--Herbert Blomstedt, Massachusetts-born Swedish conductor
The Concertos of Denmark's Carl Nielsen in New and Sweepingly Superior Performances
THE Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra's authoritative performances of all of Carl Nielsen's symphonies, concertos, and miscellaneous orchestral works under the direction of its Massachusetts-born Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt were issued by EMI in England two years ago as an eight-disc set at full price. It was a terrific production, and it was quite unexpected that collectors in this country would be offered the double advantage of having these recordings on the half-price Seraphim label and being able to buy them in smaller installments instead of having to pop for the whole series at once.
The symphonies were enthusiastically received when they appeared here several months ago in two three-disc sets (SIC-6097, SIC-6098) and the just-received concertos, a very convenient two-disc package, will be welcomed as well, for the performances, more consistently than those of the symphonies, assert a sweeping superiority over their respective predecessors. The soloists involved also happen to symbolize the pan-Scandinavian stature of Denmark's great composer.
The most striking performance, fortunately, is that of the most interesting concerto. The young Swede Kjell-Inge Stevensson, as he demonstrated so spectacularly in his solo recital on Bis LP-62 (reviewed here in July), is a mas ter clarinetist, and he is superbly at tuned to the fantastic imagery of the Clarinet Concerto. Frantz Lemsser, a native Dane who is the DRSO's own principal flutist and who was a pupil of Gilbert Jespersen-for whom Nielsen composed his Flute Concerto--gives an equally persuasive account of that work. The Norwegian violinist Arve Tellefsen, who has been heard in chamber music on Bis/HNH, bears a striking resemblance to the younger Yehudi Menuhin, and his impassioned performance of the large-scale, romantic Violin Concerto is very much in the same vein as the one Menuhin recorded with the same orchestra (under Mogens Woldike) when he was about Tellefsen's present age. The orchestra, which of course established something like proprietary rights through its long history of performances and recordings of these works, is at the top of its form (with especially fine work from the winds everywhere) and is beautifully integrated with the respective soloists.
By way of a bonus, the second side off the Violin Concerto includes the intriguing Symphonic Rhapsody, which Nielsen composed in 1889 as the first movement of a symphony he took no further. It is not unreasonable to find in this piece (which remained unpublished until after Nielsen's death) a good deal of the individuality that was to stamp his later works: the First Symphony, after all, appeared only five years after this false start.
The sound on Seraphim is not quite as impressive as on the English pressings, but it is quite fine nonetheless, whether played back in four channels, (SQ) or in two. The only cause for complaint is the misspelling of the composer's name on the spine of the record box; in every other respect this, is a distinguished release, and one need by no means be an already confirmed Nielsenite to respond to it: indeed, the universality of this music's appeal has never been more clearly demonstrated.
-Richard Freed
NIELSEN: Clarinet Concerto, Op. 57; Flute Concerto; Violin Concerto, Op. 33; Symphonic Rhapsody. Kjell-Inge. Stevensson (clarinet); Frantz Lemsser (flute); Arve Tellefsen (violin); Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt cond. SERAPHIM D SIB-6106 two discs $7.98.
Du Pre and Barenboim: New Dimensions For Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto
IN 1963 Jacqueline du Pre, then seven teen, made her disc debut with the Elgar Cello Concerto after having achieved a huge success with it at Lon don's Royal Festival Hall. The Angel recording with Sir John Barbirolli is still listed in the catalog. Tragically, what seemed to be a career of limitless promise was cut short after barely a decade by the onset of multiple sclerosis. Fortunately for us, Du Pre was able in that time to record a good portion of the cello repertoire, much of it with her husband Daniel Barenboim as pianist or conductor.
The contrast between Jacqueline du Pre at age seventeen and at age twenty five is nowhere more stunningly documented than in Columbia's just-issued live-performance recording of that same Elgar concerto taped on November 27 and 28, 1970, with Barenboim and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It is one of those "dare everything" readings where the artists take an all-out gamble on achieving a uniquely revelatory realization of a score-or else of losing out completely through not being able to hold things together. It's the sort of thing Furtwangler used to do and, more often than not, get away with. In short, by phrasing the lyrical sections of the concerto over the maximum allowable span and making use of the utmost range of dynamics, Du Pre, Barenboim, and the Philadelphians have added new dimensions to a concerto normally thought of as relatively intimate and brooding. Granted that such a reading may not be to every one's taste, I found it a thrilling achievement. Miss Du Pre's playing in the scurrying episodes of the scherzo is completely dazzling, and it is hard to imagine a more intense realization than hers of the introspective lyrical pas sages. Further, the Philadelphia Orchestra sound, superbly captured, wholly befits the musical conception of soloist and conductor.
