Copland Conducts Copland. Preamble; Symphonic Ode; Orchestral Variations. London
Symphony Orchestra. Columbia M 31714, stereo, $5.98.
Columbia is systematically, and wisely, documenting Aaron Copland's musical output just as the company so wisely got vast quantities of Stravinsky down on tape in his own readings.
Copland was conveniently born in 1900; you always know how old he is. Obviously he is now in the summing-up period of his long and busy career in the midst of American musical establishment, and it is the right time to get him onto tape, too.
Needless to say, what with so many recordings of his popular pre-war orchestral and dance works-Rodeo, Billy the Kid, El Salon Mexico, Appalachian Spring-the emphasis is bound to be on the more abstruse and "classical" pieces that form a Copland alternative throughout his life. So it is, partly, here. These are not new works, and one is a re-make of a 1930 piece for piano, the famed Variations. They are all of a rigorous sort and offhand might seem hard to take; but if you have any fondness for the lighter Copland, you will burrow into these harsher sounds with no great trouble. Interesting to hear where he derived his more familiar style! It's here, so to speak, in dress tails.
The bid Ode was, as Copland says, a major "statement" in 1929, intended to knock the symphonic world over, which it no doubt did. It has since been sweetened and simplified a bit but remains declamatory, severe, or alternatively lyric-except for a refreshing bit of Copland jazz en route (not related to current jazz, I should note). Then there is the Preamble for a Solemn Occasion (the Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N.) of 1949, which is even more declamatory. Finally, the 1930 Variations in a 1955 orchestral version.
I do believe I was at the premiere of this well known and caustically logical piano work. It was in my college years and I knew no "modern" music whatsoever. I walked in on a semi-informal gathering with my roommate, late-and there was Mr. Copland not ten feet away, whanging and banging, swooping out acrid, ultra-loud piano notes with his long fingers and, it seems, almost his long nose, practically down to the keyboard. Instantly, I got the giggles.
So did my roommate. We huddled down on some steps near the door, horribly embarrassed, unable to get out again, and periodically exploding into stifled hysteria, as the whanging sounds went on, so incredibly odd for our sensitive adolescent ears! It was, shall I say, an occasion to remember, though I hope Mr. C. doesn't.
Later on, I found (after much education in musical listening) that, to my surprise the Variations tamed themselves and came to make perfectly good sense, if somewhat rigorously. They still do, in their 1930 dissonant-tonal way, and the orchestral version makes things immensely easier for the unfamiliar ear. Anyhow, these days, music of this sort doesn't shock and cause giggles.
Not even for hi fi fans. You might even like it.
Performances: A, Sound: A
Debussy/Ravel La Mer. (La Mer; Afternoon of a Faun; Daphnis and Chloë Suite No. 2.) Philadelphia Orch., Ormandy. RCA Quadradisc ARDI 0029, $ 5.98.
No sooner do I burst forth in generalities about the polished but routine Philadelphia playing (see April issue)
than I am happily slapped down by this stunner! I take it all back. At least for this one. It is splendidly alive, beautifully styled and full of intensity. Only the Afternoon of a Faun, no doubt in its ten thousandth Philadelphia performance, is of the familiar polished and routine sort. Not surprising for that ever-faithful favorite of the symphony concert.
We must remember that Eugene Ormandy is now one of our senior conductors, born before 1900, and that this early Twentieth century modern music is right out of his own times, his formative years as a musician. He was six when Debussy's La Mer was first heard-but that work came into its own only some years later. Ravel's Daphnis and Chloë dates from 1912 when he was 13, but again became a symphonic favorite via the two familiar Suites in the years afterwards. Thus this music grew up with Ormandy and it is his modern music, his background. That, surely, is what we hear on this surprising disc. Such intensity! Such fast paced but virtuoso detail. (The excellent Philadelphia players, of course). Such ideal styling and expression. Many present conductors, many of alien nationalities, simply do not evoke much out of these complex and "old fashioned" modern scores. Under Ormandy, they are fluent and wonderfully natural.
Since RCA is distributing its quadra discs as stereo too, at the same price (and only the one release), I am deliberately listening to some of them as though they were standard stereo discs.
Interesting. This one is excellent, only barely noticeably down in volume, for my ear, and timed long enough to pass muster-though there is, to be sure, a pretty wide blank space around the label on each side, the touchy area where the quadraphonic grooves become a bit difficult in the cutting and playing.
I would not have noticed anything at all, however, if I had not been specifically looking for "symptoms" and so I recommend this and the other recent Quadradiscs to all who wish to buy them as straight, standard stereo.
Performance: A, Sound: B
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2. Artur Rubinstein; Philadelphia Orchestra, Ormandy. RCA Quadradisc ARDI 0031, $5.98.
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (1941); "Caprice Bohemien", Op. 12 (1894). London Philharmonic Orch., De Waart. Philips 6500 362, stereo, $ 6.98.
Well how's that? Two-way stereo costs more than four-way quadraphonic in this juxtaposition. But price is not all, if you enjoy Rachmaninoff.
I always do for the first five minutes.
Then, strangely, I find my attention begins to wander and; pretty soon, my eyes cross, my ears go blank and the great sea of sound just beats upon me unfeelingly. It does go on & on. But many souls swoon--all the way through.
More power to them.
For just so long as old Rubinstein continues to put forth his matchlessly youthful and powerful piano playing, I will listen to anything he offers. How can he do it? He was born in Poland in 1886, and now he records in quadraphonic! Edison's phonograph was invented only nine years before this man's birth. I might add, for this record, that though Ormandy can be routine on his own, he is invariably a splendid accompanist, picking up the energy and buoyancy of his solo performers, backing them and strengthening them.
