantly effective fashion, though it is painted on a somewhat less expansive canvas than Berta's celebrated work of the same name, completed some three years later.
Not far behind the Concerto in my estimation come the Peacock Variations, based on an old Hungarian folk tune. The justly popular Hary Janos Suite needs no further commentary here. As for the two sets of dances, I always have preferred the more compact and musically more substantial Marosszek series, writ ten originally for piano, to the better-known Galdnta. Among the more fascinating minor surprises is the Ballet Music-a grotesque Dragon Dance intended for Hary Janos, which comes surprisingly close to the Bartoki an idiom-and the bitter-sweet Minuetto Ser io (taken from the stage piece Czinka Panna), which is redolent of Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin. The Symphony is superbly crafted, but I find its content rather bloodless except in the superb slow movement. Summer Evening, the Hungarian Rondo, and the Theatre Overture (a curtain-raiser forMiry Janos) are all of lesser moment.
Antal Dorati and his orchestra of Hungarian expatriates are totally in their element in this kind of music, which they dig into with enormous zest and a rhythmic litheness not often encountered in the general run of performances by major orchestras. There are times when I would have wished for a bigger string sound, especially in the Peacock Variations, but the ensemble as a whole plays beautifully.
London has done a splendid recording job here, achieving a deep stereo perspective that shows to fine advantage in the echo fanfares of the Nary Janos battle episode.
KURKA: The Good Soldier Schweik, Suite (see WEILL) LISZT: Dante Symphony. La Psallette de Lor raine; Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg, Pierre Cao cond. CANDIDE QCE 31082 $4.98.
Performance Alert
Recording: Adequate
Liszt's Faust Symphony has fared well in recorded documentation-two good and one outstanding stereo issues, by Bernstein, Ansermet, and Beecham, respectively-but its companion piece, based on Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio and rounded off with a choral Magnificat, has done quite poorly. The ancient mono recordings by Alfred Wallenstein (Decca) and F. Charles Adler (SPA) failed to do justice to an admittedly problematic score, and the early stereo Urania issue with George Sebastian did not represent any substantial improvement.
The Candide label has now given us a re cording that is at least a step in the right direction: the sound is generally good, despite its somewhat confined radio-studio quality, and the performance is alert, if not the very last word in big-time orchestral virtuosity. The Dante Symphony is a less well-integrated piece than the Faust Symphony. However, I find its finest moments more striking than any in the Faust score except the best of the Gretchen music and some of the more ironic touches in the Mephistopheles movement.
For the present, we can be grateful to Candide for giving us the first reasonably adequate recorded realization of a neglected major Liszt orchestral work. But perhaps one of the major labels will bring a topflight conductor and orchestra together to give this music the outstanding recorded performance it de serves. Only then can we really evaluate it accurately. D.H.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4, in G Major. Judith Blegen (soprano); Chicago Symphony Orchestra, James Levine cond. RCA ARL I-0895 $6.98, 0 ARSI-0895 $7.98, ARKI-0895 $7.98.
Performance: Gorgeous Recording: Likewise recording of Mahler's First Symphony, with the London Symphony Or chestra, received a warm welcome in these pages last May, and the virtues David Hall cited in his review are largely evident again in this gorgeous Fourth. The approach is less straightforward this time, but everywhere there is clarity, phenomenal attention to de tail, and an obviously deep feeling for the music-setoff by the finest orchestral playing and probably the finest reproduction of it yet offered in a recording of this work. Dozens of previously unnoticed details in the scoring are brought to the fore, and for the most part the blend of voluptuousness and innocence is in toxicating. I am left with the feeling, however, that the inner movements are a good deal more convincing than the outer ones in this performance: in the first movement I found myself admiring the execution more than being swept along-as if everything were set out too beautifully to come to life-and the finale lacks something of the spontaneity one wants in this music to give it real continuity.
Judith Blegen is always an intelligent and attractive singer; here she is mindful of Mahler's (and, no doubt, Levine's) injunction to perform "without a trace of parody"-but there is also not a trace of radiance. How does one define such a quality, let alone mea sure it? It is terribly subjective, of course; I can only report that I missed it, and found in stead a certain degree of self-consciousness, both orchestrally and vocally, that spoils the movement for me. Some of those "previously unnoticed details" are emphasized to the point of burlesque, and there is a sense of constantly pulling back, until the music al most comes to a standstill.
The two inner movements, though, are exceptionally persuasive. Levine's tempos are broad, his slow movement extremely leisurely but with nothing the least bit static about it. It flows, in fact, more convincingly than any other part of the work: he has found a (not necessarily the) natural pulse for the Adagio, and the momentum is superbly sustained.
This movement is extraordinarily beautiful; Levine's fastidious regard for internal balance and subtle dynamic shadings ensures the sort of clarity that really illumines the score in stead of merely X-raying it.
----- Trio Bell' Arte (Susanne Lautenbacher, Ulrich Koch, and Thomas
Blees): ingratiating Mozart Divertimento
No one could be blamed for being seduced by the magnificent projection of the great Adagio, or simply by the outstanding orchestral playing rious failure of the outer ones to come to life is as much emphasized by the marvelous technical work (both musical and electronic) as compensated for by it. It may not be necessary to spend more than $3.98, the price of the late Paul Kletzki's Seraphim disc (with soprano Emmy Loose, S-60105), to enjoy a thoroughly satisfying Mahler Fourth-unless you feel that the 1958 recording shows its age now, in which case the characteristically idiomatic and more brightly recorded performance under Rafael Kubelik, at full price (with Elsie Morison. Deutsche Grammophon 139 339), will justify the extra outlay. R.F.
MASSENET: La Navarraise (see Best of the Month, page 71) MOZART: Divertimento in E-flat Major (K. 563). Isaac Stern (violin); Pinchas Zukerman (viola); Leonard Rose (cello). COLUMBIA M 33266 $6.98.
Performance: Highly inflected
Recording: Sumptuous
MOZART: Divertimento in Ellat Major (K. 563). Trio Bell' Arte. TURNABOUT 0 QTV-S 34567 $4.98.
Performance: Ingratiating
Recording: Warmly realistic
These two performances of the greatest of all string trios contrast with each other fairly sharply all along the way, and I find more to enjoy in the one by the lesser-known Stuttgart team. That the all-stars on Columbia play the music beautifully need hardly be said, but they apparently see the work as a very large scale one, and, it seems to me, are rather self consciously insistent on reminding us of its greatness: in some sections themes are introduced with portentous sobriety and every note is weighted lest the drama be missed; in others (notably the final movement) there is a gratuitous romanticizing, as if the abundant charm of the work needed underscoring.
