Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony (No. 3); Tuba Concerto in F Minor. London
Symphony, Previn. RCA LSC 3281 stereo $5.98.
Vaughan Williams, now at the ripe old posthumous age of 100 (he died in 1958), has rapidly been replacing those British stalwarts, in chronological order, Sir Edward Elgar and Frederic Delius as the foremost British composer of recent but nostalgic times.
V-W (please do not think of the German VW) was a fine human being, an impressive and persuasive personality, a great early researcher in echt British folk music, an excellent choral composer, and last and largest, a writer of smoothly mellifluent large-scale symphonies, bridging the Romantic-Impressionist gap with never a trace (to my memory!) of the 1920s blat-and-squawk irreverence. Throughout that gravelly, lowbrow period he ploughed onward straight ahead, and foreword into the mid-fifties, with the most admirable consistency and Britishness. What more? You'll have to pardon me then, as a somewhat lover of' blat-and-squawk (even unto Stravinsky) if I say that while V-W pleases me as a fabulous musical technician and stylist, in a more profound listening sense he leaves me absenter-minded and absenter-minded, as these vast, genial-serious, light-and-dark musical symphonic landscapes and seascapes move majestically past my ears in all their due length. You just have to like that kind of music. And be tuned to British ineffable conservatism! My review piles of discs, alas, are filled up with dozens of the big works, notably in this RCA series and in that from Angel with Boult and other eminences, all of which I duly note as being available in profusion for those-many listeners-who thrive on V-W. It's a banner year.
I do find, oddly, that the more Romantic, somewhat more extrovert, earlier big works get through to me more easily than those of later and more complex vintage. It was not easy to write big, serious, elegant symphonies in the' twenties and thirties, not to say the fifties, and V-W was neither a Prokofiev nor a Shostakovich, but a much more complicated personality. Again, it's up to the individual listening temperament. No. 3, with the fabulous Heather Harper providing a beautifully elastic soprano instrumental line in the last movement, is a work in the earlier vein, often still impressionistic (did V-W ever wholly abandon that mystical outlook?) though dating from, of all brassy times, 1921. It is well suited to Andre Previn's outspoken sort of orchestral projection.
As for the filler, the Tuba Concerto (1954), it is-on discs-something a bit less than preposterous. I can see it as a glorious piece for the tuba player with its skillful virtuoso writing for that elephant of the instruments. I can even imagine it as highly edifying in the visible circumstances of the concert hall, such lively noises coming out of the big, golden boiler-sized tube! But on records-no. The damn thing just blats, at speeds not quite believable. A supremely professional work piece, but it ain't really for the passive listener. No way.
Performance: B + Sound: B +
The Virtuoso Trumpet. Italian Baroque Concertos. Don Smithers; I Musici. Philips 6500 304 stereo $6.98.
Weber: Symphony No. 1; Cherubini: Symphony in D. New Philharmonia Orch., Boettcher. Philips 6500 154 stereo $ 6.98.
With the American "classical" record biz in the prolonged throes of the reissue/repackage syndrome--a really new recording almost by now a statistical rarity--Philips of Europe brings a refreshing sense of the excitement of days past, when the untapped repertory of music was still nearly infinite and each month brought us music scarcely before imagined. Of course the Philips imports are not necessarily brand new in actual date. But for us, at least, they represent virginal grooves, with never a hint of reissue. Here are some varied samples, out of plenty-and the extra dollar is surely worth it.
The concept holds in every respect, even to the engineers' recorded balance.
The trumpet playing is superb but also very much in the Baroque tradition--one of that corny cornet style that some of the general-purpose trumpeters apply to "old" music! The ornaments are brilliantly right, the tone is clear and pure, the phrasing both forceful and modest, making no more of the trumpet part than it warrants in relation to the rest of the musical interest. And the orchestra, too, plays real music, not a perfunctory accompaniment; clearly the famed "I Musici", which once was pretty stunty and not very authentic, has learned much in its current incarnation. (The group was singled out by Toscanini many years ago and subsequently produced quantities of recordings.) Why, there's even a harpsichord.
