by EDWARD TATNALL CANBY
Julian Carillo: Mass for Pope John XXIII (1962). Chorale des Professeurs de Musique de la Ville de Paris, Blot. CRI SD 246 stereo ($5.95).
Did this record ring bells when it came in. Back in the early thirties I owned a 78-rpm disc by this very man, a Mexican experimentalist who had invented quarter tones. Divvy up the ordinary scale into lots and lots of notes, very close together. He wrote music, to show off the system. The bits of his "Prelude to Christopher Columbus" I remember all too well. It was in D Minor, and various instruments sort of went up a fire-siren scale, then came back down again. Period. The quarter tones tended to blend together; the "harmony" just stayed still. Absolutely nothing happened, except the fire sirens up and down in D minor--so I remember it.
Here, many years later, is the celebrated Carillo, in his eighties, writing an impassioned and super-Romantic Mass for the good Pope. In quarter tones. It is sung in quarter tones, for two whole LP sides, by the assiduous Professors of the City of Paris, who obviously would sing twenty-seventh tones if you asked them to.
The work, to be sure, is a lot more sophisticated than the bits of " Columbus" thirty-plus years ago. It is very much in the late-Romantic Church tradition of the Mass, maybe out of Bruckner & Co., which is in its favor. But the elements that are interesting in this long piece are, to my ear, precisely those which are not microtonal: a fair amount of simple counterpoint and some good word setting, all in a timelessly old-fashioned style of Romantic expression.
The microtones? You play this and your turntable seems to develop problems. The voices keep slithering downwards, as though the a.c. were lagging. Or slithering up, as though the power were being restored.
Yep, the same old tricks. Fire-siren scales or rather, slides, slowly down ( quarter-step by quarter-step) or up. Groups of notes repeated, a quarter-tone lower each time, just to show you how it works. Chords that slowly turn inside out, fire-sirening up and down at the same time. All extremely sea-sick! A fine demo of the sound of quarter-tones. But what else?
Musically very little else. Yet behind all the groans and slitherings and seasick gasps there is, of course, sincerity and feeling-the old man really did feel strongly about Pope John, and wanted to say so in his music. Which, alas, does not make it any better.
For my ear, of course. If you want to disagree, by all means try for yourself. All you have to do is sit down and listen to the whole Mass, two complete LP sides of groans and gargantuan sighs and sliding fire-siren pitches.
Performance: A+ Sound: B
Marie-Aimee Varro. (Liszt, Dvorak, Schumann, Smetana). Orion ORS 6912 stereo ($5.98).
Here's that fabulous lady pianist again ( and I can't find her earlier disc, no longer listed as available). Mystery. She looks young in her photo but she studied with Sauer, who would be 108 now if he hadn't died in 1942, and with Alfred Cortot, whose centenary is coming up soon. She is a direct inheritor of the Liszt piano tradition though she didn't quite make it to study with the old man himself.
Whatever her age, I'm here to say she is a fabulous pianist and musician of the old sort, who tosses off the music of the sparkling nineteenth-century pianistic geniuses with aplomb and, what's more important, good sense and utter naturalness. Listen to this gal-and then try some of our silly whiz kids, the kids with the fast fingers! No comparison.
Miss Varro, if I guess rightly, has based herself in Canada and makes her recordings at home, on some elderly species of piano with precisely the right tone for the music, and no great hassle that a few of the notes are out of tune on it. She was on another label, before; evidently the tapes are sold around.
On this record you get the six Liszt Transcendental Etudes based on Paganini, plus super-brilliant pieces by the three other composers-a Dvorak grand Waltz, a stunner by Smetana "On the Seashore" which I'd swear was by Liszt himself, and an early Schummann, the Toccata, Op. 7.
Performance: A, Sound: B+
Choir of St. John'sCollege, Cambridge, (Music by Bairstow, Britten, Howells, Ireland, Orr, Tippett, Vaughan Williams, Walton) dir. George Guest. Argo ZRG 3340 stereo ($5.95).
