by EDWARD TATNALL CANBY
Kipnis I and II -- The Art of Alexander Kipnis, Album 2.
Seraphim 60124 mono $2.98.
The elder Kipnis, now almost eighty, was the finest basso of the operatic 1930s on records--his career had begun before World War I in Germany and in the period between the wars he came to America as a citizen and became one of the "Met" regulars. It is no exaggeration to say that there has been no such voice since-not that combination of gorgeous bass-baritone sound (he was born Russian) and intelligent, musical understanding. He was superb in opera, in any style that demanded a big bass, but he was equally fine in solo songs, the German Lied. Side 1 of this second Kipnis reissue features him in opera-Faust, Don Carlo, and Parsifal-plus a couple of Russian folk songs; side 2 is devoted to Brahms Lieder, with that ubiquitous accompanist, Gerald Moore, whose piano recordings are still coming out today.
The recordings are all electric, of that early sort with the closet-like acoustics, the soloist miked ultra-close, the orchestra, or piano, in the background. Enough highs to make the words clear, and a curiously effective kind of recording distortion that seems, if anything, to enhance the complex coloration of the big voice.
The brilliance of such a huge basso, after all, is made up of acoustic intermodulations, and a bit of extra IM added by the machinery only intensifies the effect! A curiosity of a musical nature here: when the great German conductor Karl Muck flatly refused to make the necessary 78-rpm side breaks in the recording of the Parsifal Good Friday Music with Kipnis, Wagner's own son, Siegfried Wagner, took over and it is he who conducts the music on this band.
The Brahms on Side 2 is superbly sung ( though we could wish for a more audible Gerald Moore) but the voice is somewhat more distorted and bass-y than in the operatic recordings on side 1.
Performances: A, Sound: C+
The Harmonious Blacksmith (A Collection of Harpsichord Encores). Igor Kipnis. Columbia MS 7326 stereo $5.98.
Mozart: Concerto in E Flat, K. 271 (Jeune homme"). Haydn: Concerto in D, Op. 21. Igor Kipnis, harpsichord; London Strings, Marriner. Columbia MS 7253 stereo $5.98.
The younger Kipnis has moved a world away from the elder. The senior Kipnis sang opera and song from the Romantic 19th century onwards; the younger plays harpsichord from the 18th century back.
His new "encore" record features harpsichord favorites and I suppose is the harpsichord equivalent of a pop recordfew listeners, however, will know that much about harpsichord repertory! Even "Greensleeves" appears here in a circumspect Elizabethan setting by the well known Anon. Composers range from Byrd and Bull through Rameau, Couperin, D. Scarlatti, two Bachs, Handel, Mozart, and even Beethoven, with an unlikely Albeniz, an earlier composer, as the most curious. For those who do know harpsichord music the selections will be largely familiar.
The Kipnis style is a curious mixture of the old fashioned and the ultra-up-to-date. Old fashioned in that, like Landowska, he tends towards a great deal of rubato, irregularities of time in the interest of expression. Up-to-date in that his ornaments are profuse and expertly done and in many of the dance-movement repeats he adds the proper extra improvised decorations, beyond the written notes. Sometimes the rubato is ( for this ear) a bit too nervous; a steadier pulse would help in many works. But the brilliance is there, in phrasing, registration, and finger dexterity. A lively collection.
What a tremendous Mozart concerto is this relatively early K. 271 in E flat-one of the great works! It is to Igor Kipnis' credit that the thought came to me during his performance on the harpsichord of music that is normally familiar in the piano format. He does a splendid job, for Mozart's music is already highly pianistic though in fact is was played in both ways, on the well developed harpsichord and on the relatively primitive piano of the time.
I was suddenly reminded of a similar transition today in another area, from vacuum tubes to solid state. The analogy is exact. The piano, as it slowly developed, took over very gradually from the highly perfected harpsichord, the style of music changing at the same time. As solid-state components became more sophisticated they, too, took over gradually from the highly developed vacuum tube, and circuitry changed at the same time towards solid-state values. Mozart's concerto, so to speak, came in the early transistor era when tubes, though rapidly declining, still ruled as the more reliable equipment.
The Haydn concerto was even more certainly a harpsichord piece since Haydn, an older man, turned later to the new piano. But the Haydn style is also very pianistic and not easy to put over in harpsichord terms. Again, Kipnis does an excellent job. The London Strings seem a bit edgy but their musicianship is impeccable.