While the recording itself is otherwise excellent, the cello is occasionally given unnatural prominence, even in passages in which the instrument has a purely rhythmic-supportive function. The Trio Bell' Arte players seem content to let the music speak for itself, in a frame of easygoing spontaneity-confidently aware, one might infer, that so sublime a masterwork has no need of interpretive enhancement. Susanne Lautenbacher, the Bell' Arte violinist, cannot match Stern for sweetness of tone, but she is thoroughly inside the music, and the mesh with her two associates (Ulrich Koch, as fine a violist as is active anywhere today, and the very solid cellist Thomas Blees) sustains the effect of ingratiating spontaneity most convincingly. Turnabout's four-channel sound (QS matrix) is less sumptuous, perhaps, than Columbia's stereo, but it does not lack for warmth, and the instrumental balance is always realistic.
Neither of these releases, beautiful as both are in their respective ways, displaces the elegant version of the Grumiaux Trio on Philips 802.803-LY, the ne plus ultra among all recordings of K. 563 to date. The Philips disc, however, does cost twice as much as the new Turnabout. R.F.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
MOZART: String Quartets: No. 14, in C Major (K. 387); No. 15, in D Minor (K. 421); No. 16, in Ellat Major (K. 428); No. 17, in B-flat Major (K. 458, "The Hunt"); No. 18, in A Major (K. 464); No. 19, in C Major (K. 465, "Dissonant"). Quartetto Italiano. PHILIPS S-C 7 I AX301 three discs $23.94.
Performance: Bel canto
Recording: Very good
Strange as it may seem, the long-delayed American issue of this recording. available in England since 1967, makes the Quartetto Italian the only ensemble currently represented
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The Minnesota Orchestra's Ravel
"Here are clarity, brilliance, and a wonderful sense of space."
THE essentially "cool" interpretive approach of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the precision he insists on from his Minnesota Orchestra (formerly the Minneapolis Symphony) make both conductor and ensemble excellent choices for Vox's new quadraphonic recording of Ravel's orchestral works. This is the first major recording the able Minnesota Orchestra has done since breaking off its Mercury affiliation some years ago. And the performers are not all the four-disc Vox Box has going for it.
As producer of the Mercury recordings made between 1952 and 1956, 1 found the Northrop Memorial Auditorium, former home of the Minnesota Orchestra, just about impossible acoustically, and 1 rejoice in the good fortune represented by the new Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (opened last October), where the Vox Ravel recordings were made.
To my ear, on the evidence of these recordings, the hall is a real beauty [see the Editor's comments on the hall's opening. "Concert-Hall Surrealism." in the January issue]. Here are clarity, brilliance, and a wonderful sense of space- though I think it may take a bit more practice before the Vox engineers get everything there is to be had from Orchestra Hall in terms of optimal sonic focus of the orchestra as a whole.
It is in the most lightly scored works-the Eventail de Jeanne Fanfare (two minutes of magic!), Le Tombeau de Couperin, Ma Mere l'Oye, and the Menuet Antique with its astonishing touches of dissonance-that conductor and engineers score most tellingly. Solo-instrument aural "placement" is precise and clear- most particularly the wonderful oboe of Rhadames Angelucci in Le Tombeau while the larger ensemble textures come through with fine transparency, enhanced in the QS-matrix quadraphonic recording by a judicious semi-surround distribution of the sound.
Of the more densely textured pieces, Une Barque sur l'Ocean (Ravel's "La Mer") comes off best, if only because its great washes of sound don't demand the precise focus called for in the climaxes of such pieces as the Alborada del Gracioso, Daphnis et Chloe, La Valse, and Bolero. Without having been in the hall, it is hard to tell whether the tendency toward diffusion in these latter works is the fault of the hall or of poor microphone placement. This same diffusion factor is probably also responsible for a seeming lack of body in orchestral string bass and percussion in both La Valse and Bolero. Microphone and/or ensemble placement is definitely at fault. I think, in the choral sections of Daphnis et Chloe, especially in the Suite No. 1. where the a cappella choir should sound totally disembodied rather than so uncomfortably close.
ODD as it may seem, I found the most fascinating single interpretation in this whole album to be that of Bolero, which Skrowaczewski plays at the same stately tempo Ravel himself used in his 1930 recording (available on Turnabout 4256). Of course, the latest and best of today's recording technology, applied in a superb new concert hall does make a difference in one's overall impression of such a reading. This Bolero is no mere essay in orchestral frissons, let alone "fifteen minutes of orchestration without music," as the composer ironically put it, but rather an insidiously hypnotic North African ritual. Perhaps, in the context of the current work being done by the likes of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, this interpretation has a validity today that it could not have had in the cultural milieu of twenty or more years ago. I do wish that the Minnesotans' violin body had more bite and presence in the later pages of the score, but, even so, I think the recording provides fresh insight into Ravel's much maligned and interpretatively abused piece.
The Vox set is priced at only $10.98, less than $3 a disc, and, despite the minor reservations I have expressed, it is definitely an excellent buy. Moreover, I guarantee it will whet your appetite for more and even better productions from Vox in the company's fu ture forays with the Minnesota forces.
-David Hull
RAVEL: Menuet Antique; Pavane pour une Infante Defunte; Une Barque sur Malan; La Valse; Alborada del Gracioso; Rapsodie Es pagnole; Ma Mere l'Oye (complete ballet version); Valses Nobles et Sentiment ales; Daphnis et Chloe, Suites 1 and 2; Le Tombeau de Cou perin; Fanfare, L'Eventail de Jeanne; Bolero. St. Olaf Choir; Minnesota Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski cond. Vox QSVBX 5133 four discs $10.98.
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... in the Schwann catalog by all twenty-three of the Mozart string quartets. Only the mail-or der Musical Heritage Society offers an alter native choice, with performances by the Bulgarian Quartet at a considerably lower price.
The six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn are among the towering miracles of chamber music, and have, of course. been the subject of many notable recorded performances, among them those by the Budapest Quartet (Odyssey, mono), the Amadeus (Deutsche Grammophon), and the Juilliard (in a short-lived Epic album). The Quartetto Italian ranks right along with these ensembles as one of the world's finest and most musically cultivated, but they have a very distinctive playing style.
In using the term bel canto in the capsule commentary above, I mean it in the literal sense. This is to say that the Quartetto Itali ano approach is that of maintaining a singing line throughout, with somewhat less emphasis on the purely formal and rhythmic aspects of the music than one encounters with Northern and Central European ensembles.
