The Tape Deck: by R. D. Darrell. Quadriphonic Fireworks ... Joplin reels ... Rachmaninoff fat vs. Mozart lean.
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by R. D. Darrell
More Q-reel Grand Prix entries. Seekers of ne plus ultra quadriphonic engineering and real-time reel-tape processing now are proffered two more luxury releases. Ambiphon's allied la bel, Sonar (Box 455, Kingsbridge Station, Bronx, New York 10463), decants old wine from new bottles in the archly named "Verry Merrie Olde Tyme Musick": QR 1120. Q-reel, $19.95. And Sonar has processed the "Winds of Alamar" program (QOD 7.5 DA101, Q-reel, $20; in Dolby-B, $25. Also 15-ips, 10 1/2-inch reel, $40; Q-8 cartridge, $7.50) from Quadratrak ( 4114 Wexford Court, Kensington, Maryland 20795).
The Sonar Music Men's fifteen short, mostly Renaissance instrumental pieces will be familiar to specialists, but even they have never heard the music ring out as thrillingly as it does here. Yet it's sad that only five se lections feature period instruments, for cornetts and sackbuts never have been recorded as well before: while the modern instruments used else where are just as vividly recorded, they are tonally anachronistic even when a tuba is not included. Nevertheless, purists must tolerate such gaffes for the privilege of hearing Farnaby's "Construe my meaning," Dow land's "Can she excuse," and a Susato pavan brought back to gloriously v brant life.
I leave it to experts in country-rock, if that's the Quadratrak program's genre, to evaluate its six pieces by the Iguana singers/players. But even I relished the jauntiness of Don Falk's "Happy One-Sad One," the imaginativeness of Budge Witherspoon's "Sailing Ships," and the fascinatingly novel (to me, anyway) timbres of the dumbeg, pedal steel, Crill bass, Steel-O-Captor, Wexford bells, H.I.P. and Fender Rhodes pianos-all superbly captured in panoramic quadriphony by engineer Gene Eichelberger.
"Gone up with a merry noise." Exciting as such state-of-the-audio-arts demonstrations may be, there are more solid satisfactions in hearing old favorites endowed with appeals enhanced by techniques that never distract primary attention from the music itself. Current exemplars: Q-reel pioneer Vanguard's re-illuminations of Handel's Fireworks Music and the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition (VSS 24 and 25 respectively, Dolby-B Q-reels, $12.95 each). It's probably the latter work that will win most attention since its quadriphony, while unexaggerated with only a few sound sources in back, so potently intensifies the dramatic power of Ravel's showpiece scoring. In stereo, this reading by Mackerras scarcely challenges those by Ansermet, Toscanini, et al., and the recording of the first rate New Philharmonia performance may seem unduly reverberant. But everything is miraculously sea-changed in the expanded dimensions of quadriphony.
Yet for me there are even more re warding miracles achieved by the somewhat more fully "surround" technology in Somary's straight forward performance of the Fire works in its original oversize all wind-and-percussion scoring. In mono or stereo, several earlier versions using the specified 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, etc., sounded far too raw, if not wholly grotesque, to most ears.
Skillfully spread and balanced as the augmented English Chamber ensemble is here, the glorious music not only makes a truly glorious noise, but evokes a festival exuberance surely unmatched in all the years since the composer's own memorably spectacular 1749 performance in London's Green Park.
Ragtime redivivus: second wind. Quadriphony as such is only one of many attractions in the British tribute to Scott Joplin, the recording of The Prodigal Son ballet (re-titled The Entertainer for better domestic pull) imaginatively scored and idiomatically played by Grant Hossack with the London Festival Ballet Orchestra: Columbia MAQ 33185, Dolby-B Q-8 cartridge, $7.98: stereo cassette/cartridge editions, $7.98 each. In this ineffably delectable work the tunes are Joplin's best, including many unfamiliar ones, and the scoring is concerto-grosso-like for solo piano, small jazz band, and symphony orchestra. The recording, with some back sources as well as ambience, is well nigh ideally airborne.
The lasting vitality of the Joplin revival also is demonstrated by continued pianistic delving into this quintessentially American repertory. First honors go once again to pioneer Joshua Rifkin, whose Vols. 1 and 2 are combined in the Nonesuch/Advent F 1042, Dolby-B double-play cassette, $7.95. His lead evidently has inspired Dick Hyman to comparably lilting and lyrical versions-at least if Hyman's five-disc set of the complete Joplin piano rags may be judged by the sixteen "Classic Rag" exemplars in RCA Red Seal ARK/ARS 1-1257, cassette/cartridge, $7.95 each. But Hy man is not given the warmer ambience of the Nonesuch recording or the noiseless surfaces of the deluxe Advent tape processing. And while pianist Roger Shields enjoys the benefits of Dolby-B quieting in his collection of rags by Joplin, Lamb, Scott, Matthews, and others (SMG/Vox CT 146. $5.98), he plays in stiffer barroom style with more brittle recorded tonal qualities. But there's still lots of lusty musical fun here.
Musical fat/lean extremes. No omnivorous audiophile ever lacks considerable variety, but few of his listening contrasts are likely to be as drastically polarized as those I've just experienced in hearing two versions of perhaps the most uninhibitedly romantic of all symphonies, Rachmaninoff's Second, immediately followed by the four little Mozart quartets for flute and strings. If you're willing to risk auditory schizophrenia, go to it too! But you'll be much safer sticking to-temporarily at least-either romanticism or rococoism alone. For the former, Previn's your best choice, since his new London Symphony version (complete this time) prodigally spares nothing in either emotional or sonic riches: Angel 4XS/8XS 36954, cassette/cartridge, $7.98 each. Ormandy, whose specialty this Rachmaninoff warhorse long has been, also uses the uncut score for the first time, but now he seems to have lost genuine personal interest in the work, for there is unexpected perfunctoriness in both his present reading and the Philadelphians' recorded performance: RCA Red Seal ARK/ARS 1-1150, cassette/ cartridge, $7.95 each.
Mozart himself was perfunctory in only partially filling a Dutchman's commission for a batch of flute works, among them three of the four quartets played with well-nigh ideal grace by William Bennett and the Grumiaux Trio and recorded to airy perfection in Philips 7300 401, Dolby-B cassette, $7.98. But light, fluffy, and mercurially evanescent as the music may be, it still has some of Mozart's unique magic. In any case, what a relief, after the storm of Rachmaninoffian passion, to bask in Mozartean sunshine!
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(High Fidelity, Mar. 1976)
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