Reviewed by:
RICHARD FREED
DAVID HALL
GEORGE JELLINEK
IGOR KIPNIS
PAUL KRESH
ERIC SALZMAN
BACH, J.S.: Brandenburg Concertos (Original Version). Alan Loveday and Iona Brown (violins); Stephen Shingles and Margaret Major (violas); Roderick and Kenneth Skeaping (viola da gamba): Kenneth Heath (cello):
David Munrow and John Turner (recorders):
Claude Monteux (flute); Neil Black (oboe):
Barry Tuckwell (horn); Thurston Dart, Philip Ledger. Raymond Leppard. George Malcolm. and Colin Tilney (harpsichord): Colin Tilney (organ): Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Neville Marriner cond.
PHILIPS 6700 045 two discs $1 3.96.
Performance Fascinating document
Recording: Good
Before he died so prematurely in 1971. Thurston Dart had been working for some years on the earlier versions of the Brandenburg Concertos. It is known. of course, that More Bach wrote out his presentation copy of the six concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721 the pieces already existed in some previous state. For example. the First Concerto did not yet have its allegro (third) movement or the polacca, or second trio, in the final menuetto; the famous cadenza in the first movement of the Fifth Concerto was considerably shorter in its earlier version; Concerto No. 6, possibly the earliest of the set, may have been derived in part from a Weimar cantata; and so forth.
All of this has been discussed in print by a variety of musicologists. Dart included. But it is only with these recordings that we have the
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Explanation of symbols:
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Monophonic recordings are indicated by the symbol
The first listing is the one reviewed: other formats, if available, follow it.
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opportunity of actually hearing the pre- Brandenburg concertos. Some of the concertos vary from their better-known editions only very slightly (No. 6. for example, where there are only some different bass figurations and ...
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CATHY BERBLRIAN---A brilliant realization of Berio's meta-work
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... additional ornamentation), but others vary dramatically, depending on how familiar you are with the later version. Most of the really dramatic contrast has to do with matters of instrumentation (or speculation as to what kind of instrument Bach intended for a certain part), and here, of course. Dart's reasoning, for all his authority, is apt to cause the greatest controversy. For example. on the basis of Bach's instrumental description of "Tromba o vero corno do coedit--and the keys that Bach wrote for trumpet and horn.
Dart believed that at least for this earlier version of the Second Concerto a French horn (rather than a trumpet) was the desired brass instrument, sounding, of course, an octave below where the high trumpet does. Similarly. in Concerto No. 4, Bach's indication of. fluriti d'eclio meant flageolets to Dart rather than recorders, the flageolets (played here by sopranino recorders) sounding one octave higher than written. Depending on how open your mind is to this, you may he either startled. intrigued, or violently disconcerted.
Dart's explanations, as always, are utterly reasonable in print. but the biggest obstacle is.
naturally, having become used to hearing the concertos in their more "normal" versions, particularly with the high trumpet in No. 2 and the lower-pitched recorders in No. 4.
A few more descriptive comments are in order. Except for No. 1. the concertos are played one person per part. Organ continuo is used in No. 6. two harpsichords in No. 1: in the remaining concertos. the harpsichord du ties, following Dart's death (he was able to record only a handful of movements). are split between a group of Britain's most distinguished harpsichordists- Philip Ledger.
Raymond Leppard. Colin Tilney. and. supplying a dazzling shot t-version cadenza in No. 5. George Malcolm. The instrumental playing throughout is on a very high level.
I must admit, however, to a couple of disappointments. The sonics are good. hut the strings have an edgy quality about them; where is the glow one admires so much in the Academy's Argo recordings'? Second, the tempos, particularly in fast movements, are dangerously unrelenting: they are fast.
which is neither had nor good necessarily, but they are also often hectic. Un-relaxed. unsmiling. certainly very different in mood from the set Dart himself directed for L'Oiseati Lyre. Perhaps the effect of Dart's illness. his having to be taken to the hospital mid-sessions, and his death a month later cast a pall on the proceedings. In any case. this is a very specialized set, one that will have to he listened to quite a number of times to make its proper impact.
J.K.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BERIO: Recital I (For Cathy).
Cathy Berberian (soprano): London Sinfonietta.
Luciano Berio cond.
RCA AR I 1-0036 $5.95.