This singing quality comes to the fore in the G Major Quartet. which gets a volatile and sharply nuanced reading, graced by subtle and highly effective rubato touches. For my taste the interpretation of the somber D Minor Quartet is a bit over-refined, but the Italians cover themselves with glory in a deeply moving realization of the K. 428 slow movement.
Except for a little heavy-handedness in the finale, K. 464 is another prize in the package, especially the opening movement, where the conversational ambiance is brought off with enormous flair and subtlety. The famous Dissonant Quartet gets a brilliant and highly nuanced reading, with the trio of the minuet movement an absolute gem of a performance.
A further happy note is the excellence of the recorded sound-enough presence to provide intimacy and full-bodied tone, enough room reverberance to lend a halo of aural warmth.
One small unhappy note-the annotations in my review album were in German and French only. But that will probably be reme died in future production. D.H.
OLDFIELD: The Orchestral Tubular Bells. Mike Oldfield (guitar): Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. David Bedford arr. and cond. VIRGIN VR 13-115 $6.98. O TP 13-115 $7.98. CS 13-115 $7.98.
Performance Anglo-pop-Mahler-Sibelius
Recording: Effective
Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells was a kind of inspired one-man-band, multitrack, overdub improvisation in the Terry Riley hypnotic-pop vein. Now, as orchestrated by avant-garde composer David Bedford in the manner of Mahler and Sibelius, it has lost almost all the qualities of humor, invention, and brash ness that made it endearing in the first place.
Gone are the cave-man grunts and groans, the weird assortment of unusual instruments all doggedly superimposed by Oldfield himself, the suave B.B.C. announcements of instrumental entries, the slight pop-rhythmic eccentricities, and the sense of spellbinding crescendo. Instead, we have a superlatively tasteful orchestration, polished performance, and recording that tastefully soothes and exhilarates even as it reveals the weaknesses of free-association composition. What emerges is the ultimate film score for which the film has yet to be made (it will be, no doubt).
Those who may be tempted to buy this re cording to hear Oldfield solo with orchestra should be warned that there are only a couple of bars of solo guitar playing near the end of side two. E.S.
PONIRIDY: Rythmes Grecs (see HADZIDAK IS)
PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67.
BRITTEN: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34. Will Geer (narrator); Eng lish Chamber Orchestra, Johannes Somary cond. VANGUARD VSQ 30033 $7.98; VSD 71189 $6.98.
Performance: Good to brilliant
Recording: Superb
The desirability of narration with one or the other of these deservedly popular scores is a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer the Brit ten without narration; but if narration there must be, the British manner certainly seems more fitting than Will Geer's Foxy Grampa approach. The Foxy Grampa does have a place of sorts in the Prokofiev, but for those who prefer something else, there is a representative of just about every other narrative style one can imagine among the dozen or so other Peter and the Wolf recordings.
The recording is the thing here, together with the wonderful performances of the English Chamber Orchestra, particularly the solo winds, in the Prokofiev. In quadraphonic playback the realistic presence of the instruments becomes almost frightening in its immediacy. Yet the overall balance remains excellent throughout (except for, occasionally, too much snare drum). The contrast be tween the quadraphonic and the two-channel discs is fascinating: the former amounts to cineramic semi-surround, with featured instruments decidedly centered; the two-channel disc offers more obvious lateral localization against a flatter acoustic backdrop.
The Young Person's Guide performance is of much the same character sonically, but I find it a bit less alert musically and close to stodgy in what should be a bracing and exciting display bit for the percussion.
I don't know what children will think of this record, but for sound buffs the quadraphonic disc is certainly something to have-along with such other remarkable four-channel Vanguard discs as the Stravinsky Petrouchka and the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition and Khovantchina. - D.H.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
RACHMANINOFF: Etudes Tableaux, Op. 33 and Op. 39. Jean-Philippe Collard (piano).
CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY CS 2075 $6.98.
Performance: Stunning
Recording: First-rate
Jean-Philippe Collard, still in his twenties, is a musician to watch. He is yet another of the younger generation of pianists who, like our own Murray Perahia, excels in the Romantic repertoire, and, from what I have heard so far, his playing affords vast satisfaction and enjoyment. M. Collard comes to the Connoisseur Society label by way of a cross-licensing arrangement with Pattie-Marconi in France, and, in addition to this Rachmaninoff album, there are available a Schumann disc and a complete set of the Faure Nocturnes (see Best of the Month, July).
The seventeen Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux, composed at the peak of the Russian master's creative powers, are among the most demanding and musically varied of all his solo piano works. A merely virtuosic performance, however, makes them seem empty, while a reading too heavy in sentiment obscures the truly fine craft that the composer lavished on these pieces. Happily, Collard has everything it takes to make this music work--virtuosity, intellect, and heart.
The tone is set at the very beginning with Collard's impetuous-sounding but sternly controlled reading of the impassioned Op. 39. No. 1, in C Minor. This is followed by an uncannily hypnotic treatment of the succeed ing A Minor, with its Dies Irae ostinato and harmonic recollection of The Isle of the Dead. The F Minor, No. 1 of the Op. 33 set, is an other special favorite of mine, and Collard gives it a reading best described as tigerish.
-- MIKE OLDFIELD Where has all the humor gone?
Perhaps the finest performance of all here is of the brooding Op. 33, No. 3. All told, this is a wonderful album. And if you happen to be afflicted with an aversion to Rachmaninoff, Collard just might be the one who can cure it.
- D.H.
CYRIL SCOTT: Sonata No. 1, Op. 66; Danse Alegre; Lotus Land; Five Poems. Martha Anne Verbit (piano). GENESIS GS 1049 $6.98.
Performance: Perfumed and pretty
Recording: Very good
Cyril Scott was one of five English composers (the "Frankfurt Five") who came back to Britain from their studies in Germany at the start of this century determined to dazzle English ears. Of the group, only Percy Grainger made it to popularity; Scott was considered the runt of the litter. By the time of his death in 1970, however, English audiences were turning again with interest to his post-Ro mantic, dreamy piano works. One side of this disc is devoted to his Piano Sonata No. 1, a labyrinthine, meandering dodo bird of a piece that features Scott's two specialties-parallel chords and what he called "irregular rhythm." It is pleasant enough music, but so amorphous and crepuscular in mood that it's hard to focus attention on, and it soon dissolves into the background where it goes on providing more atmosphere than substance. But then, in Scott's music, it is always twilight, and a heavy jasmine scent saturates the musical air.