You'll listen to this with one of two thoughts resulting. (a) How dreadfully stuffy and conservative is this semi "modern" British church music, from big and middling names; (b) how secure is the British church tradition, whereby today's composers can write, straight out of the last three centuries, music that fits ineffably into traditional services as though time had scarcely moved on.
This last, of course, is the whole idea. Tradition, permanence, change. only in an unobtrusive way. All of this music was written not for you and me but for the English church itself-for practical use in the Anglican service. One can object, but not complain, if you see what I mean.
Actually, the range of expression is decidedly varied, within the strict "parameters" of the situation. A good deal is out of the more bombastic late nineteenth century but there is plenty of a more sophisticated earlier lineage, back to Purcell and Byrd; and some genuine modern of sorts. Quite some hi fi effects, too.
Performance: A, Sounds: B+
Purcell: Music for the Chapel Royal. Soloists, Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, Academy of St. Martin-in the-Fields, Guest. Argo ZRG 5444 stereo ($5.95). Purcell: Ayres. Deller Consort. RCA Vic trola VICS 1506 stereo ($2.49). Astonishing how much music Purcell wrote, back in seventeenth century England, now that it is being put back into production for actual listening. Few of us will have heard any of the fourteen short "ayres" for small ensemble and the six larger works on these two complementary discs.
Until the revived principles of Baroque performance were generally accepted, most of this music was virtually impossible to perform with any sense. The old way of "modernizing" made hash of it--huge, mushy orchestral arrangements, draggingly slow speeds, stumbling, limping rhythms. All wrong. Now, we hear the music as a matter of course in the proper way, with original instrumentation, a brisk and natural range of speeds, and the correct altered rhythms that take the "limp" out and add the right ornamentation. Makes all the difference! Alas, one element is still mostly unreformed--the solo voices. They offer the biggest impediment to sense in both these excellent records, in spite of the fine musicianship displayed. Just not the right kind of voices. Big, fat, wobbly, operatic-type instruments, trained for heavier, slower music and for enormous power; whereas the Purcell musical lines obviously require a wholly different vocal technique-light, flexible, accurate, able to sing fast "runs" and quirky rhythms with the accuracy of the accompanying instrument's. The solo voices in both these records sound like bulls in china shops under the strain of singing the elaborate vocal lines-vast garglings, groanings, choking noises, the actual sense of the music often merely approximated.
'Course all this is perfectly normal for today's English Baroque performances, vocally speaking, and I only make the point that we've a long way to go before the solo voices match the present instrumental forces in sheer intelligibility.
On the St. John's recording of larger works with solos, chorus, and orchestra (for the Royal Chapel), the Choir with its boys' voices makes a fine sound and at least two of the solos are really right--a boy soprano and a high countertenor.
The others boom and gargle. Alfred Deller is the Original countertenor (as to international rep) but his singing is now so mannered that one hears more Deller than Purcell, even though Purcell, too, was a countertenor and no doubt sang the very same music himself. Deller's associates, as usual, are of the big, wobbly voiced kind, though very musical. The "ayres" are solo pieces with continuo and, quite frequently, pairs of recorders, a lovely accompanying sound. If you are at all conversant with Baroque you will be able to hear "past" the wobbles etc. into the gorgeous sense of the music.
Performances: B+; B Sound: B; B
================
========
Opera
by RICHARD FREED
MARLYN HORNE is the unifying factor in three recent London releases, two of which may be said to constitute a compound reissue: the Sutherland Norma, originally released by RCA five years ago ( now London three-disc set OSA-1394, $17.94), and a disc of Sutherland-Home duets from the Bellini opera and Rossini's Semiramide, both sides of which (OS 26168, $5.98) are drawn from the respective complete recordings. The really new item is Cluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, essentially a preservation of last year's exciting Covent Garden production conducted by Georg Solti (OSA-1285, two discs, $11.96). All of these are more than attractive-downright fascinating, in fact--but, while enormously satisfying in their own right, neither the Gluck nor, more certainly, the Bellini strikes me as a clear-cut first choice among recordings available now, and the Rossini duets serve best as a reminder of the not inconsiderable pleasures afforded in the three-disc set from which they were extracted (OSA-1383, $17.94) or on the full disc of excerpts from that set (OS 26086, $5.98) . The new Orfeo from London brings to a total of seven the number of recordings of this marvelous work listed in the current Schwann Catalog, but, to a greater or lesser degree in each case, these represent a half-dozen different operas-even if we disregard the faded old Urania set conducted by Arthur Rother, with Margaret Klose, Erna Berger, and Rita Streich. On Philips World Series we have a phony stereo reissue of Hans Rosbaud's splendid account of the French version, substantially abridged and with a tenor as Orphee (Leopold Simoneau). On Deutsche Grammophon Karl Richter conducts a revision óf the original Vienna version, in Italian but with a baritone Orfeo (Dietrich FischerDieskau). All the others are sung in Italian, and with altos as Orfeo, yet still substantially different from each other in content.
