by EDWARD TATNALL CANBY
Louisville Orchestra 100th Golden Edition 1954-1970. (Strauss: Six Songs, Op. 68; Rhodes: The Lament of Michal.) Rita Shane, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprani; Louisville Orch., Mester. LS-704 stereo (Mail order: Louisville Orchestra, 321 West Broadway, Louisville, Ky. 40202).
The Louisville people got so excited about this, their one-hundredth release on LP, that they forgot to put the content of the record on the cover, on either back or front! It's OK--they stuck on a gummed label and inserted a booklet.
Good cause for excitement. The disc combines an unusual and beautifully done set of orchestrated songs by Richard Strauss, from the top of his late-period vocal writing (1918) with a well matched serial-style work for soprano and orchestra by Phillips Rhodes, also beautifully performed by another soprano.
I found both sides quite absorbing, and--for once--not bad as a pair of back-to-back offerings. (Too often, modern works of utterly diverse types are arbitrarily coupled up on LP. ) One hundred records! Would that our columns could have done justice to all of them, over the years. Alas, they are merely a ripple in the big LP flood that still continues, and there are other contemporary series as prolific, notably that from Composers Recordings and such newcomers as the Acoustic Research of, ferings. But Louisville was the pioneer, and as a self-help project, centered on its own home activities, this has been a remarkable enterprise. The prime mover, Robert Whitney, no longer conducts but the new man, Jorge Mester, carries on, mixing modern classics in with new works.
Performances: A, Sound: B
Ecco la primavera--Florentine music of the 14th century. Early Music Consort, David Munrow. Argo ZRG 642 stereo ($5.95)
Want a super-hi-fi record of totally new kind of music? ( Well, not exactly--there are numerous records of such music if you keep up with them.) New, in any case, for most listeners. The Italian title, "Behold the Springtime" gives the cue to the mood. Classical but not heavy! It's music out of that lively Florentine period when all the arts where blossoming, unbelievably and healthily. Music, too, though we've been discovering it only recently. This record combines a fine group of instruments of the time-rebec, mediaeval fiddle, lute, sackbut, crumhorns, shawms, recorders, harp, assorted percussion instruments-with the new kind of voice for such music, light, accurate, non-operatic, blending perfectly with the instruments. Easy listening.
The sound on this record is unusually fine--don't know what they've done. Crisp, clear, the transient sounds beautifully tight, the colors splendidly natural and alive, all against a supernaturally quiet background, virtually soundless. Shows what recording can do, state-of-the-art.
Performances: A Sound: A
J. C. Bach Symphonies. English Chamber Orchestra, Colin Davis; Hurwitz Ch. Orch., Emanuel Hurwitz. L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL 317 stereo ($5.95)
These four short symphonies by the youngest of the Bach sons, the one who sounds like Mozart and was called the "London Bach," will startle listeners who know their Mozart symphonies. Perhaps it is intentional; in any case there are so many Mozart-like ideas in these, either suggestions or almost literal replications, that one might accuse J. C. of plagiarism if he had not come first! in addition, the sound of these orchestras, notably the English Chamber Orchestra with Davis ( Hurwitz takes care of the first of the four works), is broad and big enough to equate with the familiar sound of Mozart symphonies as we usually hear them.
The coincidence of themes and style is in part merely due to common usage of the time, the musical formulas that were put to work by every composer.
There are dozens of "Jupiter Symphony" beginnings, by composers both big and small, because this was an effective way to start off and a very "in" sound for any musician who knew what was right for the moment.
But the peculiar relationship between Bach and Mozart, Bach having been the prime influence on the young Mozart throughout Mozart's first brilliant years of composing, surely accounts for some of the "Mozart-like" ideas in these works.
More properly, they are Bach-like themes when they appear, later on, in Mozart's music.
The difference between the two are significant too. What, indeed, makes Mozart a genius and Bach merely a fine composer? The evidence is right before your ears here, in splendid detail.
Performances: B, Sound: B
John Stanley: Concertos from Op. 2. Hurwitz Chamber Orch., Hurwitz. L'Oiseau Lyre SOL 315 stereo ($5.95).
Don't quite place the name? Stanley was one of the "minor" British composers who followed along in the wake of the great Handel in London, overshadowed (so we always were told) into total obscurity by the Great Man Himself.
Well, not quite. Stanley, though blind, did very well for himself in England, was much in demand in all musical respects and after Handel's death took over some of the work of producing the Handel oratorios. He wrote quantities of his own music, very successfully.
Yes, it sounds very much like Handel. You'd be fooled in an instant. But on closer examination, over a longer span, you find that this younger composer is actually more modern (he was 28 years younger than Handel) ; there are definite signs here and there of the new galant style of graceful ornament, pointing to wards Mozart and the like. Handel influenced, but did not quite obscure these younger British composers, as we had thought.
Not as strong music as Handel either but it flows very easily and with much polish. Excellent addition to your Handel collection.
Performance: B+, Sound: B
Aleksei Nasedkin Schubert Sonata in D, Two Impromptus. Melodiya Angel SR-40145 ($5.98).
Schubert: Sonatas in A Minor, A Major. Lili Kraus. piano. Vanguard Cardinal VCS 10074 stereo ($3.98).