Barenboim and the London Philharmonic offer a relatively restrained reading of the Enigma Variations on the re verse side, with an emphasis on tender sentiment and much care taken with fine detail-though not in an overly fussy way. My own preference among the currently available Enigma recordings remains Haitink on. Philips, but I unhesitatingly urge you to get this disc for the sake of the surpassingly eloquent Cello Concerto.
-David Hall
----------------- JACQUELINE Du PRE AND DANIEL BARENBOIM: a thrilling achievement
ELGAR: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85; Enigma Variations, Op. 36. Jacqueline du Pre (cello); Philadelphia Orchestra (in concerto), London Philharmonic Orchestra (in Enigma), aniel Barenboim cond. CO LUMBIA M 34530 $6.98, MT 34530 $6.98.
Tom Paxton: The Kind of Album You'll Want to Play For Your Friends.
TOM PAXTON'S back (from living in England for four years or so) with some witty-to-devastating things to say about what's been going on around here lately. He's got the subtle great taste of Steve Goodman's guitar behind him, and he's given it all a one-take spontaneity by recording new songs in a live setting, so "New Songs from the Briarpatch" on Vanguard is a keeper.
---- TOM PAXTON: some witty-to-devastating things to say.
Some of the targets may seem a little easy. They include Watergate, the Vietnam War aftermath, environment rapists, an economic situation that has poor people eating dog food-but Paxton has a way of writing more about the causes and background of a particular situation than a strict constructionist would expect. And he does it with great economy; witness the opening line of Born on the Fourth of July, keyed to a book of the same name by a bitter Vietnam vet: "As a schoolboy I played ... with a plastic grenade." Take that, America! And in Bring Back the Chair (the electric chair, that is), he gets into the everything-is-entertainment decadence he sees in this country: "Slap a little make-up to 'em/As the juices sizzle through 'em/Howard Cosell could interview 'em." The problem with this sort of thing, at least for hermits who play recordings only for themselves, is the same as that with an editorial cartoon or a comedy record: it doesn't take the receiver very many takes to assimilate it. Paxton wedges some more general songs in be tween the political ones to soften that effect, and the melodies and the fine acoustic backing help (although the re cording makes the bass sound a little [humpy in spots-and great in others).
Anyway, it's the kind of album you would want to play for friends, prefer ably one at a time, until you run out of friends who haven't heard it. It's one of the best "You gotta hear this" al bums to come my way in months, and I plan to start laying it on people this very day.
- Noel Coppage
TOM PAXTON: New Songs from the Briarpatch. Tom Paxton (vocals, guitar); Steve Goodman (guitar); Herb Bushier (bass); Angel Allende (percussion). Did You Hear John Hurt?; Pandora's Box; Bring Back the Chair; Birds on the Table; Talking Water gate; There Goes the Mountain; Cotton-Eye Joe; You Can Eat Dog Food; You're So Beautiful; Mister Blue/White Bones of Allende; Born on the Fourth of July. VANGUARD VSD-79395 $6.95.
Nancy Wilson's Furious Exasperation, Seasoning Wisdom, and Triumphant Vitality
THE "secret" of long-lasting female beauty, according to one of the trashier supermarket newspapers I'm addicted to, is "great cheekbones." Greta Garbo, Faye Dunaway, Katherine Hepburn, and Catherine Deneuve all have them, according to this unimpeachable source. Nancy Wilson's newest Capitol release, "I've Never Been to Me," shows that she has them too-literally, as you can see in the cover photo, and musically, as you soon discover in listening to the album itself.