Vaclav Neumann conducts the original Vienna version, with no additions, on Angel, with Grace Bumbry as Orfeo.
Renato Fasano, on RCA, gives us the Berlioz-Saint Saens Paris version complete, with Shirley Verrett as Orfeo; this is the only current recording to include all the ballet music, which is quite extensive. For his Vanguard recording, with Maureen Forrester as Orfeo, Charles Mackerras chose the original Vienna version plus the two best-known dance numbers and a single aria from the Paris version; what makes the Vanguard set unique is that Mackerras, an old baroque hand, has prepared his own edition of the score, in which vocal and instrumental ornamentation is actually written out and is quite elaborate.
What Solti conducts on London might be described, for the sake of expediency, as the same material Mackerras uses, but with far less ambitious efforts in the way of ornamentation; more accurately, it is the same as Fasanos's, but without all that ballet music (a little more than Mackerras includes). In any event, what makes this set unique, textually, is the inclusion of the aria "Addio, o miei sospiri," sung by Marilyn Home at the end of Act I. This aria was not even composed by Gluck, but comes from Tancredi, an opera by Ferdinando Bertoni, a forgotten contemporary who also composed an Orfeo, using the same Calzabigi libretto immortalized by Gluck.
Well, now, once all these differences are itemized, do they really make that much difference? Surely it does make a difference to hear a tenor or baritone as Orfeo instead of an alto, or to hear the work sung in French instead of Italian.
I would rule out the Rosbaud and Richter sets, together with the old Rother, and I must say that Neumann's, too, despite Grace Bumbry's superb singing, is definitely on the dull side, in terms of both performance and sound.
The real contenders, I think, are Mackerras (Vanguard Bach Guild BGS 70686/87, two discs, $11.96), Fasano (RCA LSC-6169, three discs, $17.98) and the new Solti-and these three happen to contain some of the most conspicuous textual differences with each other.
The easiest judgment to make is that the orchestral contribution under Solti is far and away the best to be heard in any of these sets. Solti's interpretation is fiery but beautifully controlled, giving wonderful life to the Overture and abundant drama to the Dance of the Furies without ever being hard-driven.
In terms of tempo, there is no lack of relaxation where called for, but the slightly brisker-than-usual pacing of the great "Che faro" seems ideal, making the other performances almost a bit sluggish by comparison.
There is nothing really sluggish, of course, in any of these three sets, and both Maureen Forrester and Shirley Verrett sing that great aria quite beautifully. Forrester, however, for all her magnificent voice and genuine musicality, is the least convincing dramatically, and many listeners, 'I'm afraid, will be put off by what Mackerras has attempted, will find the ornamentation overdone in "Che faro," for example. Marilyn Home also knows a thing or two about ornamenting, but displays this skill less conspicuously, giving her most notable demonstration in "Chiamo it mio ben" in Act I. Shirley Verrett, who essays few embellishments in any of her arias, is nevertheless the most appealing Orfeo of all, both dramatically and musically. How poignant her pleas to the Furies, how noble the line in "Che puro ciel!" Home shows no lack of nobility, but her more declamatory approach does minimize any effect of poignancy. Even in "Che faro," she is more "majestic" than tender. But also, in considering "Che puro ciel," how Solti's handling of the orchestra tells, particularly in the exquisite blend of winds and voice at Home's entry! All in all, Fasano has the strongest trio of singers. Anna Moffo is quite the finest Euridice, while Solti's Euridice, Pilar Lorengar, simply does not give the sense of smoothness and assurance one gets from Moffo and, to a lesser but still satisfying degree, from Teresa Stich Randall on Vanguard. Both Judith Raskin, on RCA, and Helen Donath, on London, are first-rate as Amor, and Hanny Steffek on Vanguard is only slightly less persuasive.
