by Edward Tatnall Canby
AMERICANA
The World of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Eugene List, Reid Nibley, pfs., Utah Symphony, Abravanel. Vanguard VSD 723/4, 2 stereo discs, $11.96.
Astonishing-the first "real" U.S. composer, at last given real depth here. Out of New Orleans, a travelling virtuoso in 50s and 60s, he is of P.T. Barnum era, extrovert and not exactly profound-but his (European-trained) writing is 100 per cent pro, fluent, sophisticated, tuneful and surprisingly American. No naive composer, this! He's excellent and Eugene List is ideal pianist for him (2 1/2 sides), dry but affectionate, never overplaying. Two big orchestral works too, a piano showpiece (Nibley) and a semi-tropical symphony, prototype film music. No fake and hokum in this revival.
The World of Scott Joplin. Max Morath, piano. Vanguard Everyman SRV 310 SD, stereo, $2.98.
Well yes, gotta have Joplin these days. This pianist isn't hothouse-he plays the rags manfully and with sinew. Helps no end, even with a rather grand piano. Joplin, plus other rags-two by this pianist (after the fact; he's not that old), and Marshall, Scott, Lamb, blending right in with J. himself. A bit of rag goes a long way jazz is enormously more flexible. But it's tuneful, and moderately varied here within the rigid rag style.
The Dawning of Music in Kentucky (A. P. Heinrich). American Music Group, Neely Bruce, pf. and dir. Vanguard VSD 71178, stereo, S 5.98 (also SO: VSQ 30028). Here's the more usual Americana. The "Beethoven of America" alias (his own idea) "log-house composer from Kentucky," a transplant from Europe, writes showy, can't-be-taken-seriously (by us) music to now-corny texts, for a laugh.
Hail to Kentucky (why quotes of "Rule Britannia"??), Voice of Faithful Love, etc. plus a long Barbecue Divertimento. Piano pieces, little vocal cantatas, a Beethoven-period sound but with curiously jagged 19th c. key changes, not very convincing. For most ears, definitely on the quaint side. Cf. Nonesuch's Stephen Foster material.
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NEAR-TO-MODERN
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Symphony in F-Sharp, Op. 40 (1950). Munich Philharmonic, Kempe, RCA ARL1-0443, stereo, $5.98.
A revealing disc. Korngold in 1910 was a child genius, acclaimed by Mahler et al., an opera produced at 13-a new Mozart. In 20s he was out-styled by modernism; in '38 he arrived in the U.S.-and Hollywood. This 1950 Symphony tries to pull it all together, painfully for my ears; it is classical "modern" but keeps falling into embarrassing Hollywoodese. Too bad. He might have been, but wasn't our Mozart.
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Bob Greene's The World of Jelly Roll Morton. (Live at Carnegie Hall.) Narration by Bob Greene. RCA ARL1-0504, $ 5.98.
Liszt: Symphonic Poems. No. 7 "Festklänge"; No. 12 "Die Ideale." London Philharmonic, Haitink. Philips 6500 191, $6.95.
Liszt: Symphonic Poems. No. 5 "Prometheus"; No. 8 "Héroide funèbre"; Mephisto Waltz No. 1. London Philharmonic, Haitink. Philips 6500 190, $6.95.
Why not! The Jelly Roll Morton concert is on RCA's fanciest Red Seal label, right out of Carnegie Hall, a re-creation of music approximately 50 years old. The two Liszt records (part of the complete recording of 13 tone poems, mostly unknown today) recreate concert music that is only about twice as old, from the 1850s. In the long stretch of musical time our "pop" and "classical" categories are ephemeral, mainly useful in the record stores. Jazz is by now almost wholly out of pop.
In effect it is already "classical." All of this music now must pass through the presto-changeo of the recording medium, straight into the living room, where it must be judged strictly as listening material in a new environment. Neither Jelly Roll nor Liszt had any such thought (though Jelly Roll did make early records). Anyhow--it is an irony and a pleasure that two such opposites should end up in the precise same listening league! But here they are, and if Liszt costs more it is merely because he is imported.
Of course the Jelly Roll music is the easier to enjoy. I basked in it. Even his 50-year-old style is of our century, the chamber-music clarity of the solo instruments and the even tenure of the volume ideal for microphones and just naturally comfortable for home listening. Set it and leave it. Liszt, though, is the extreme opposite-he's rewarding but you must work hard, to get the sense and pace. So slow! No hurry-the stuff goes on and on until you think it will never end. Not good as background, either, because it is loud-then soft, and you run for the volume control. The big Romantic moods, the tears, the bombast, were thrillingly new in 1850 but now they sound like film scores. (That's where the films got it.) You must gear yourself down, take time and more time, give all you have, and then the old man comes through; because he was strong and his music is strong, if not to our style.
As for Jelly Roll, this is a fascinating performance because it is at the extreme stretched-out tail end of a living tradition, with three old-timers of the actual period, the rest younger but in direct ear-to-ear descent. You can tell in moments. It's real! Scott Joplin, only a few years further back into ragtime, already has gone, the tradition broken-he returns in revival by those who could not have been there, and the difference is enormous. Joplin is a treasured antique. Even Liszt, via the more precise orchestral tradition, is more directly alive than Joplin, who is mostly played from the printed notes, not from the aural memory of heard sounds.
Amazing, finally, to realize that Morton, still so alive in music, is on the far distant side of the entire big band swing era of the thirties and forties, so much harder, so impersonal and big and chrome plated. The early jazz is wonderfully relaxed and human in comparison.
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Also see:
Audio in General (with ADs)
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