The music comprises eight different works of considerably impressive variety, all from the school of Bologna, in Northern Italy, where the Baroque concerto was subjected to very intensive cultivation. Side 1 is a survey of Torelli, who is demonstrably as good a composer as the much more familiar Corelli, down in Rome. Side 2 portrays some of Torelli's little known contemporaries at Bologna and an interestingly high-level lot they were Bononcini, Gabrielli (with two I’s) Grossi, Perti. The trumpet appears in all the works, but not to the point of surfeit. They knew when to stop, in those days.
The second disc is, of course, from another world, that new period of our discovery, the very early Romantic era of the beginning of the last century.
Weber is well enough known for his big German operas, for the brilliant showpiece semi-concerti he wrote for piano, clarinet, and for the opera overtures, now standard symphony repertory stuff. His first symphony, with another in the same key, was no more than an aberrant youthful experiment; the symphony was not his game. Written at 21, it already sounds much like Weber, with a decided bit of Rossini mixed in. But in particular, it is far too dramatic, too interested in details and momentary effects, to suit the definition of a symphony in terms of shape and form. You can hear an opera, and imagine scenery, in almost any page.
As for Cherubini, he was more mature, his symphony somewhat later, but he, too, tried only once, and in the face of the great Beethoven--this was 1815--his music is a Romantic version of a Haydn symphony, lush and wonderfully melodic but on the reserved, aristocratic side. Cherubini, by the way, spent his musical life in Paris and thus was a successor to Gluck, who moved from Vienna to Paris in the last days of the Bourbons. If you know Gluck's music, you will hear the relationship.
The New Philharmonia and the German-Austrian conductor Wilfried Boettcher do a splendid job with the Cherubini and a manful one with the more boisterous and tricky Weber-both of the works, no doubt, previously unknown to the players, and probably learned in a few rehearsals.
Performances: B + Sound: B +
Dvorak: Legends, Op. 59. London Philharmonic, Raymond Leppard. Philips 6500 188 stereo $6.98.
Sometimes Philips is less than savvy "FIRST RECORDING", this disc proclaims. Not quite, though maybe the first complete recording of all ten short pieces for full orchestra. My (sometimes) excellent card system lists two others, one from Columbia, the other on Urania, both mono and 'way back. I got out the Urania pronto, six of the pieces on one LP side with the postwar Radio Berlin Symphony and the estimable Fritz Lehmann. (The other disc was from the Little Orchestra in New York.) Excellent! But dated.
A most unfortunate off-center wow, a common occurrence in the early LP days; but otherwise, a lively, very expressive performance. Curiously, the level is cut much higher than on the new stereo Philips, but is not noticeably distorted. Compensates for the inevitable pops and ticks of early LP vinyl. One can still enjoy these old LPs on occasion, even via a four-channel SQ-logic system.
The Philips recording is milder, with less drive than the old Lehmann disc, and I sense that perhaps the hard working London Philharmonic is less than well rehearsed for this particular job with unfamiliar Romantic music.
Dvorak uses copiously a violin trick he perhaps borrowed from Brahms, the constant doubling of the fiddles in octaves on the melodic line, the upper part very high indeed and tending to squeal if not done with absolute accuracy, in precise tune with the instruments at the lower octave. A million Brahms symphony performances have momentarily foundered on such octave string passages! Even with utter familiarity on the players' part. Not surprising that Dvorak's music would offer problems, and more a reflection on that composer than on the performers themselves, in this case.
Performance: B-; Sound: B
Bach: Cantata No. 32, Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen; No. 57, Selig ist der Mann. Elly Ameling, sopr., Hermann Prey, bass; German Bach Soloists, Winschermann. Philips 6500 080 stereo $ 6.98.
You have other choices in modern recordings of these two Bach cantatas for soprano and bass, with assorted instrumental obbligato parts to go with them. The big appeal of this record is in the two top-rank soloists, the superbly accurate and musical Elly Ameling and the well known bass-baritone, Hermann Prey. They are wonderful to a fault throughout, subject only to the musical styling of the players, the German Bach soloists (Deutsche Bachsolisten) under Helmut Winschermann.