If a conclusion may be drawn from these brief observations, it is that the London Orfeo, even with Miss Lorengar trailing the rest of the team, is probably the safest bet. Solti's approach is compellingly theatrical and thoroughly musical, all elements beautifully balanced, and the sound is well up to the London standard. But a "safe bet" is generally a compromise, and that is what this set is-for those who can't go along with Mackerras's embellishments or who find all that ballet music in Fasano's set a bore (or simply too expensive) . Others will be enchanted by the Mackerras edition, and still others will happily pay the additional cost of the Fasano in order to have every note of the ballet music--and the incomparably moving performance of Shirley Verrett.
There are textual differences in various performances and recordings of Norma, too, but they amount to much less than those already observed in the case of Orfeo ed Euridice. The Sutherland-Bonynge recording was a handsome thing when RCA presented it in 1965, and is certainly no less enjoyable now, remastered by English Decca and pressed in England. Handsome as it is, though, one must regret that Joan Sutherland was not given an opportunity for a remake instead of having this Norma reissued, for in the intervening five years she has made much more of the role ( and Bonynge has probably developed his contribution further, too). Dealing with what is, instead of what might have been, I can only say that Callas gets my vote for Norma, hands down. It was always one of her best roles, and in this case her later, stereo recording ( Angel SCL-3615, $17.98) is so generally superior to her earlier one that one wonders why the men in the Capitol Tower bothered to reissue the earlier one ( Seraphim IC-6037, mono only, $8.94) . In both recordings, however, Callas scores over Sutherland, not only in terms of dramatic urgency, as one might be prepared to concede, but also in terms of sheer beautiful sound. Sutherland's sound has become even more enticing, and Callas's less so, since these recordings were made, but that can hardly affect what is already in the grooves, any more than Bonynge's capable direction may be compared with the authoritative conducting of the late Tullio Serafin (who did both the Callas Normas). And Callas is a tigress, for sure.
Marilyn Horne seems to take a bit to settle into her role as Adalgisa, which she would not have to do today; one ought not to make too much of this, though, for once she gets going she is, as always, pretty glorious. (For all I know, the first act may actually have been recorded last. In any event, it is a good feeling to be able to observe that a Sutherland or a Horne five years ago was not what she is now, instead of complaining that she ain't what she used to be!) Christa Ludwig may have seemed an odd choice for Adalgisa when the Angel set came out, but the choice was not so much "odd" as inspired: she is a magnificent complement (or foil, if you prefer) to Callas's Norma. John Alexander, who sings Pollione to Sutherland's Norma, and Richard Cross, the Oroveso in that set, are both energetic and accurate, but somehow rather bloodless; Franco Corelli and Niccola Zaccaria put more life into these roles on Angel.
Admirers of Sutherland and Home may well want to have this London set and cherish it, even though there is less to admire in it than in today's Sutherland and Home, but, for Norma-fanciers who are neither Sutherland fans nor Callas fans in particular, preference must rest with the Angel. Dedicated bel canto buffs may even want both versions, or may settle for the Angel set plus the London disc of the big duets. London's sound is brighter, but Angel's ( vintage 1959) is perfectly adequate.
========
Roesemary Brown
EDWARD TATNALL CANBY
One is inclined to be facetious in writing about Rosemary Brown, as I know to my cost. Too easy to poke fun. This is the second version of my article. I scrapped the first. Rosemary is the plain little English housewife who takes down music by dictation from the Great Composers. The dead ones. She's already accumulated hundreds of pieces from beyond the grave. And now she has a recording of some of them.