Despite the ubiquitous perfume, the shorter works on side two, straight out of Debussy. Satie, and Griffes, are easier to grasp and to live with. The Danse Negre is practically pure Debussy in his Minstrels mood, and Lotus Land is drenched in Oriental scent, but both are appealing. For the group of five Poems (the umlaut is the composer's, not mine), the excruciatingly dreadful texts of five pseudo-Oriental verses are supplied. I hope it is not his lines about distant mosques "roseate with the pale illuminating haze" that are bringing Scott's works their new audience in England, for the music itself remains attractive in its narcotic way. Miss Verbit, a fine pianist who has made her reputation with lectures on (as well as recitals of) the music of Scriabin, gives these pastel pieces a bit of an edge they sorely need. - P.K.
SIBELIUS: Finlandia (see The Basic Repertoire, page 44) SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5, in E-flat Major, Op. 82; En Saga, op. 9. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Berglund cond. ANGEL S-37104 $6.98.
Performance: Idiomatic
Recording: Very good
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5, in Eike Major, Op. 82; Karelia Suite, Op. 11. London Sym phony Orchestra, Alexander Gibson cond. LONDON STS- 15189 $3.49.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Good
Paavo Berglund, who gave us the premiere recording of Sibelius' early Kullervo Sympho ny four years ago, shows again in these more familiar works both how fine a Sibelian he is and the high level of proficiency to which he has raised the Bournemouth orchestra. Interpretively, both performances on the new Angel disc can only be called idiomatic: they ring with the conviction born of long and de voted acquaintance with the material. I especially like the feeling of lift Berglund imparts at the outset of the finale, the way he sustains it throughout the movement, and his imaginative handling of those problematic final chords. It must be acknowledged, however, that his brass does tend to thin out a bit in the final pages, and the weight of his strings seems a little light for the demands made on them in En Sawa.
The Gibson record was originally issued by RCA in 1960; it was transferred from Red Seal to Victrola a few years later, then deleted when the rights reverted to London. It is one of Gibson's very finest achievements, with the London Symphony at or near the top of its form and the sound quality not all that dated.
The symphony's finale does not have quite the lift Berglund gives it, and the very end is rather prosaic, but there is glorious brass playing by way of compensation, and the Karelia Suite is brought off splendidly. At "half price," this is an excellent value.
Yet, for an outstanding Sibelius Fifth irrespective of price, Bernstein's, with his stunning account of Pohjola's Daughter as "filler" (Columbia MS 6749), is still the one to have, and no other current version of En Saga is quite as persuasive as Okko Kamu's, which is paired with his indispensable Sibelius Third (Deutsche Grammophon 2530 426). Ormandy's attractive performance of the Karelia Suite is especially recommended as part of the package that includes his gorgeous performance of Alfven's Midsommarvaka ( Columbia MS 7674). -R.F.
SKALKOTTAS: Suite for Piano, No. 3 (see HADZIDAKIS)
JOHANN STRAUSS, JR.: Die Fledermaus. Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Rosalinde; Renate Holm (soprano), Adele: Waldemar Kmentt (tenor), Alfred: Eberhard Wachter (baritone), Eisenstein: Wolfgang Windgassen (tenor), Prince Orlofsky: Heinz Holecek (baritone), Falke; Erich Kunz (baritone), Frank; Erich Kuchar (tenor), Dr. Blind. Vienna State Opera Chorus; Vienna Phil harmonic Orchestra, Karl Bohm cond. LONDON OSA 1296 two discs $13.96.
Performance: Less than intoxicating
Recording: Excellent
The reservations will outnumber the compliments in this review; let me therefore begin with the bouquets. After all, there is much to enjoy in this set-when an ever-fresh, joyous operetta is served up in echt-Viennese style, how can it be otherwise? The veteran Karl Bohm paces the music with caressing affection, securing warm-toned playing from the Philharmoniker. His tempos are a bit leisurely in comparison with other recent recordings, but the music never loses its stimulating effect, and Bohm manages to point up a few happy orchestral touches other conductors have glossed over in more precipitous readings.
But if the cast glitters on paper, the gold is found mainly in the female roles. Gundula Janowitz is a somewhat remote and too lady like Rosalinde, without the sauciness of a Schwarzkopf, Gueden, or Rothenberger, but her tonally immaculate singing is always welcome to the ear. Repeating her interpretation of Adele (which is one of the ornaments of the Boskofsky-directed Angel set), Renate Holm is all charm, temperament, and vocal expertise.
The men are a varied lot. Eberhard Wachter makes a ranting bully of Eisenstein, a part which should not be sung by a baritone to begin with (it was written for ten or). Waldemar Kmentt, the affable Eisenstein in the previous London set (under Karajan), is a somewhat effortful Alfred here, without the tonal allure his part calls for. Erich Kunz delivers the part of the prison warden Frank with debonair charm though in a mere thread of a voice, and Erich Kujar does the drunken Frosch routine delightfully. Most baffling is the presence of Wolfgang Windgassen as Prince Orlofsky. In what may have been the late tenor's last phonographic appearance he seems thoroughly miscast and emphatically dull.
To add insult to the weaknesses of this production, Fledermaus has here been made into a series of isolated musical numbers without the dialogue that gives them continuity, a procedure that virtually eliminates the role of Falke, the prime mover of the plot (what re mains of him is interpreted without distinction by Heinz Holecek). Since both London OSA 1249 and Angel S-3790 offer not only better but more complete treatments of Die Fledermaus, either of them is preferable to this new offering. -GJ.
R. STRAUSS; Ariadne auf Naros. Viorica Ur suleac (soprano), Ariadne: Helge Roswaenge (tenor), Bacchus; Miliza Korjus (soprano), Najade; Gertrude Riinger (contralto), Dry ade; Ilonka Holndonner (soprano), Echo; Erna Berger (soprano), Zerbinetta; Karl Hammes (baritone), Harlekin; Benno Arnold (tenor), Scaramuccio; Eugen Fuchs (bais), Truffaldin; Erich Zimmermann (tenor), Brighella. Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Clemens Krauss cond. BASF (gt KBF 21806 two discs $9.98.
Performance Very good
Recording: Dated
If the liner notes are accurate, this set is a faithful reproduction of the third complete operatic performance ever broadcast in Ger many. The old composer listened to the "epoch-making event" at home with his family, and afterwards communicated his fervent compliments to his devoted friend, Clemens Krauss. That was, of course, forty years ago, and the recorded sound that meets our ears is no better than such vintage productions usually are-perhaps even a bit worse.