Wilson is now a woman "of a certain age," more beautiful than ever physically, and since the baby fat has dropped away from her performances she steps- forth as an authentic musical beauty too. The trappings of tissue-paper-stuffed glamour have been put aside, no longer needed by a self-confident woman conscious of her true, natural appeal, just as the stridency and harshness have gone out of her performances, leaving the basic musical strengths intact. Wilson's sexy, show-biz delivery has been toned down, and her voice is now completely and securely her own instrument of communication, no longer merely the echo of some producer's advice. In short, Nancy Wilson has finally be come herself, and the lady is simply dynamite.
Her stunning performance of the title song here is probably the best thing she's done yet. It's a tough, world-weary, and worldly wise song, a bit of advice to someone younger from a woman who's been around-once too often. Wilson sings it with an overriding tone of furious exasperation with herself and with all of life's unsatisfying surface pleasures-"I've been to paradise/But I've never been to me. . . ." Mixed in with this is a seasoning wisdom that knows how to sort the good times from the bad, as well as a triumphant vitality that suggests she will find herself in the end. Yeah, she packs all that into one song-quite an accomplishment for a performer who can still, just by walking out on a club floor, knock 'em dead on looks and "personality" alone. She does some other very fine work here, particularly in the gentle and moving Patience My Child (which she co-wrote with Billy Page) and in a high-flying Love Is Alive.
Nancy Wilson has now joined that select bevy of ladies with great musical cheekbones-Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Ella. Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Carmen MacRae, and Mabel Mercer. I don't have to tell you how to celebrate, do I?
-Peter Reilly
NANCY WILSON: I've Never Been to Me. Nancy Wilson (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Flying High; All By Myself; Love Is Alive; Car of Love; I've Never Been to Me; Changes; Patience My Child; Nobody; Here It Comes; Moments. CAPITOL ST-11659 $6.98, 8XT-11659 $7.98, 4XT-11659 $7.98.
--------- NANCY WILSON: great musical cheekbones.
Jill Gomez: An Elegant Recitalist, A Cultivated Singer, A Major Vocal Find
Two English-import recital discs on the Saga label introduce us to soprano Jill Gomez. She is a Covent Gar den regular who has grown, in the last few years, to be a very successful con cert and opera performer in the British Isles. She may be new to us, but she is a major vocal find: a cultivated, musicianly singer of telling dramatic gifts and of wide-ranging stylistic affinities as well.
Both recitals--one all Mozart, one of French songs--are eminently successful, and the compliments should begin with the choice of programs. The French disc offers two familiar Bizet songs along with two rarities, three songs from the Berlioz Op. 2 Irlande (French translations of Thomas Moore poems), and the Debussy songs to the composer's own texts. Miss Gomez's French pronunciation is exemplary, and her "cool," almost vibrato-less sound maintains a pure vocal line (with very gracefully executed ornaments) throughout. These are demanding songs in matters of tessitura, interval leaps, and dynamic subtleties, and the artist rises brilliantly to all their many challenges.
The flawless intonation Miss Gomez exhibits in the French repertoire serves her equally well in her Mozart recital.
There is, of course, less variety here, but the arietta Ridente la Calma and the late (K. 619) Deutsche Kantate effectively break up the sequence of short pieces that are more like dramatic scenes than lieder in the manner of the yet-unborn Schubert. Miss Gomez makes the most of the dramatic qualities of these songs, an approach that contrasts interestingly with that of Edith Mathis (Deutsche Grammophon 2530 319), a warmer-toned and more spontaneous-sounding singer less concerned with fastidious detail. Fortunately, only about half of Miss Mathis' choices are duplicated here, for both discs are worth owning. (It should be noted that Miss Gomez's German and Italian pronunciation is not quite the equal of her French: in the Anglo American manner, she is apt to slight doubled consonants, which are particularly important in Italian.) In Debussy's Proses Lyriques, the piano may be said to be an equal partner with the voice; John Constable copes with this taxing assignment excellently--and with all the others too. Texts are provided with the French pro gram, but not, unfortunately, with the Mozart. The recorded sound is good without being spectacular.