Not that I have come around to believing. But I do feel that (a) there is nothing to be gained from ribaldry at the expense of those who may be acting in good faith; and (b) there's a lot to be gained in Rosemary Brown's case by sheer listening. That's my business and yours too. We can read all about Rosemary second hand. But when we listen, it's first hand. Straight from Rosemary to you and me. Or is is straight from Liszt, and Schubert? The composers appear to her in person, she says, and have even been known to guide her hands at the piano. Liszt, above all. But also others of a familiar Music Appreciation sort-Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Grieg, even Debussy. One by one, under Liszt's personal direction, they are still giving her their compositions from the Other Side. And she writes them clown, note for note. That is what makes it all so interesting.
There is a Foundation now, set up expressly to provide Rosemary with enough income so that she can work full-time with these composers and learn more musicianship and better finger technique, the quicker to take down their music, which sometimes comes through pretty slowly. She is receiving what she calls "tuition" ( she means tutoring) right now from Liszt himself, who has taken over and organized her working day with times for seeing the composers and for concentrated studies of various sorts.
"I find Rachmaninoff most wonderful for helping me in my actual playing," she says. "He's been giving me quite a lot of helpful hints and assistance in trying to improve my style and technique." As for Brahms, "he has given me some finger exercises to improve the stretch between my fingers and the actual span of my hands." Beethoven brings her some problems. "I would like to get one piece at a time completed ... but instead, I find he'll give me a page of one thing and then two pages of something else--it's a little bit confusing but I must just adapt myself. He puts them together eventually." Debussy, it seems, has been doing a lot of painting, in the Impressionist style. He showed her one called "Femme en bleu" with a blue face, which she got to like.
A Musical Seance Featuring Rosemary Brown. R. Brown, Peter Katin, pianists. Philips PHS 900-256 stereo ($5.95).
As for Chopin, he got agitated one day and burst out in French, "Le bain va etre englouti!"-the bathtub's going to overflow. Sure enough, her daughter had left the tap running. "I think it was after that," she says, "that T began to feel more at ease with him." Schubert came to her the first time wearing his famous spectacles but "I think it was only to make sure I recognized him. Now he doesn't wear them at all." But Liszt is her favorite and he evidently decides which composers to send along each time. She just takes whoever comes.
Rosemary has heard the entire Unfinished Symphony of Schubert, including the part that wasn't finished. She hasn't got it clown yet. "Whether he will get it through-written down, that is-I don't yet know. All I can say is that it was absolutely heavenly-I've never heard anything so beautiful in all my life. I thought that after I heard it I would never forget the main theme but I never wrote it down and it went-so he'll have to give it to me all over again. I find that he communicates very easily." That tells you the Rosemary story. On her record she tells it to you in her own voice, in the same matter of fact way.
Rosemary could not be faking; there is a ring of absolute conviction to her words.
Opinions on Rosemary vary. They fall into three irreconcilable categories. (A ) She is harmlessly, totally loony. (B) She is in contact with the other world-she has ESP. (C) Her symptoms are characteristic of well known types of delusion, of which examples abound in the literature including Joan of Arc. Voices. Unconscious total recall. Cryptomnesia.
These viewpoints will be argued until the printed page turns blue and you may join in if you wish. But only one thing matters, the music. Hundreds of pages of it and plenty more on the way.
There could, of course, be fraud, or pure hoax. I suppose Philips of Holland and even the great BBC might be hoodwinked or--less likely--knowingly produce a fake. I doubt it, but does it really matter? We now have two whole LP sides of recorded Rosemary and the sheer fact of its existence is the startling thing.
Somebody wrote down all of those notes and, if there is honesty here, it was Rosemary herself. I accept that premise, and I believe it.
And so what do we find? I've listened.
It's not bad at all-if hardly earthshaking.
Rosemary's music is not amateurish. It flows easily and for the most part with good musical sense. She has a nice feel for a kind of nineteenth-century salon style, watered down and simplified but really quite authentic. Just what Grandma played in the front parlor. Her feeling for modulation is excellent; she moves easily from key to key and back again, as they used to do-an art that is mostly lost on today's pros, who don't have it and do not want it. Rosemary knows how and she seldom flubs. Nothing spectacular, mind you. Just an easy, right sound.
