by R. D. Darrell
Continuations: 1. Vanguards his month's big high-tech news is of course RCA's jumping on the audiophile specialty bandwagon. But while I impatiently await its new, as well as the first Philips, digitally recorded programs in super-chromium tapings, I have fewer chromium musicassettes on hand than usual. Indeed, only three more, from the Vanguard debut list greeted last month. These also are superior new editions of analog recordings available for some years in disc and (in some cases) earlier tape formats. Now, however, we can hear far more sonic content with far less surface noise than ever.
The 1975 Somary/English Chamber Orchestra recording of the Bach Brandenburgs, which reaches tape for the first time in a double-play cassette (CA 471208/9, $10.98), ranks among the best versions using (mostly) modern instruments-the exceptions being the vital harpsichord, recorder, gamba, violino piccolo, and vio lone parts. While I'm purist enough to go the whole hog with period instruments and pitch, I certainly don't expect nonspecialist listeners to go that far.
For a complete taping of the 1968 Abravanel/Utah Symphony "Homage to Satie" program, one must go back to the Barclay-Crocker double-play reel edition ("Tape Deck," September 1979), but cassette collectors will welcome the handy combination of Satie's ballets (Parade, Mercure, Reliidie), plus the two Gymnopédies that Debussy orchestrated (CA 471275, $8.98). And although the lanigro/Solisti di Zagreb recording of Vivaldi "Concertos for Diverse Instruments" (CA 470665, $8.98)
dates from 1965, it's now revealed as a true milestone both in its still vivid sonics and in its inexhaustibly imaginative exploitation of solo/tutti potentials. These delectably varied works feature two mandolins in RV 532, flute in RV 439 (La Notte), strings in RV 158, bassoon in RV 495 (not RV 501 as labeled), violin with two string choirs in RV 581 (not RV 179).
2. Great Unexpectations I had thought I knew the music of Bach's best-known son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, fairly well, but I'm really jolted to discover the extraordinary dramatic originality of his six String Symphonies, Wq. 182, brought to distinctively virile life by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, on period instruments (Archie 3310 449, $9.98). And while I knew something of the young Hungarian pianist Dersb Ránki, I still was surprised by the magisterial assurance and penetrating insight of his Mozart Piano Quartets, K. 478 and 493, with members of the Eder Quartet (Telefunken 4.42523, $10.98). The ultraclean TriTec sonics are sheer aural joy; the unflagging zest of the readings almost makes me forget my treasured 1946 mono masterpieces by Szell/ Budapest Quartet.
An entirely different "un-expectation" is how well a "delectable mountain" of many years ago retains its original freshness. Indeed, it is now further handicapped by the relative neglect of its composer, Peter Warlock (a.k.a. Philip Heseltine), in recent years. Not to worry, however: His Capriol Suite of piquantly scored dances from De Preys's Orchésographie of 1589 proves as uniquely delightful as ever-now jaunty, now poignant-in its Marriner/St.
Martin's Academy resurrection (included in Argo KZRC 881, $9.98). Warlock's birthday Serenade for Delius, also famous once, wears less well (except to devout Delians), as does the heavy-handed Vaughan Williams Concerto grosso-a poor choice indeed to lead off this program. That respected Briton's oboe concerto (with Celia Nicklin as spicy-toned soloist) is a pleasant enough sample of his favored pastorale vein, though none of these companion pieces remotely approaches the magic of Capriol.
3. Old Reliables Very different yet equally admirable in their individual ways, the Haydn symphony series by Neville Marriner and Sir Colin Davis (both for Philips, with the Academy and the Concertgebouw, respectively) are so well known that their devotees need only the welcome word that more examples are available: Marriner's Nos. 31 (Hornsigval) and 73 (Hunt) (7300 674), 82 (Bear) and 83 (Hen) (7300 675); and Davis' Nos. 86 and 98 (7300 773) ($9.98 per cassette). Also equal to one's confident hopes are the well-nigh definitive versions of the poignant Berg violin concerto and Stravinsky's chipper neo-baroque one, both in the superb recordings of Itzhak Perlman and Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony (DG 3301 110, $9.98). And everyone who has relished Sir Georg Solti's powerful Elgar series with the London Philharmonic (more) will find similar, though more novel, pleasure in the British master's magnificent Falstaff portrait, processed without the usual side break, and exuberant In the South Overture (London CS5 7193, $9.95). No fan of either Solti's or Karajan's Bruckner symphony series is likely to he disappointed in their characteristically individual treatments of the least well-known (Cinderella) symphony, No. 6 (Solti: London CS5 7173, .$9.95; Karajan: DG 3301 295, $9.98). But others, like myself, may well find more sonic thrills than interpretative depths in the former, indulgent mannerisms and excessive contrasts in the latter. And no admirer of the late Alfred Deller's unique artistry (as countertenor and conductor) can afford to pass up one of his last and most ambitious Harmonia Mundi recordings, the Purcell-Dryden masque-opera King Arthur (Musical Heritage MHC 6188/9, two cassettes with libretto, $13.90-$9.40 to members -- plus $1.60 for shipping; Musical Heritage Society, 14 Park Rd., Tinton Falls, N.J. 07724). Yet non-specialists (especially those anesthetic to British oratorio singing styles) may find it difficult to suspend disbelief throughout.
4. Barclay-Crocker open reels It was eight and a half years ago that a bold new company of reel-tape specialists issued its first catalog. Now No. 6 is out ($1.00 from Barclay-Crocker, 11 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10004). The Reel News supplements appear monthly, and some sixty releases are scheduled for 1981. The latest to reach me include two programs that I've reported on in earlier cassette editions but that now proffer the still more impressive sonic weight and impact that put 71-ips Dolby reels in a class by themselves. They are the radiant Berlioz Harold in Italy by violist Nobuko Imai and Davis (Philips/ B-C G 9500 026, $10.95) and Schubert's Seventh Symphony, never fully scored, in Felix Weingartner's fascinating orchestration performed by Heinz Rogner and the Berlin Radio Symphony (Spectrum/B-C D 116, $7.95). Three more Philips/B-C reels ($10.95 each) are led by the first tape of the 1978 DeWaart/Rotterdam Philharmonic performance of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony (G 9500 309)-a fine if somewhat studied reading in sumptuous recorded sonics. I haven't heard the cassette editions of the other two, but I doubt that they do as much justice to the poetically evocative 1978 Haitink/Concertgebouw Debussy program (Images, Danses, G 0500 509) or to the circus-rowdy 1977 Marriner/ London Philharmonic Suppé overtures (C 9500 399). - HF
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(High Fidelity, USA print magazine)
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