B
By Edward Tatnall Canby
Mischa Levitzki plays Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Liszt. Klavier KS 116, stereo, $5.98.
There's been such a flood of player piano recordings these last years that I reluctantly have put most of them aside-we mustn't fill all our pages reviewing them, though we could easily enough. They are always fascinating for the wide-ranging musical ear. This one, which I picked up almost at random one evening, just to see, turns out to be one of the finest I have ever heard. How much of this is the pianist himself, who flourished from 1914 through the thirties, and how much the Ampico mechanism, last and most sophisticated of the reproducer breed, I could not really say. That's what is fun.
The Beethoven "Appassionata" sonata, Op. 57, occupies all of Side A and it is one of the most interesting performances I know, very far from the routine of dozens of others, including some by big pianists. Amazing! This is an earlier Beethoven style than we are accustomed to, not the frowning master, full of passion, tensely controlled, but a grander, more relaxed, expansive Beethoven. It is a delight to hear! Nothing is missed, nothing is pushed or forced, as though in the terrible presence of Genius-this pianist is no high priest of the Beethoven cult but just a tremendous musician letting himself out for the sheer pleasure and glory of it, like a fine athlete with a smile on his face. Did I even hear a few slightly unfamiliar passages, maybe created by one Mischa Levitzki, to adorn the original? Don't have the score at hand, but no matter--it was often done a half century ago. The music is indubitably full of hesitations, slowings-down, lengthenings-out, in the plastic, late-Romantic style (which the new young pianists would like to imitate but can't). Even an untrained ear will notice it. Part of the approach, and it makes for much, much interest, even if no self-respecting pianist today could play in such an uninhibited fashion.
These reproducing systems were quite miraculous in their capture of a pianist's performing expression and personality, reduced to "digital" form on paper rolls. But nevertheless, for most professional ears today, the reproduced recordings tend still to have a certain-thing--or lack it--which makes them … so subtly, machine-like.
I have never been able to pin it down, though I am mechanical-minded and can usually analyze a mis-function or inaccuracy into its factual elements.
It is as though the pianist were playing just a bit too soon after an afternoon nap, or had taken a few too many sips of a cooling drink a few minutes beforehand. Nothing outward and obvious--just a kind of minute stumbling, barely appreciable, yet there.
Not in this recording. For the first time, it is to me a living, breathing pianist at the Steinway, playing in full modern stereo. Terrific. How come? Well--it must be a combination of the Ampico system, 'way back, and a very polished contemporary engineering job on the piano playback mechanism itself-which takes enormous know-how.
In other words, the people who specialize in this sort of technical restoration are now really beginning to be very good, real artists in their profession.
It was bound to happen. But it took awhile. The earlier restorations on discs are not nearly as impressive and some of them are downright preposterous--with wrong notes (tears in the paper?), missing tones and a generally false air.
We may take the modern restored player-piano (reproducer-piano) performances with increasing artistic seriousness.
Side B runs on into some superb Mendelssohn, Liszt, Schumann, earlyish Debussy and a bit of a waltz by Stojowski (not to be confused with Stokowski).
Performances: A, Sound: A
Peter Mennin: Piano Concerto (1957); Richard Yardumian: Passacaglia, Recitatives and Fugue (1957). John Ogdon, pf.; Royal Philharmonic, Buketoff. RCA LSC 3243, stereo, $5.98
Well, here's what was happening in the upper regions of the American Symphony Orchestra World, back around 1957. Pretty much what's still happening. Composers with commissions--for big orchestra. Big orchestras with players--for big composers to use. And a lot of money that drains out of our affluent economy via quantities of foundations, academies, leagues, festivals and so on. It's a sort of economy within the economy, tax-free and, of course, wholly non-profit.
It feeds wonderfully upon itself, as any good economy should do, and the product, as you see, is (a) Performances and (b) Recordings. They count 'em up like batting averages. But one question remains. Why should you and I listen--and buy? Is it in any way our business?? A real question.
Both these men are big in American music biz. Mennin's list of awards is much too long to put down, and he has been Prexy at the top-dog Juilliard, which assures him of his niche in musical fame. Yardumian, more a self-taught man, out of WW II, is a Philadelphia fixture with some 100 performances (sic) by the well known orchestra there. Both are experts at providing proper feed for virtuoso pros. (After all, an orchestra has to have notes to play, or it is completely helpless!) Both can butter up a bassoon and flatter a flute, both can blast the ornaments off the concert hall ceiling with stupendously difficult tutti for full orchestra. And both play the fingers off their willing pianist. That's what the biz is all about.
The Mennin Concerto is one of the most furious pieces I have ever listened to, even in this furious world. England's heavyweight powerhouse, John Ogdon, is put to it and just barely gets his way through the endless, frantic rushes of notes and dissonant chords, with never a pause for relief. The orchestra has its problems, too; I suspect that these Britishers were once more astonished at America's capacity for violence. The Mennin style is technically old fashioned, a sort of supercharged 1940s with Prokofieff in the piano, Hindemith in the orchestra and Bartók (but meaner and harder) in the over-all. It is an interesting work, if you don't mind a bit of blood and sweat and no tears.
Yardumian is much more old fashioned in the main, a descendent (in spite of his Armenian background) of the "modal" school of Holst and Vaughan Williams, some 50 years back. To be sure, there is more dissonance and a sharper edge, but the old putting-a-minor-chord-where-you expect-a-major-chord is still very much in evidence. A sincere, well made and effective work which bored me . Performances: B, Sound: B
Weissenberg--Complete Rachmaninoff Preludes. RCA LSC 7069, two discs, stereo, $11.96.