She has a good sense for a tune, too, in the right style. And she remembers her tunes, plays on them, brings them back very properly. They stick-and you remember them. Her piano writing is the same, a simplified salon style, circa 1875 perhaps, slanted moderately in the direction of one or another composer.
Good left-hand figurations, a proper spread of right-hand melodic line, a texture and mood that is of the period, if out of its more insipid expression. Definitely, she has a knack.
What I hear is exactly what Rosemary Brown might actually compose, or improvise of whatever, if there were no ESP and she merely presented her "thing," say, at a party, putting on a little show of numbers done up "in the style of" various composers. Not an uncommon gift at all, and hers is good but not really that good. Lots of people have the gift, in one way or another. I can do it myself, though my memory is dreadfully short and I hate to write things down.
Don't think that all the musical talent in this world goes into the music profession! Ninety per cent never gets near a formal music lesson. And remember that Telemann, the most impeccable professional of his day, was totally self taught.
So, mostly, was Beethoven. And Wagner.
The good improvisers that I know ( quite a few-in quite a few styles) are almost entirely self-trained. They just pick it up.
Rosemary, in addition, seems to have an excellent memory and an accurate, if slow, ability to write things out on paper.
That helps. That's all. I don't feel any necessity to go further in explaining her music. Her personality, her communication with the dead, is something else again, though easily enough "explained" by experts in psychology and in parapsychology, even if they don't agree.
On her record Rosemary has put a good selection of her Liszt pieces, which are the central body of her music, along with a sampling from Chopin, Brahms, and so on. She plays the simpler pieces herself on one side. A typical forthright amateur, she gets through the notes, a bit heavily, and the sense of the music is there. The tougher pieces, the ones she can't play herself, are on the other side, played by a much more brilliant pro, Peter Katin. These really sparkle.
The pieces grouped under Liszt's name are really very pleasant and well made, her best without a doubt. They often sound like minor Liszt, though more often they are just of the period. Her Chopin is not much different, the style rather too late for Chopin ( though she hits a few tricky Chopinesque harmonies) . Schumann rates about 10 per cent.
Wouldn't even know him. Her Schubert is much better-she has a funny streak of affinity for the music of the early part of the century. Her Beethoven "Bagatelle" is curiously like many bits of late Beethoven, notably his late Bagatelles.
When it comes to Brahms, whose forthright piano style is the easiest in the world to imitate--even I can do it-Rosemary is way out of whack. Brahms would roll his beer-barrel body if he could hear her. Debussy is terrible; same old semi-Liszt with a few bits of the Golliwog's Cakewalk thrown in. ESP or no, Rosemary is out of her depth with these composers, as I hear it. But, oddly, her little Grieg piece is excellent! (Only, I think she borrowed it. Sounds very familiar. ) "Grubelei," the work of Liszt in 3 against-5 time which she couldn't play to find out what it sounded like, is a superior piece. Its compound rhythms are handled with real sophistication, the misty altered-chord harmonies are much more striking than those of the run of other pieces. If Liszt didn't manufacture it, somebody did. Rosemary? What we sense, compassionately, beyond this modest music and in Rosemary's disarming views on the composers, is a conventionality, a narrowness, that is surely no more than a reflection of her own drab way of life. This is precisely the music, these are the stories of the Great Composers, that an ordinary housewife in the poorer section of London would produce if--like the woodchuckshe could. Rosemary can.
Her every note and word is out of a sort of cultural hearsay, an echo of the grandeurs of Music Appreciation filtered down into a middle class wasteland. She is expressing no more that that same touching hope for the finer things of life which pins up sepia prints of Mona Lisa and the Last Supper in a thousand parlors, next to the portraits of the Great Composers and a picture of the Matterhorn, which puts a too-expensive upright piano against the wall and the Reader's Digest on top, the Complete Britannica (on installments) off in a corner. Rosemary has found a better way. It would be nice to know the composers in person, now, wouldn't it? Perhaps to fufill an otherwise empty life.
Rosemary Brown is trying so hard to finish the Unfinished Symphony it almost makes you weep.
(Audio magazine, Nov. 1970; Edward Tatnall Canby)
More music articles and reviews from AUDIO magazine.
= = = =