The orchestral sound is particularly weak, yet the conductor's authority clearly emerges in the seamless flow of the music, in his unsentimental but unhurried pacing.
As Ariadne, Viorica Ursuleac confirms a reputation which, on the basis of her later recordings, may seem unfounded. She builds her aria "Es gibsein Reich" to an exciting climax with a secure B-natural, and she handles her part in the final scene impressively.
Hers is a voice with a true dramatic ring, not entirely free of tonal blemishes, but expressive and imposing. Helge Roswaenge, ideally cast, is probably the best Bacchus on records, and Erna Berger, while not as spectacular as I perhaps expected her to be, is most certainly a first-rate Zerbinetta. Despite the presence of two stellar names (the third, Ilonka Holndonner. was then the wife of Roswaenge), the trio of nymphs does not match the ethereal blend achieved on some more modern recordings.
The Scaramuccio and Brighella are adequate, and baritone Karl Hammes (who was to perish four years later as a Luftwaffe pilot) and bass Eugen Fuchs are excellent.
The set contains the "opera" only, without the Prologue. Ariadne auf Naxos has fared very well on records (my own favorite is Angel 3532, mono, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the title role and Karajan conducting). This BASF set is in no way to be considered as an alternative to the modern recordings, but I recommend it as a valuable and still enjoyable historical document. - G J.
STRAVINSKY: Les Noces (Orchestral Version, 1917); Les Noces (Tableaux I and II, Chamber Version, 1919). Rosalind Rees (soprano): Rose Taylor (mezzo-soprano): Richard Nelson (tenor); Bruce Fifer (baritone); Gregg Smith Singers; Orpheus Cham ber Ensemble, Robert Craft cond. Symphonies of Wind Instruments (Revised Version, 1947); Chant du Rossignol (Symphonic Poem). Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Robert Craft cond. COLUMBIA M 33201 $6.98.
----------- Musici: Tartini in twentieth-century dress
Performance: Craft without Stravinsky
Recording: Okay
The meat of this record is a pair of historical curiosities: Stravinsky's original thoughts about the instrumentation of Les Noces. This remarkable work-a kind of scenic cantata about a Russian peasant wedding-was completed in 1917, but it did not reach its final form (or performance) until 1923, when Stravinsky settled on the remarkable and unusual orchestration of four pianos and percussion.
What we have here are the composer's discarded view of the piece as a chorus-and-orchestra cantata and a transitional attempt to score the piece for cimbaloms, harmonium, player piano, and percussion. The former is basically superfluous (except for its documentary value) and tells us nothing about the piece that we don't know already. The second version, much more interesting, is something else again. Stravinsky is said to have given it up (he scored only the first two scenes) be cause of the difficulty of synchronizing the player piano, but he must have had second thoughts about the cimbaloms as well since they did not appear in the final version (he did use this Hungarian instrument later on in Mavra). In any case, the cimbaloms certainly dominate the sound of this orchestration in a way that pianos do not.
The rest of this recording is taken up by competent performances of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments and the symphonic poem Le Chant du Rossignol (after Stravinsky's opera Le Rossignol), both composed in the same period as Les Noces. I will leave to others the question of whether Craft's per formances can be called Stravinskyian by virtue of his longtime association with the master.
In my opinion, much of the antagonism that used to be directed toward Stravinsky was, in his later years, transferred to Craft, himself a rather brilliant, mercurial, and difficult personality. His version of the Chant du Rossignol is like "modern music"--clear but without charm or finesse. The performance of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments is strong and reinforces the impression that this is one of Stravinsky's major accomplishments. E.S.
TARTINI: Concertos for Violin, Strings, and Continuo: Concerto in A Major (D. 96); Con certo in B-flat Major (D. 117); Concerto in G Major (D. 78). Salvatore Accardo (violin); I Musici. PHILIPS 6500 784 $7.98.
Performance: Polished
Recording: Excellent
Giuseppe Tartini, one of the most important figures of the eighteenth century in the development of the violin sonata and concerto and of violin technique, composed about 125 concertos for the violin. Generally speaking, these bridge the gap, stylistically, between the Baroque concerto and the concertos of the later eighteenth century. They are most notable for showing off Tartini's melodic gifts, but equally interesting, especially from the stand point of performance practice, for the com poser's emphasis on proper ornamentation, embellishment (he provided numerous examples of "graced" slow movements, including one in the present G Major Concerto), and other interpretive and technical refinements.
This new Philips release is one of the few recordings of Tartini's concerted violin writing in the catalog.
The thirty-four-year-old soloist, Salvatore Accardo, plays the concertos with admirable technical finish, and the performances are in some respects (trills are started correctly on the upper auxiliary, for instance) better than past performances. Still, a comparison with the stylistically superior playing to be heard on the now deleted Edvard Melkus record (DG Archie 73270) reveals some shortcom ings here, in spite of the fantastic polish of I Musici and Accardo. The approach is that of the technically seamless, long-line, modern style, heavy and rhythmically cumbersome in fortes yet blandly undifferentiated in phrasings and bowings in the slow movements. I am certain that I Musici is not about to change its playing style to match that of Melkus or such ensembles as the Vienna Concentus Musicus, nor should one necessarily condemn the Italian group for adhering to its manner of playing. There are indeed some lovely moments here, but listeners should be aware that this is Tartini clothed at least partially in twentieth-century dress. Philips has provided sumptuous sonics. J.K.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
VIVALDI: La Stravaganza, Op. 4. Carmel Kaine and Alan Loveday (violins); Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner cond. ARGO ZRG 800/801 two discs $13.96.
Performance: Inspiriting
Recording Excellent
The twelve violin concertos that make up La Stravaganza may not quite match the astonishing melodic richness of those in Vivaldi's other collections of this sort-L'Estro A rmonico, Op. 3, for example-but they are by no means deficient in good tunes and are perhaps the most striking of all in terms of rhythmic vitality and color. In any event, they are surely too substantial to suffer the neglect that has been their lot: they are almost never per formed in concert and have not been available on records for several years. The latter cir cumstance is most handsomely corrected with the release of this excellently played and re corded set: indeed, it would be hard to imagine how these inspiriting performances could be bettered. They are played from a new per forming edition prepared by Christopher Hogwood, whose editions of L'Estro Armoni co and Corelli's Op. 6 Concerti Grossi were used in the Academy's recent Argo record ings of those works (and who again serves as one of the keyboard players in the continuo).