Medtner: Sonata-Ballade; 3 Fantastic Improvisations; 4 Fairy Tales; 4 Pieces, Op. 4. Vladimir Pleshakov, piano. Orion ORS 7019, stereo, $5.98.
Rachmaninoff and Medtner were Russians of the same generation, both pianists, both permanent expatriots after the Revolution-Rachmaninoff in America, Medtner in England. Strange that whereas Rachmaninoff had long since reached top classical popularity, Medtner never made it and depended on fortunate handouts from an Eastern potentate to get his music into circulation. Yet he is a good composer of his very-late Romantic sort, an able writer for the piano, a transparently honest technician--almost a more discursive Schumann at the piano. He should have pleased.
Here we have six LP sides of solid musical argument for both cases-better than words by far. Suppose that both men were piano composers only.
(Rachmaninoff obviously made much of his "rep" via his big piano concerti and his world-famous symphonies.) I think the modern term for an important difference would be simply that Rachmaninoff got it together.
Medtner is diffuse, colorful, unstable in an ever-interesting way. Rachmaninoffs music drones on and on, not nearly as colorfully; but each Prelude (and the same with other works for piano solo) is crystal-clear in its chosen musical material, utterly consistent, if awfully longwinded (for most of today's ears, at least). Medtner veers charmingly towards flashes of other composers-one moment he is pure Schumann, the next, we hear early-Stravinsky-type chords, or Grieg, Debussy. (The music dates from 1902 to 1923 on the Orion disc.) Moreover, Medtner has a Germanic preoccupation with counterpoint, a problem that never bothers Rachmaninoff for an instant. Thus-thick textures in Medtner, melody upon melody, fugal segments out of late Beethoven (but without the drama). This surely put the composer down among those who were tired of the academic approach! Rachmaninoff, alas, has a dangerous way of putting me to sleep or into a non-listening reverie. His fascinations are mostly in piano technique. Medtner I found much easier, even at length, and you will enjoy his frankness and color, so very late-Romantic. So it goes! Up with the downtrodden.
Two excellent pianists, Pleshakov full of fire (presumably Russian), Weissenberg more of a powerhouse, using more pedal-blend.
Performances: A-, A; Sound: B+, B+
Paganini: The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin. Paul Zukofsky. Vanguard Cardinal VCS 10093/4 (two discs), stereo, $5.96.
Everybody knows the last of these, No. 24, in versions of one sort or another by Brahms, Schumann (who wrote piano accompaniments for all of them), Rachmaninoff and plenty more. Who's heard the original piece, for violin alone? Plenty of violin students! They are about the only ones who know the other 23 too. So-here they are, all of them, as originally composed by the devil-violinist, Niccolo himself.
Like all of Paganini's music, these are musically superficial but nevertheless charming and wholly musical in harmonies and melodies, much more than just exercises. As technical feats, the things are almost unbelievable--such tricks! But the music is what counts.
Alas, I would not recommend this monumental recording to any who are not professionally interested. Mr. Zukofsky does a glittering technical job with the pyrotechnics and, apparently, has made a good many innovations in approach too (I wouldn't know, not being a violinist nor an expert in fiddle music as such). But, justifiably or not, he plays out of tune much too frequently for my pleasure.
Now granted that these are fiendish pieces and anybody who can play them at all is some violinist! But, after all, I am a listener. And I see no particular reason why I should suffer from sour notes just because Paganini insisted on making things so difficult. Whether other violinists can do better, I cannot tell you-there is no other listed complete recording. But Ruggiero Ricci has done a single LP of these works for London-and I would trust his sense of pitch. Maybe you'd do better (at a higher price) to try him if you want to hear what Paganini had to say via his fabulous fiddle.
Performance: B, Sound: B +
Let's Be Real. Sing-In Boulder. Owl ORLP 21, stereo, $5.98.
This is a nice cross between pro and private recording. It is the third disc put out by the Boulder Colorado High School performers, out of their Folk Song Club (evidently formed back in the folky days before things went electric). I thought the last one really quite delightful, with real talent on the part of a batch of very wise but very youthful kids, giving their all. The recordings are done on a pro basis and the release is strictly pro for you and me, even listed in Schwann; a single 45 was sent along, too, with one item from the big disc, plus another not on it. So they aim high.
This one strikes me as a bit more pro, a bit slicker, than the other one I heard, perhaps because they pulled back a number of graduates who have gone on to bigger things via college. The "average" age-sound is older by a bit, the arrangements are fancier and the sound work is real studio stuff, maybe 16-tracked for all I know. (Audiocom Corp. Studios, Denver.) Lots of fancy reverb effects, layers on layers and the like. Done, of course, with the knowledge and cooperation of the students themselves, who know what they're about all right. Yet the fresh, accurate child voices are still there and the surprising sophistication of some of the arrangements, even though mostly "after" well known originals, is very revealing.
No doubt about it, when you think back a generation, the musical youth of today can find a remarkable complexity of expressive means. If a lot of it is still yeasty and frothy and half-baked, then think what junk our grandpas produced when they felt musical, what with Sweet Adeline and the Bullfrog on the Bank and Ivan Skevitsky Skevar--and no guitars, not even acoustic! These kids are a zillion miles further on the road to musical sophistication.
(Audio magazine, Jul. 1972; Edward Tatnall Canby)
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