As we all remember. Schubert, with his famous little glasses, was a timid, gentle soul. But inside, there was a real demon in the man and it came out in musical terms. His last works, especially for piano. are tremendous big things, straining even the modern grand in their passionate force. Here are two really top Schubert pianists, each one doing one of those late monsters, each of them beautifully recorded: Lili Kraus. a veteran in Schubert. Mozart, and such (her Mozart piano playing was famous on records 'way back in the middle '30's. as I can remember) straight out of the central tradition, and the young Russian Aleksei Nasedkin. from an alien land hut with an astonishing understanding of the Schubert sense and message.
Lili Kraus is almost unexceptionable, even at a comfortable age and as a woman! Her power is still big, she gets that grand sound. she is the equal of Schubert's pianistic demands. Nevertheless. I still sense, somehow, too much preoccupation with close-up detail, a lack of the long-range drive in spite of her plenty powerful fingers. She is. in a well-bred musical way, a bit too polite à la Viennoise. It is the way Schubert is played in those parts, right in the Viennese tradition. But Schubert today needs a stronger. rawer approach.
Nasedkin has it. His huge piano, in a golden liveness (Kraus' is characteristically miked in a dry acoustic), is technically something out of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, quite strikingly Russian. No matter! He won the famed Tchaikovsky prize, but more importantly, he copped the International Schubert Competition in Vienna. He deserved it. He understands Schubert, projects Schubert, as very few pianists have ever done on records. Beneath the Russian-style exterior there is extraordinary drive, an amazing control of rhythmic power (the very life of Schubert) and, even more important, a real sense for those marvelous Schubert changes of key, strange chords, unexpected shifts of harmony. Some of our finest Western pianists flounder only too audibly in this respect. And so, with all this and a superb sense of the grand shape and drama, this young man plays Schubert as I have never heard it before. He doesn't miss a trick-and some of them have been missing ever since Schubert's day, as far as I can figure.
Vanguard's drier recording is at a lower level on the disc and thus at first seems less impressive than the glorious big Melodiya-Angel sound with all its liveness. Actually, the two recordings are of equal merit, both offering big, eloquent piano sound without distortion or unevenness and minus a trace of unpleasant percussion.
Performances: A, A; Sound: B+, B +
Schubert: Sonata in D. Eugene Istomin, piano. ( Columbia MS 7443 stereo ($5.98)
How different! The same late-Schubert piano sonata that the young Russian Aleksei Nasedkin plays on Melodiya-Angel and the two performances could not be in greater contrast.
Istomin's Schubert is clear, precise, economical and very much of the piano.
Whereas Nasedkin seems to play beyond the piano, into a universal realm of musical expression-the piano is only the vehicle; we forget it (when we aren't concentrating upon the technique displayed) in favor of what it is saying.
Istomin's piano does not let you forget.
Nasedkinis all Russian, a big, passionate, heavy player, in the achieved sound; Istomin, in spite of the background suggested by his non-Yankee name, is all American (as Lili Kraus in her Schubert is sheer central Europe), American in the crisp, no-nonsense efficiency, in the smooth technique applied so precisely, in the warm but not passionate involvement, in the professional attitude that, somehow, treats the Schubert as a problem in piano performance.
Odd-in Columbia's Beethoven Trios this same Istomin is the leading force, the most dynamic of the three players, the most lively and rhythmic. In the Schubert he is cooler and more didactic, though the music would seem to demand just the opposite.
Performance: B, Sound: B +
Rachmaninoff plays Chopin (1920-1930). RCA Victrola VIC 1534 mono ($2.98).
The Art of Alfred Cortot (1930-1948). Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Albéniz, Debussy, Ravel. Seraphim 60143 mono ($2.98).
Here they come, more of the old recordings of the grand old pianists who dominated the recorded art between the big wars. The supply is enormous--Rachmaninoff left 250 separate items, a few of which (two on this disc) have never been published.
Rachmaninoff-massive, potent, dark and brooding, the man of steel whose explosive fingers seemed too strong for mere piano keys. Rachmaninoff the austere; for in a Romantic way he was austere, tailoring his performances to an exact perfection. Was he really, as they said, the first "modern" pianist? He does sound so now. That is, he still sounds normal, if such a powerhouse could be called normal. His style, clearly Russian-built and massive, is not yet old fashioned as we listen. Side I of this disc, including the four-movement Sonata in B Flat Minor, is mostly electric with a massive bassy piano sound. (Two items from 1927 are evidently electric even that early.) Side 2 is acoustic, seven out of nine items dating from 1920 through 1923. Surprisingly similar sound, if scratchier and minus bass. They were splendid acoustic recordings.
Alfred Cortot, whose recordings are a decade younger, is old fashioned--marvelously so. Alongside Rachmaninoff his pianism is outwardly pale, with a French pastel sound; but the impression is misleading-the fire is there, if dampened by low-level recording (one way to avoid percussion and buzz). What counts is the marvelous subtlety of piano color, the layers of forward and background, each of incredible precision, as though played by several people on different instruments. And the old-fashioned impulsiveness, the rubato, the surgings and hesitations! Really beautiful and no pianist could hope to do it today. Yes--there are mistakes, flubs. Everybody (except Rachmaninoff) flubbed a bit in those pre-editing days but Cortot was well known for it. Never bothered him, and so it scarcely bothers us; he goes sailing right on.
Performances: A, A Sounds: C+, C
(Audio magazine, Feb. 1971; Edward Tatnall Canby)
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