In this set, as in those, the continuo is rich and varied-harpsichord, organ, a pair of theorbos, bassoon, and/or violone; the use of the organ in all but two of the opening fast movements may come as a surprise, but it is a most effective touch, enhancing the robust, warm character of those exuberant allegros.
Alternating the solo responsibilities be tween two violinists was another nice idea, and fully in keeping with the custom of Vivaldi's time; both soloists here are splendidly attuned to the style, and so similar in their approach that there is no jarring personality shift from one concerto to the next. If there is any complaint to be made, it might be that the harpsichord is too distantly recorded in spots--but, personally, I would rather have it this way than jangling away front-and-center as if it, and not the violin, were the solo instrument. Musical and sonic excellence characterize the entire set. R.F.
WAGNER: Der Fliegende Hollander (high lights). Hans Hotter (baritone), the Dutchman: Georg Hann (bass). Daland; Viorica Ursuleac (soprano), Senta: Karl Ostertag (tenor), Erik: Franz Klarwein (tenor), Steuer mann: Louise Willer (contralto). Mary. Choir and Orchestra of the Munich State Opera. Clemens Krauss cond. BASF 21538 $6.98.
Performance: Of historical interest
Recording. Dated
Veteran collectors will recall that this performance was once available, complete, on the Mercury label. The recording, dating from 1944, was considered mediocre even by early LP standards and shows its age even more now, but the performance is not without merit.
Clemens Krauss paces the music with vigor and authority, but, of course, the antiquated sound of the orchestra limits his effectiveness.
It is a pleasure to rediscover Hans Hotter in his vocal prime, singing the Dutchman's music in tones of firmness and resonant warmth-qualities not found in his recordings of later years. Georg Hann in his brief scenes projects a Daland of exceptional vitality, and the two tenors are capable. The Senta of Viorica Ursuleac, however, is woe fully inadequate. (She, too, was an eminent soprano once, but only her status as Madame Clemens Krauss can explain her appearance on this record. . . .) I recommend the disc only to those who wish to retain a souvenir of Hotter's superb Dutchman. -GJ.
WAGNER: Parsifal (excerpts). James King (tenor), Parsifal; Gwyneth Jones (soprano), Kundry: Franz Crass (bass), Gurnemanz: Thomas Stewart (baritone), Amfortas; Donald McIntyre (baritone). Klingsor. Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra. Pierre Boulez cond. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2536 023 $7.98.
Performance. Mostly good
Recording: Good
This is the only single LP devoted to high lights from Parsifal, a lengthy opera that nonetheless is rarely abridged. The scenes have been skillfully edited and include the Prelude with the opening lines of Gurne manz's greeting, Amfortas' first anguished soliloquy (Act I), the Klingsor-Kundry dialogue leading up to the appearance of the Flower Maidens (Act II), the Good Friday Scene, and the Final Scene ( Act Ill). In allot ting minimal exposure to the weak Kundry and the wobbly Klingsor, the disc shows the other principals to good advantage. particularly Thomas Stewart, who sings Amfortas' music with moving eloquence. The conducting of Pierre Boulez is clear-textured and con siderate of the singers, but those familiar with the Knappertsbusch or Solti interpretations will miss their massive power.-GJ.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
WEILL: Three Penny Opera, Suite. KURKA: The Good Soldier Schweik, Suite. Music for Westchester Symphony Orchestra. Siegfried Landau cond. CANDIDE CE 31089 $4.98.
Performance: First-rate Recording: Very good Mordant musical satire--Kurt Weill's of decadence in the Germany of the Twenties. Robert Kurka's of war and its ways-makes up a record that deserves points for programming as well as for performance. Weill's suite from the Three Penny Opera, called in German Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, conveys a bitter humor that instantly identifies it as his work, not only in mocking, nervous tunes like the famous Moritat, in Polly's song of disillusionment, and in the deliberately awkward Tango-Ballad, but also in the dry, period orchestration so skillfully preserved in the com poser's own symphonic arrangement. The Good Soldier Schweik, an opera based on the anti-war satirical novel by Czech author Jaroslav Hasek, deals with a seemingly idiotic soldier who manages to survive his German military masters by playing it dumb straight through the First World War. It was a suite before Kurka expanded it into the memorable opera produced at the New York City Opera shortly before his death at fifty in 1958. The suite includes six short pieces-an overture depicting Schweik's character, a lament, a quirky march, a war dance, a pastorale. and a finale.
Both works have been recorded before--Weill's more trenchantly by Erich Leinsdorf and more broadly by Bernard Herrmann, Kurka's creditably on the Louisville label under Robert Whitney-but both get first-rate treatment here, and they reinforce each other in derisive irreverence when they are heard in sequence. P.K.
COLLECTIONS
LAURINDO ALMEIDA: Duets with the Spanish Guitar, Album 3. Mignone: Pussarinho estd cantando. Ovalle-Bandeiro: Modinha.
Tchaikovsky: Waltz from the Serenade for Strings. Fella: Cancion; Farruca from The Three-Cornered Hat. Ravel: Pavane pour une Infante Defunte; Menuet from Le Tombeau de Couperin. Bach: Duetto III from the Clavierubung; Menuets I and II from the Partita in B-flat Major; Gigue from the Parti ta in B-flat Major. Trad.: Three Songs. Laurindo Almeida (guitar); Salli Terri (soprano); Martin Ruderman (flute): Vincent de Rosa (French horn). ANGEL S-36076 $6.98.
Performance: Polished and tasteful
Recording: Excellent
This is the third volume of reissues in the "Duets with the Spanish Guitar" series that won much critical acclaim when it was in the Capitol catalog some ten years ago. The connecting link is Laurindo Almeida; the "duets" are sometimes ingeniously conceived double voicings executed by the guitarist himself.
Otherwise Mr. Almeida takes the upper hand or provides effective counterpoint for Salli Terri's appealing vocalizing or Vincent de Rosa's remarkable horn playing (in two Bach selections), and Martin Ruderman adds his tasteful flute obbligatos to four tracks. It is all done with great skill, and if the sequence from a Brazilian modinha to Tchaikovsky or from an American folk song to Bach seems a bit strange, I can assure you that it works fine in this uniquely appealing recital of unostentatious virtuosity and flagrant tastefulness.
----- Blackearth Percussion Group: left to right, Garry Kvisted,
Richard Kvisted, Allen Otte, Michael Udow
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BLACKEARTH PERCUSSION GROUP.
Harrison: Fugue. Miller: Quartet Variations.
Bertoncini: Tune. Garland: Apple Blossom.