Performances: B+, Sound: B
Grieg: Slatter, Op. 72 (Norwegian Folk Dances). Vladimir Pleshakov, piano. Orion ORS 6908 stereo $5.98.
Folk Fiddling from Sweden. Bjorn Stabi, Ole Hjorth, violins. Elektra H-72033 stereo $2.98.
Though there are endless provincial differences between the folk dances of the various Scandinavian regions, for an outside ear there is a remarkable family resemblance-between the Norwegian and Swedish, and even between the original fiddle music and the somewhat elaborate piano arrangements of Edvard Grieg, done at the turn of the century. Two minutes' listening to these two disks proves the point.
In Norway this type of fiddle music is played on the special Hardanger fiddle, an instrument with sympathetic tuned strings to reinforce the sound of the played strings, somewhat as in the old viola d'amore. In Sweden, apparently, the fiddlers use plain old fashioned fiddles.
As for Grieg, he transfers a surprisingly accurate fiddle sound to the piano including the characteristic drone harmonies and the somewhat odd dissonances and "modal" scale tones that are such a pleasant feature of the original music.
How "classical" it sounds! Somehow, we are vaguely reminded of the Swiss and Austrian folk music, the yodel tunes, the squarely harmonized diatonic dance melodies, and we may reflect that, after all, European "classical" music was built very largely out of-or alongside of-European folk music. Folk music, more traditional, lags technically behind; we are here back in the 18th century in terms of "classical" harmonies. Very pure sound, to modern ears, and thus the settings by Grieg, relatively recent, sound surprisingly modern.
The pair of young Swedish fiddlers made their recording at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival. The Grieg piano works are played by an excellent U.S. pianist, of Russian ancestry, born in Shanghai. Typical international mix! For comparison, you will find recordings of Norwegian Hardanger fiddle music at most folk music dealers.
Performances: A, Sound: B+
The Fabulous Osipov Balalaika Orchestra. A Program of Classic and Folk Favorites. Melodiya Angel SR 40120 stereo $5.98.
To be sure, Angel avoids the word "folk" in the title of this recording, though the orchestra's official title is The Nicolai Osipov State Russian Folk Instrument Orchestra. But most listeners will detect a folkish emphasis. If so, it is strictly of the Russian sort. Balalaikasyes. And folk-style dress-up costumes for the eye. But also a large symphony orchestra; our nearest equivalent might be a moving picture orchestra, the kind with a few banjos and guitars thrown in for local color. The music, accordingly, is very fixed-up, in elaborate arrangements, totally professional in calibre and about as genuinely folk-like as-well, Mantovani. Among the various Russian composers you will find Rachmaninoff. And Rimsky Korsakov. Flight of the Bumble Bee--what else?
Performances: Very Pro, Sound: B
Seiji Ozawa, Chicago Symphony; Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade; Borodin, Polovtsian Dances. Angel SFO 36034 stereo $5.98.
Big fuss over the conductor, here, the man who wears his hair long and thick and his clothes extra-mod. Fancy gatefold get-up, complete with pix of the recording sessions and running comment on same. A hi fi spectacular, I guess, and the hero is Ozawa. A while back this would have been one of Capitol's super classic deals; now it carries the Angel label though a U.S. product.
A disciplined, no-nonsense performance of the Rimsky war horse music without a trace of excess emotion, accurate in every detail, very much today. I found it slightly chilly, in spite of the heat in Chi the day it was made (as per the program notes. But would more warmth help? Probably not. The music would merely sound sentimental to our jaundiced present-day ears. I'd say that this is about what you can do with Rimsky at our stage in history-and Borodin as well. We aren't able to listen to the music as it was heard in its own day. Not any more.
Recording? Huge, arena-type sound out of a Shriner temple in Chicago. In spite of twelve mikes, the stereo isn't very spectacular and, indeed, not violently different from mono. Excess reverb confuses its directionality. But the orchestra is miked with excellent balance, the various solo instruments, notably the solo violin, precisely placed against the overall ensemble, standing out just enough to register yet never too close or too loud.
Good. In the Borodin the woodwinds seem to have been specially emphasized.
Pleasant enough. Lots of thumping bass for those who love it.
Performance: B+, Sound: B+
(Audio magazine, Jul. 1970; Edward Tatnall Canby)
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