That, unfortunately, is a mild qualification. This German performance is on the fast, economical side, in comparison particularly with the Viennese-style Bach performances. Nothing intrinsically wrong; Bach can surely go faster or slower, to taste, within leeway. But what irks my ear is a familiar conductorial trait in Bach and other Baroque music, a tendency towards rigidly metronomic playing, a pounding, inflexible beat and, above all, a lack of "breathing" sense. The singers are not really inconvenienced here; they have the breath. But one senses, with increasing irritation, that this conductor is bound to drag them along on the fixed pattern of his inflexible beat-and it just isn't either human or natural. To be sure, I have heard far worse examples. But even a small amount of this rigidity viz á viz the human wind instrument (and the others too, such as the oboe) and its freedom to breathe is enough to engender uneasiness. Perhaps you would not know just why, in your own listening. But lack of breath is a thing that affects us instinctively, a sort of claustrophobia in mild form, like a lack of ventilation. Not good!
The recitatives, which are basically without rhythmic beat, are just fine. There, the pair of singers are at their respective best, and most expressive. The impeccably correct rendition of the rest in scholarly terms, the excellent recorded balance, the intelligent playing of the instrumental soloists, do much to make this a good disc. Both cantatas feature the familiar Bach dual roles, the soprano as the seeking soul, the bass as the disembodied Jesus, offering haven and protection, peace, security, in the Heavenly abode.
Performances: B; Sound: B+
"Salve Festa Dies." Gregorian Chant. Benedictine Monks of the Abbey SaintMaurice* & Saint-Maur ( Luxembourg). Philips 6580 061 stereo $6.98.
We Praise Thy Name. Majorie Hayward Madey, soprano. Dan Talbot, organ. Link stereo $5.95. (O. Winston Link.)
A good many recordings are special-purpose releases, avowedly or by implication. Yet they are sent out to general reviewers. Meaning they are supposed to have general appeal? One never knows. Here are two such discs, of particular interest to Catholics, those who were brought up on the church music, widely prevalent before Vatican II, that is now gradually being modified or replaced.
Vatican II, of course, made basic re-reform, these changes left numerous in the use of the local language in place of the old Church Latin. The intention was to improve. But like any reform, these changes left numerous people unhappy in the face of the unfamiliar, and in the loss of the familiar. It was as though suddenly our annual blasts of "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night" and "White Christmas" were proscribed from Xmas radio and TV. In terms of comfortable, familiar music, then, both these discs may be a sort of Catholic nostalgia release. But for people who weren't reared on the music they are likely to be pretty much meaningless and may offend musical taste.
Philips' beautifully produced and performed Gregorian chant disc is not for many non-Catholic turntables, not even for many Catholics. The ancient traditional chant is accompanied on the organ-forcing the splendid modal shapes of the melody into pat Nineteenth century harmonies. Very up to date as of around 1880, with that vaguely French color, á la César Franck, that is still standard in large numbers of churches, cathedrals, monasteries around the Catholic world.
(I listened in on a provincial French wedding in Normandy last summer where it was in full flower, if slightly out of tune.) On the other hand, many of the more sophisticated Catholic churches and monasteries practice the restored Gregorian chant, unaccompanied, as per the reforms of the famed Abbey of Solesmnes in France. (Cf. London Records.) For those who love Gregorian as music tie addition of distorting "modern" harmony is absolutely unacceptable. But for others who have been brought up with those harmonies, this recording will surely be a pleasure. It could not be more persuasively performed. That sums it up.
Miss Madey's recording is direct and to the point. It is designed, says the jacket, "to give Catholics an opportunity to enjoy again, with a certain sense of nostalgia, some of the hymns and songs that were so often sung before Vaticar. Council II." Suffice it to say that for those who are attracted, the job is very well done-though just how the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," complete at a snail's pace with an obbligato trumpet, got into this category of music 1 do not know. The old fashioned pieces are soothingly sanctimonious and reverent, the organ accompaniment is discreet in churchly fashion, Miss Madey's voice is projected with a fine, rich wobble.
Best organ feat of the decade: Dan Talbot, the organist, is said to be just nineteen-his beaming picture looks it. He has been--it says--Miss Madey's accompanist for the last eleven years. Since age eight?? Well, maybe so. (Or maybe the picture and caption are eleven years old).
Please note that O. Winston Link, whose label appears here, was the promoter a few years ago of some of the finest steam railroad recordings ever made, with his own fabulous photographs as accompaniment.
Performances: Depends; Sound: B+, B+
(Audio magazine, Jan. 1973; Edward Tatnall Canby)
= = = =