Cage: A mores. Albright: Take That. Black-earth Percussion Group. OPUS ONE 22 $4.98 (by mail from Opus One, Box 604, Greenville, Me. 04441).
Performance: Knockout
Recording: Very good
The Blackearth Percussion Group comprises faculty artists-in-residence at Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Illinois, but there is nothing academic or "provincial" about their music. Theirs is a very dynamic and sensitive percussion ensemble with a tremendous range of sound and sensibility. The lead piece in this recording, Lou Harrison's Fugue (1941), is a real find; John Cage's Amores (1943) also represents that very attractive early American percussion period of the Thirties and For ties, and Peter Garland's Apple Blossom, soft sustained music for two marimbas, claims descent from that tradition. William Al bright's Take That, for sixteen low drums, claims its inspiration from the galley-slave scene in Ben Hur, and when you hear it you'll know why. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning. Mario Bertoncini's Tune for an army of suspended cymbals is an intellectualized, worked-out, European sound piece in the manner of Stockhausen. Finally, Edward Miller's Quartet Variations is a graphic sketch-a kind of plotted improvisation-by the group. All of this music is very well planned, performed, and produced. Percussion-music records are certainly no longer novelties, but this is a good one.-E.S.
HILDE GUEDEN: Children's Songs from Many Lands. Hilde Gueden (soprano); Vienna Volksoper Orchestra, George Fischer cond. LONDON STS 15167 $3.49.
Performance: Good
Recording: Good
There are thirty-five songs here: sixteen German songs, nine English nursery rhymes, five internationally known French songs, and five others (Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, and Japanese). Hilde Gueden, accompanied by what sounds like a tiny orchestra, sings them with straightforward simplicity, clear enunciation, and obvious affection. Everything is tastefully done, and, though I am not sure about what kind of audience will go for a collection like this (the parents may like it more than the children do). I enjoyed it, and I certainly wish its producers the best of luck with it.-GJ.
FRANK PATTERSON: My Dear Native Land. The Bard of Armagh; The Minstrel Boy; She Lived Beside the Anner; The Stuttering Lovers; The West's Awake; Lark in the Clear Air; The Young May Moon; Kelly, the Boy from Wane; An Raib Tu Ag an gCarraig; and five others. Frank Patterson (tenor); orchestra, Thomas C. Kelly cond. PHILIPS 6599 227 $7.98.
Performance. The corn is green
Recording: Very good
Frank Patterson started his career as a boy soprano in the local choral society of Clonmel in Eire where he was born. He grew up to have a glorious tenor voice, which he puts in the service here of a program of those Irish songs that are such a curious blend of love, courtship, politics, and patriotic polemics.
From men meeting maids on May mornings in meadows to the angrier patriotic ballads. Mr.
Patterson takes them all on with equal and artful enthusiasm. The melting impressionist arrangements were devised by Thomas C. Kelly, who conducts them with a fervor that sometimes swamps the simple contents of the songs themselves. P.K.
ROMANTIC DUETS. Mendelssohn: Herbstlied: Maigleickchen and Bliimelein; Abendlied. Schumann: So water die Sonne scheinet; Herbstlied; Schein Bliimelein. Brahms: Weg der Liebe; Die Meere; Pheinomen. Dvorak: Meiglichkeit; Der Apfel; Der kleine Acker; Die Taube auf dem Ahorn; Der Ring. Herrad Wehrung (soprano); Traugott Schmohl (baritone); Karl-Michael Komma (piano).
MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY MHS 1896 $3.50 (plus 75c handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society Inc., 1991 Broad way, New York, N.Y. 10023).
Performance: Good
Recording: Good
Some of these vocal duets are seemingly new to records; others may be familiar to those acquainted with the Evelyn Lear/Thomas Stewart Deutsche Grammophon release of some years ago or the new Judith Bleg en/Frederica von Stade recording on Columbia. The singers and pianist on this MHS disc are not in the same interpretive league as the DG and Columbia artists, but they manage these intimately scaled and relatively undemanding songs well. As for the music, it is consistently enjoyable without calling forth deeper emotions of any kind. The Dvorak songs, in particular, have an infectious lilt, and Schumann's Schein Blumelein, with its rippling rhythm, will remind you of Schubert's Die Forelle. Texts are not supplied, but the annotation by Douglas Townsend is unusually informative.-GJ.
AKSEL SCHIOTZ: Recitals (see Choosing Sides, page 92)
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America’s Musical Heritage
EVEN before the long-heralded bicentennial of the republic is upon us, the land is being inundated with television specials, history-minded spot announcements, elaborately packaged illustrated editions of history books, and record albums marking the event. If a new three-volume, twelve-disc blockbuster from CMS Records, priced at nearly $90 ($100 on cassette), is any gauge, we will soon be inundated beyond the powers of our poor ears (and the elasticity of our budgets) to cope with it all.
"The Musical Heritage of America" is billed as "the exciting story of the U.S. told through the songs of its people, with spoken introductions to each selection by Tom Glazer." Mr. Glazer is the possessor of a pure and pleasant baritone and an affable, unaffected micro phone manner; I can think of few other folk singers (and no musicologists at all) I would rather have sing nearly 150 songs to me. Yet there were times when the stubborn simplicity of the material and the relentless directness of Glazer's approach were enough to make me long for a juicily elaborate arrangement re corded in souped-up stereo by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir aided and abetted by the Roger Wagner Chorale and maybe even the Vienna Choirboys. There is something so dreadfully educational and doggedly enlightening about these multi-record sets, so obviously assembled with one eye on the budget and another on the local school libraries! Even so, this particular collection comes off a great deal more engagingly than many of its predecessors.
Mr. Glazer begins by asking, in the first volume, "What is a folk song?" He answers, in terms that suit his own programming purposes, that a folk song "is almost any song which is liked by almost everybody in the country of its origin over a long period of time." This enables him to include songs by such readily identifiable composers as Stephen Foster and William Billings along with ballads handed down through the generations in the "oral tradition" by "the folk." Since I have long suspected that "the folk" have been studiously ignoring folk songs for centuries and are certainly not the main audience for this music any more anyway, that approach is fine with me. At the same time, it makes the contents of these collections fairly arbitrary, since it's possible to include Foster and ignore Ives, for example, on the grounds that, Glazer says. Ives' songs would be among those "liked only by certain minorities of people instead of by majorities in any given area." BE that as it may, after Glazer's opening comments he and his colleagues (they vary from album to album) get down to business.
