The Tape Deck: by R.D. Darrell: Penman's virtuoso fiddling ... Super-Stokowskian Bach
Virtuoso fiddling: angelic and Gallic. From his first emergence out of Israel, Itzhak Perlman has claimed ranking among not only the outstanding virtuosos but the true poets of the violin. Now he comes fully into his own in a program giving full rein to both his scintillant technique and his evocative poetic eloquence--a program that also prodigally proffers some of the most effective accompaniment--collaborations (by Jean Martinon and the Orchestre de Paris) and the most re splendent recorded sonics one is ever likely to hear: Angel 4XS/8XS 37118, cassette/cartridge, $7.98 each.
Spectacular fiddling dominates the Ravel Tzigane (superseding his 1989 RCA version) and the familiar Saint Saens warhorses, the Op. 83 Hava naise and the Op. 28 Introduction and Rondo capriccioso. Yet even here Perlman's dazzling dramatic éclat is restrained and shaped by sure artistic control, while the glowing radiance of his Chausson Poeme can only be suggested by paraphrasing Pope Gregory I's amazed impression of the first English youths he had seen ("Non Angh, sed Angeli") and deeming this "not so much Israeli as angelic music-making." Perlman hasn't yet remade his Lalo Symphonie espagnole of 1969, but the new one we do have from a French pupil of Heifetz', Pierre Amoyal, differs markedly from Perlman's and other superstars' big -toned, boldly theatrical approach in its relatively small but silken tonal qualities, lyric delicacy, and above all Gallic elegance. The soloist's grace, however, is somewhat incongruously allied with Paul Paray's gruffly robust Monte Carlo orchestral accompaniment and the extremely powerful, rather heavy recording-qualities better suited to Paray's rousing, rhythmically lilting performance of Lalo's Rapsodie nor vegienne: Musical Heritage MHC 2101, Dolby-B cassette, $6.95.
Outdoor boy's Beethoven/thinking man's Stravinsky. Not even a Tosca nini or a Szell has ever recorded a Beethoven First Symphony small scaled, good-humored, and revires cent enough to satisfy my personal perhaps unduly idiosyncratic-tastes.
In the past, Ansermet came closest, but now at last I find most of the relish and breezy invigoration I've been looking for in the gleamingly bright and crystalline recorded performance by Neville Marriner's more chamber- than symphonic-sized Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields ensemble. His coupled Second Symphony is no less freshly appealing, particularly for its by R. D. Darrell zestful rhythmic pulse. And although this latter work is better suited for larger-scaled treatment, and despite my fond remembrance of the in comparable Szell reading, I find special pleasure in Marriner's version: Philips 7300 087, Dolby-B cassette, $7.95.
Another, more recently recorded Philips cassette testifies even more convincingly to the ever increasing skill of that company's engineering staff in capturing not merely impressive, but exceptionally honest and natural orchestral sonics--plus the distinctive ambience of the particular auditorium in which they resound. It also testifies anew to the maturation of Bernard Haitink into one of the conductorial magisters of our time, one who can bring new lucidity, tauter integration, and overwhelming dramatic conviction even to a work as often well played on and off records as Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps.
The composer's own version remains sui generis, of course, as indeed does that by Boulez, also for Columbia, and perhaps a few others. Nevertheless, Haitink, the London Philharmonic, and Philips' engineers proffer no less searching illuminations of this mile stone music, further distinguished by an even more aurally rewarding sonic replica of the performance itself: Philips 7300 278, Dolby-B cassette, $7.95.
More super-Stokowskian Bach. I must have been clairvoyant in qualifying my November 1974 farewell to the "hyphenated Stokowski" as "not for good." For already his London/Czech Philharmonic program of Bach transcriptions and a more recent Angel disc-only reissue of the original 1959 Capitol Bach-Stokowski program have been augmented by more of the same from the incredible nonagenarian sorcerer. And the new performances with the London Sym phony for RCA are unique in some respects. They include the first commercial recording of a very early (1915) orchestration of the S. 645 Wachet auf chorale, and the first stereo recordings of the transcriptions of the mighty Chaconne from S. 1004, Preludio from S. 1006, Air in D from S. 1068, and Arioso from Cantata No. 156. (The remaining three selections S. 578 "little" Fugue in G minor, S. 478 Komm, stisser Tod, and Ein' feste Burg--were first recorded in stereo in the Capitol/Angel collection noted above.) What's most remarkable here, however, is that all but one (the familiar Air in D) of these pieces are included among the lushest, most inflated and melodramatically romanticized scores in the whole Bach-Stokowski repertory. Yet despite all that, even the most outraged Bach purist will have to fight his damnedest to resist mesmerization. For Stokowski him self obviously is in better health and more surely "in control" than when he recorded earlier in Prague. (Now he even may seem hyperactive and too hard driving.) The uninhibited emotionalism of both transcriptions and performances are incalculably enhanced by quite extraordinary sonic intoxications.
Even London's Phase-4 vividness is excelled and its unnaturalness avoided, while new triumphs in ultra-richness are achieved in Robert Auger's incandescent engineering: RCA Red Seal ARK/ARS 1-0880, cassette/ cartridge, $7.95 each. But why no Q-8 edition? Rodrigo bis-and bis! Superciliously dismissed by connoisseurs as light weight, Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez has craft and atmospheric appeal for guitar aficionados that can become potently persuasive to everyone in first-rate recorded per formances. Two of the best of these have just been remade, in more-than ever revelatory audio engineering, both by John Williams with Daniel Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra (Columbia MAQ 33208, Dolby-B Q-8 cartridge, $7.95) and by Julian Bream with John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Orchestra (RCA Red Seal ARK/ARS 1-1181, cassette/ cartridge, $7.95 each). Only the read ings remain much the same: Williams' extraverted, big -toned, more dramatic; Bream's introverted, poetic, more chamber- than concert-styled.
It's the recordings that are new and ideally suited, with robust big -hall sound in luminous quadriphony for Williams, warmly intimate stereo for Bream.
Markedly different too are the coupled guitar concertos. Williams chooses the relatively familiar 1951 one by Villa-Lobos; Bream gives the record premiere of a 1974 work by Sir Lennox Berkeley--a dreamy mood piece of more pastel charm than healthful vitality.
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(High Fidelity, Feb. 1976)
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