| Home | Audio mag. | Stereo Review mag. | High Fidelity mag. | AE/AA mag. |
|
The musicassette Vox Box So succinct, the descriptive phrase "Vox Box" must have contributed significantly to both recognition and sales of the long-familiar series of budget-priced multiple-disc sets. (Was its inspired inventor intuitively aware of the mnemonic potency of both spondaic meter and the rhetorical principle of parechesis-repetition of the same sound in words in close or immediate succession?) Therefore the Moss Mu sic Group does well to crown its expansion of musicassette production by extending the Vox Box idea to tapes: three-cassette packages with booklet, $15.98 each. The packaging design and dimensions are distinctive, but since the height is identical to that of the DG/Philips Prestige Boxes and the width slightly less than that of the London type, the Vox Boxes present no new storage problems. I've heard only four of the first twelve releases, but these are undoubtedly representative of the series' generally first rate Dolby tape processing and varied programmatic appeal. Particularly rewarding is CBX 5133, the extensive Skrowaczewski/ Minnesota survey of Ravel's orchestral works produced in 1975. The 1974 Slatkin / St. Louis compendium of Gershwin's orchestral and concerted works, with pianist Jeffrey Siegel (CBX 5132), also has many admirable features-including a fine Cuban Overture and Catfish Row (Gershwin's own Porgy and Bess suite)-but too much else that lacks Gershwin's quintessential jauntiness. Abbey Simon, expectedly, and Heribert Beissel and the Hamburg Symphony, more surprisingly, are (along with their audio engineers) hard to match for consistent satisfaction in their 1973 recording of Chopin's oeuvre for piano and orchestra, now in CBX 5126. But the more recent (1976) first volume of Anthony Newman's Bach preludes and fugues, with chorale preludes interspersed (CBX 5479), I can commend only to New maniacs. I like neither the tonal qualities of the Keiser organ nor the indulgently idiosyncratic readings. My copy was defective, with Sides 2 and 3 running backward-probably an isolated first-production aberration, since the copy was immediately replaced by a correct one. Instruments: Viola, baryton... In addition to its "original" instruments series, greeted in February, Telefunken has launched a Virtuoso Chamber Music series ($9.98 each cassette), also with TriTec processing. It leads off with perhaps the best-played viola recital ever recorded, a program of Schumann, Stravinsky, Bach Kodaly, and Vieuxtemps (4.42075) by Atar Arad and pianist Evelyne Brancart. Thus reminded, I will also make room, finally, for an equally warm recommendation of Arad's earlier recording of viola works (Telefunken 4.42007) by Hoffmeister, Paganini, and Carl Stamitz, with the Philharmonia Hungarica under Reinhard Peters. Even my obsessive fascination with odd sounds is stretched too far by the Munich Baryton Trio's recording of five of Haydn's 125 trios for baryton, viola, and cello (Nos. 44, 52, 61, 96, 101; Archiv 3310 405, $9.98). For all their musicological earnestness, the performances teeter on the brink of tedium. ... Oboe, horn, flute ... My personal instrumental biases-as regular readers are surely aware-tilt strongly toward the winds in general, the reeds in particular. And indeed my keenest delights this month are provided by that oboist supreme, Heinz Holliger, who offers the third installment of his Vivaldi concerto series (Philips 7300 726, $9.98), with I Musici, and two Albinoni releases-four solo and four duo oboe concertos from Op. 7, with Hans Elhorst and the Camerata Bern (Archiv 3310 409, $9.98), and four solo concertos from Op. 9, with I Musici (Philips 7313 012, $9.98). The leading hornist of recent years, Barry Tuckwell, re-records his celebrated Haydn concertos (two by Joseph, one by Michael) in Angel 4SZ 37569 ($8.98). This version is better, except that the English Chamber Orchestra's accompaniments, conducted by Tuckwell, are no match for the Marriner/ Academy ones on Argo. The Irish-leprechaun challenger to Jean-Pierre Rampal's long dominance of the flute discographies, James Galway, expands the concerto repertory with a mildly attractive Concierto pastoral commissioned from Joaquin Rodrigo and couples it with his own flute transcription of Rodrigo's Fantasia para un gentilhombre for guitar (RCA Red Seal ARK 1-3416, $8.98). Both are well played and recorded, with Eduardo Mata leading the Philharmonia Orchestra, but everything here pales in comparison with a superb Telemann program (RCA ARK 1-3488, $8.98), in which Galway doubles as conductor of the Solisti di Zagreb in the popular A minor Suite and the less familiar Concertos in G and C. Though no specialist in baroque style, Galway brings such zest and pellucid tone to this delectable music that he proves quite irresistible. ... Harp, lute, guitar The incomparable Spanish harpist, Nicanor Zabaleta, records far too seldom these days, which further enhances the value of his superbly colored French pro gram (Deutsche Grammophon 3301 051, $9.98) of mostly novel works by Damase, Roussel, Salzedo, Samuel-Rousseau, Taille ferre, and Tournier, along with transcriptions of Ravel (Pavane) and Debussy (Arabesque No. 1). Nonesuch's recent cassette debut list ($4.96 each) featured two notable lute recitals: one, more than a decade old, with Walter Gerwig playing a program of suites by Bach, Buxtehude, and Pachelbel (N5 1229); the other, an English program (N5 1363) by a talented youngster, Paul O'Dette, making his American debut in a set of eight of Dowland's best pieces coupled with an even more attractive-and historically valuable-batch of seven works by Byrd. Yet the Old Master lutenist Julian Bream must always be reckoned with, as he demonstrates anew in one of his most impressive, yet immediately delightful, historical documentaries to date: "Music of Spain," Vol. 1 (RCA Red Seal ARK 1-3435, $8.98). It presents vihuela pavanes and fantasias from Luis Milan's El Maestro collection of 1535-36 along with even more re warding fantasias and diferencias from Luis de Narvaez' Los seys libros del Delphin de mit sica of 1538. Then, as always, there is the seemingly inexhaustible flood of guitar recitals and concertos, but only two recent releases fully held my attention. One is Narciso Yepes' latest remake of the perennial favorites, Giuliani's Op. 30 Concerto and Rodrigo's Fantasia para un gentilhombre, this time with the English Chamber Orchestra under Garcia Navarro (DG 3300 975, $9.98). The other is the Romeros' remake of Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz and the Concierto de Aranjuez with Pepe Romero as soloist (Philips 7300 705, $9.98); the accompaniments by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields are far above average. ----------------- (High Fidelity, Apr 1980) Also see: Predictable Crises in Classical Music Recording, by Allan Kozinn
|