So this one is superb, even in standard stereo reproduction or, for that matter, mono.
The Philips disc from England is unique in that it contains two big orchestral works neither one of which you will have ever heard of. The Symphonic Dances are part of his last trio of works, the more familiar being the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with piano. The Dances remind one of that piece only too clearly, but are not really as good, full of weighty Rachmaninoffisms including the too-familiar "Dies Irae" theme, heard all through the Paganini piece. Waltz rhythms and the like seem almost incongruous in such a massive texture. The "Caprice", a lot more massive than that title would suggest, is ebullient in the early style, all-out late-Romantic, and-well, quite absorbing for the first five minutes. It goes well with the First Symphony, if you like that one. Excellent, incisive playing helps both works.
Performances: A, A; Sound: B+, A
Schubert: Piano Sonata in A, D. 959; German Dances, D. 790. Alfred Brendel. Philips 6500 284, stereo, $ 6.98.
Mozart: Piano Concertos K 459 in F, K. 488 in A. Alfred Brendel; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Marriner. Philips 6500 283, stereo, $6.98.
Alfred Brendel is one of those strong, winsome, gentle European pianists of the central tradition whose life seems to have sprung right out of the Viennese classics. He plays Mozart with love, understanding, modesty, perfect style, though with perhaps a lower voltage than other pianists of similar central European background. He plays Schubert, too, with innate and natural expression. The smaller Schubert, that is. And a good part of the large, late Schubert represented by the Sonata in A. But there are some reservations to be made in this work.
The solo Schubert disc is superb in the last two of the four Sonata movements and, particularly, in the beautifully expressive and well tailored German Dances, remarkably like Chopin waltzes in Brendel's supple playing.
But in the profound and difficult opening Sonata movement and in the slow movement that follows, I sense that Brendel (like many another otherwise major pianist) does not follow the involved and complex harmonies in the central portions, where Schubert rocks the whole concept of tonality in a wholly revolutionary fashion. In contrast, for example, Brendel's near colleague Paul Badura-Skoda plays these movements not only with greater intensity but with an astonishingly dramatic understanding of their harmonic significance. A profound difference.
Brendel has no such problems in Mozart, where his apparently indifferent "ear" for strange and drama-fraught harmonies merely results in a somewhat low-voltage continuity, as abovementioned. No harm done at all, for in Mozart, drama is all too easily overplayed and should not be. I enjoyed the two well known Concerti from beginning to end and particularly the fine shaping of detail and phrase in the A Major, K. 488. The British orchestra in the fields of St. Martin (quaint name!) is crackerjack, and ideal for good Mozart.
Performances: B+, A; Sound: A-; A
Eleanor Roosevelt. A Xerox Recorded Portrait. In Conversation with Arnold Michaelis. Xerox XRP 1001, mono.
Martin Luther King, Jr. A Xerox Recorded Portrait. With Arnold Michaelis. Xerox XRP 1002, mono.
(Xerox Corp., 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106.)
For some years Arnold Michaelis has been pursuing a specialized sort of in-depth personal tape interview with celebrities-since a long time before all the young journalists have been toting around cassettes. In our fast-moving world, Michaelis is a pioneer though his product is not the more usual written account of today, transcribed from tape, but the actual audio itself.
His superb offering on Mrs. Roosevelt, one of the great documents of our time (and that is to her credit, of course, as well as his!) appeared years ago on M-G-M and, I think, was once reissued-then vanished. I myself did a radio tape, inserting my own comments with excerpts, which has also appeared on the air a number of times. Now, Michaelis has got Xerox behind him and there is a whole series, of which I have so far listened to the two here listed. Others are Oscar Hammerstein II and Maurice Chevalier, and, I can guess, there are more if these do OK. Michaelis is astonishingly good at this job. As I get it, this is because of several talents not often combined in one person. First, his voice is unobtrusive, an anonymous, announcer type that does not intrude at all on the flow of the more individualistic voices he is interviewing, and yet is there, discreetly, as a helpful alternative sound contrast.
Second, behind the anonymous voice is a brain-rare, alas, in announcers.
And third, there is an implied persona, an ability to get his subjects to open out and talk, aided by (fourth) an obviously careful preparation of the entire background of factual material.
It works--beautifully. I must congratulate Xerox for this worthy enterprise, and Michaelis for his persistence over the years.
The Roosevelt interview is absolutely fascinating as a portrait of an incredible great lady--as interesting for the eloquent things unsaid, the significant tiny pauses, the tones of voice, the careful balancing of pros and cons, likes and dislikes, as for the marvelous direct look at Eleanor's fabulous childhood and later life among the great, from Uncle Ted (Theodore Roosevelt, the President) right through to her own sons and that indomitable grandma, FDR's mother, who pampered Eleanor's kids and generally loused up the entire Roosevelt home life--all with the best of intentions, of course! And this a few feet from your easy chair as you sit in and listen! As I say, a great document and no two ways about it. If ever there was a historical proof of the vital importance of sound recording, this is it.
Imagine the same interview with Queen Elizabeth I, two whole LP sides, with her own account of childhood under Henry VIII and the beheading of her mother, her own dire danger of the same as Princess a few years later ... Martin Luther King, Jr. is less a master of good talk, but his interview is also intensely interesting, if a bit longish and too drawn-out. It is more "dated", of course, with much that was of the time and is now, alas, partly forgot. But the odd feeling persists--this was before he was assassinated, without foreknowledge; and yet every word you hear seems to say that we know what is to happen, so soon. It is almost taken for granted. Curious document.
Performances: A +, Sound: B
(Audio magazine, Jun. 1973; Edward Tatnall Canby)
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