-George Jellinek
--- JILL GOMEZ: cool sound, flawless intonation
JILL GOMEZ: A Recital of French Songs. Bizet: Chanson d'Avril; Adieux de l'Hotesse Arabe; Vous ne Priez Pas; La Chanson de la Rose. Berlioz: Le Coucher du Soleil; L'Ori gine de la Harpe; La Belle Voyageuse. De bussy: Proses Lyriques (De Reve, De Greve, De Fleurs, De Soir); Noel des Enfants Qui n'Ont Plus de Maisons. Jill Gomez (so prano); John Constable (piano). SAGA 5388 $6.98.
JILL GOMEZ: Mozart Songs. Als Luise die Briefe ihres Ungetreuen Liebhabers Ver brannte (K. 520); Das Veilchen (K. 476); Die Zufriedenheit (K. 473); An die Hoffnung (K. 390); An die Einsamkeit (K. 391); Sehnsucht nach dem Fru hlinge (K. 596); Die Gross mu tige Gelassenheit (K. 149); Die Kleine Spinnerin (K. 531); Ridente la Calma (K. 152); Das Lied der Trennung (K. 519); Der Zauberer (K. 472); Dans UTI Bois Solitaire (K. 308); Oiseaux, si Tous les Ans (K. 307); Abendempfindung (K. 523); Gesellenreise (K. 488); An die Freundschaft (K. 148); Eine Kleine Deutsche Kantate (Die ihr des uner messlichen Weltalls Schopfer ehrt, K. 619). Jill Gomez (soprano); John Constable (piano). SAGA 5441 $6.98.
War's Doggoned Good Two-record Set Of Platinum Whatever-it-is
WAR'S new album on the Blue V Note label is called "Platinum Jazz.- The title puzzled me at first.
------ War, left to right: Lonnie Jordan, Harold Brown, Howard Scott,
Dee Allen ... B. B. Dickerson, Lee Oskar, and Charles Miller.
While War, a powerhouse West Coast group, is quite capable of producing an album that might "go platinum" in the market place, jazz was not exactly what one would call the music they have been playing and singing through out the years. So I set all my little categories aside and simply listened to the music contained on these four sides. Whatever it might be called, it is doggoned good.
Since its inception in 1969 under the aegis of Eric Burdon (who had similarly fronted the Animals), War has had a distinctive sound that has set it apart from the battalion of groups on the boards. First of all, its music is primarily instrumental, with occasional group chants rather than the usual up-front vocals complementing an instrumental base. The combination of instruments used is an interesting one: not only are keyboards, guitar, sax, bass, and the usual drum assembly present, but con gas, timbales, and harmonica are also woven in. The harmonica, indeed, of ten serves as lead "vocalist," lending rich blues tonalities to the overall texture. Then, too, members of this group have been hip enough to tap the deep reservoir of Caribbean rhythms, thus endowing their music with a more powerful thrust than the average rock beat permits.
All of these elements are used to fine advantage on this excellent album. Al though the opening track (War Is Coming! War Is Coming!) is as repetitious as its title and tends to drag on far too long, there are no other dull moments.
An outstanding feature throughout is the inspired harmonica work of Lee Oskar, particularly on the intimate I Got You and Four Cornered Room, which is nothing but the blues.
While many two-record sets leave one restless or bored after two and a half sides, I defy anyone to doze through this platinum whatever-it-is of War.
-Phyl Garland
WAR: Platinum Jazz. War (vocals and instrumentals). Slowly We Walk Together; Platinum Jazz; I Got You; L.A. Sunshine; River Niger; Smile Happy; Deliver the Word; Four Cornered Room; War Is Coming! War Is Coming!; H2 Overture; City, Country, City; Nappy Head. BLUE NOTE BNLA-690 J2 two discs $9.98.
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Also see:
CLASSICAL DISCS and TAPES: The Sensational Heinrich Schiff RICHARD FREED; Rostropovich Conducts the Tchaikovsky Symphonies RICHARD FREED; Quintessence: A Rich Lode of Reissues RICHARD FREED; The Delights of Gerald Finzi DAVID HALL; The Art of Lotte Lehmann GEORGE JELLINEK; Stokowski's Wagner ERIC SALZMAN
THE CASE OF THE BELITTLED BEATLES TAPES: Perry Mason would have known just how to handle it, HARRY CASTLEMAN and WALLY PODRAZIK