With some able assistance from Pat Moffit's voice (vaguely Joan Baez-ish), Dick Weissman's and William Nininger's guitars, and Mr. Weissman's banjo, we are launched into Colonial times. Early hymns and ballads trans planted from Britain-such as The House Carpenter, Lord Rendal, and Barbara Allen--are gradually supplanted by home-grown material: war songs, pirate songs, comic bal lads, sea chanties, love songs. Most of them have been recorded before, and many in more ambitious settings, but it is fascinating to hear them this way in the perspective of history, a record of the country's settlement and development. The narrative passages serve to move us forward and spare us the necessity of consulting tedious notes; they are succinct, entertaining, and related with gusto, making each of the twenty-four sides in this collection a kind of self-contained radio show.
Here are refreshingly insolent songs leading up to the Revolutionary War-ballads about the Boston tea tax, the capture of Quebec in 1759, an answer from the Colonials to the jeers of the British in Boston in the form of a parody set to the Englishmen's own tune offering to give the English generals "a dance upon liberty tree." Then come the war songs, from both the American Revolution and the War of 1812, followed by ballads celebrating such events as the opening of the Erie Canal, the building of the railroads (how I longed for Tom Smothers during some of these), the trek west, the Gold Rush. The performances are almost all lively and enjoyable-except when it comes to big numbers like The Hunters of Kentucky, Lolly Toodum, and the sea chanties, when one wishes Mr. Glazer had been granted an ampler stipend so that he might sign on at least a small chorus and maybe a few more instruments. And I have heard more moving renditions of Shenandoah and Down in the Valley, which are a little beyond this singer's powers of emotional projection. Mr.
Glazer and his friends shine brighter in the quick, strict-rhythmed numbers such as Old Dan Tucker, Pat Works on the Railway, and The Blue Tail Fly than in more sentimental, melodic songs calling for bigger voices or a more daring departure from the rhythmic beat to which they adhere all too faithfully.
VOLUME Two takes us through the Civil War. This time, Mr. Glazer's fellow vocalists are Eileen Gibney and Kemp Harris, along with Jackie Spector and Pam Goff, while Mr. Harris plays the piano and Mr. Gibney provides obbligato effects on the banjo, autoharp, and pennywhistle. The music ranges from militant marching songs to songs of war weariness, from sentimental ballads of the girl left behind to comic songs about the army diet of beans and peanuts, from prisoner-of-war songs to songs of longing for peace, from When Johnny Comes Marching Home to minstrel songs. The most prolific songwriter of the period was George Root, a man resourceful enough to have written two versions of his Battle Cry of Freedom, one for rallying the boys around the flag, another for actual battle. Among the shamelessly maudlin songs in the Noble Sentiment department of the period are Lorena (which one writer of the time described as "probably the most cherished air on both sides of the struggle"), Just Before the Battle Mother, and Aura Lee (which Elvis Presley used a century later for the tune of Love Me Tender).
I was particularly struck by a ballad called Common Bill, a "gumphead" who might just be a blood relative of the Bill P. G. Wodehouse wrote his lyrics about for Showboat.
Some of the songs in this group are heard in both Northern and Southern versions set to the same tune--sometimes with only the word "blue" substituted for "grey," so that the whole things works on either side of the Ma son-Dixon line. Mr. Glazer gets us ably and adroitly through the entire war right up to Sherman's march to the sea and the burial of Lincoln, with a ballad for each, and even sup plies a coda in which he reminds us, dutifully, that tensions still exist "between people of different backgrounds." There are almost fifty songs, more than two hours' worth, on the four records in Volume Two. None of them were among the 1,200 songs entered in a Civil War competition for a prize of $500, of which not one was deemed worthy enough to be honored as the winner.
This brings us to Volume Three, "The Winning of the West." Here we are back with Miss Moffit and another singer, Jane Olian, both seemingly content to remain demurely in Mr. Glazer's shadow. We trek across the prairies with the pioneers, shoot Indians, extol the virtues of Home on the Range, and shake our fists at that "dirty little coward" who "laid Jesse James in his grave." The program is divided into one side for the "settlers and sod-busters," another for the "cowboys and Indians," and yet another (the liveliest) for the bad guys like train-robber Sam Bass and the Johnny who was shot dead-a-da-dead-dead by his gal Frankie. Later there are songs of the Gold Rush. songs of the loggers or "shanty-boys." suitable accompaniment for cutting down trees, and songs, once more, about the building of that transcontinental railroad. The pageant of our "musical heritage" comes to a close with a miscellany of ballads: Green Grow the Lilacs, Dakota Land, and The Buffalo Skinners.
WITH the assistance of an able engineer, Mr. Glazer and company have done a brave job of seeing through a project of formidable dimensions and somehow avoiding getting lost in the cul-de-sacs and sand-traps of history and folk music. There's enough variety, entertaining anecdotal sidelights, and information here along with the songs to divert and enlighten just about anybody. I therefore suggest you ignore the text that is provided, since it is riddled with misprints and sometimes wildly at variance with the version being sung. Just listen, learn, and enjoy.-Paul Kresh
THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF AMERICA: Volume I-From Colonial Times to the Beginning of the Civil War. Tom Glazer (narration, guitar, vocals); Pat Moffit (vocals); Dick Weissman (guitar, banjo); William Nininger (guitar). Who Is the Man?; When Jesus Wept: Tobacco's But an Indian Weed; The Little Mohee: The Indian Christmas Carol; and fifty-two others. CMS RECORDS 650/4L four discs $28.92, X-4650/4L $32.80.
THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF AMERICA: Volume H-The Civil War. Tom Glazer (narration, guitar, vocals); Kemp Harris (piano, vocals); Tom Gibney (banjo, guitar, autoharp, pennywhistle, vocals); Eileen Gibney, Jackie Spector, Pam Goff (vocals). / Am Sold and Going to Georgia; Run to Jesus;
Johnny, Won't You Ramble; Follow the Drinking Gourd; No More Mourning: and forty others. CMS RECORDS 660/4L four discs $28.92, X-4660/4L $32.80.
THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF AMERICA: Volume III-The Winning of the West. Tom Glazer (narration, guitar, vocals); Pat Moffit, Jane Olian (vocals); Dick Weissman (guitar, banjo). Great Grandad; The Sherman Cy clone; Common Bill; The Lane County Bachelor; The Housewife's Lament; and forty-one others. CMS RECORDS 670/4L four discs $28.92, X-4670/4L $32.80.
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Also see:
CONDUCTOR CARLO MARIA GIULINI--"The orchestra is not an instrument! It is human beings who play instruments"
EDITORIALLY SPEAKING, WILLIAM ANDERSON