Performance: Sensational
Recording: Good
Berio's recital for Cathy Berberian is a long anguished monologue for a singer suffocating in her own culture. Spoken texts--by Berio himself, with references--alternate with musical fragments from Monteverdi to Bach to Lakme to Wagner to Schoenberg, Prokofiev, Leonard Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, and Berio himself. The instrumental music- key boards all over the place, obsessive winds and strings-is a similar tissue of obsessions and quotations closing in on the poor soprano and crushing her like some absurd costume of silks and baubles. Poor lady, she must bear the weight of all the debris of Western civilization- centuries worth heaped on her shoulders-and all the while pretend (to herself as well as to us) that she is upholding culture, Kultur, kulchaaaah ... saving and preserving the very thing that is destroying her.
Like many of Berio's theater pieces this is a meta-work: a recital about the act of reciting, a cultural act about the act of culture, music-theater about the agony of music/theater ("There must be some place in the world," she cries. "that isn't a theater [always this need for words]" and then goes hopelessly back to words and theater). At the end of the first side she similarly sings an old, traditional-culture song which turns out to be by Berio himself in a style he shortly abandoned; no liberation there. Only at the end of the entire Recital does she escape her impending burlesque doom-by-culture into a deliciously ambiguous (and highly cultural) "Lied." This final lyric effusion corresponds to the clarity and certainty of the Monteverdi we hear at the opening-but it is also unclear and uncertain, curiously satisfying although it resolves nothing. It appears to be the only originally composed vocal music in the whole work! Except for one lapse- "Play it again, Sam" at the beginning of Side 2; Woody Allen did it better-the work is brilliantly conceived and equally brilliantly realized by Cathy Berberian. It is, of course, designed to show her amazing versatility. The staggering load that she manages to shoulder is the history of Western music plus a stand-up meta-monologue, all in thirty-five minutes, and you never doubt her for a moment. The performance, directed by Berio himself, with the excellent London Sinfonietta players, is effective. More might have been made of the medium itself in recording a work like this, but, in a traditional, cultural way, the sound is good. E.S.
BRAHMS: Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120: No. 1, in F Minor; No. 2, in Ellett Major. Mitchell Lurie (clarinet); Leona Lurie (piano).
CRYSTAL S301 $5.98.
Performance: Occasionally wayward
Recording: Somewhat cavernous
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BRAHMS: Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120: No. 1, in F Minor; No. 2, in E-flat Major. Harold Wright (clarinet); Harris Gold smith (piano).
MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY MHS 1496 $2.99 (plus 750 handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society, Inc., 1991 Broadway, New York, N.Y.).
Performance: First-rate
Recording: Likewise
Since my school days I have cherished Brahms' two clarinet sonatas, among the loveliest blooms of the composer's last year, and as one of my first experiences in recording production I had the pleasure of working with Reginald Kell and Mieczyslaw Horszowski when they taped their fine performance for a short-lived Mercury issue.
It is in this same high class that I place the recorded performance by Harold Wright and Harris Goldsmith, originally issued on CBS' ill-fated Crossroads label in late 1967 and now happily reissued by the Musical Heritage Society. In the interim, Mr. Wright has be come first-chair clarinet of the National Sym phony Orchestra in Washington, and both artists have been represented on the RCA Victrola label with the lovely Schumann Op. 73 Fantasiestucke for clarinet and piano. For justness of pacing, refinement of phrasing, and command of subtle dynamic gradation and tonal coloration, I find the Wright-Goldsmith collaboration wonderfully satisfying. The excellent sound of the Crossroads release has been, if anything, improved on the Musical Heritage Society disc.
Other than the good but slightly heavy handed performances by David and Frank
BEAUX ARTS TRIO
With Trampler, sizzling in Dvorak quartets Glazer as part of a Vox Box Brahms chamber-music album, the new Crystal disc by the Lurie husband-and-wife team is the only re corded performance of the clarinet sonatas available in retail stores. Mitchell Lurie is a seasoned veteran of the orchestral battlefield, having served as first clarinet in both Pitts burgh and Chicago. It is unfortunate that all the lyrical feeling he and Leona Lurie bring to their performance is undone to a large extent by a far too distant microphone placement that gives the resulting recorded sound a cold and somewhat cavernous quality. I also take sharp exception, in terms of personal taste, to the drastic slowing down in the middle movement of the E-flat Sonata for the sublime chorale melody that forms its centerpiece.
It's well worth $3.74 and waiting for the slower-than-ever postman to obtain the Wright-Goldsmith disc. D.H.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CAGE: Three Dances for Two Amplified Pre pared Pianos. Michael Tilson Thomas and Ralph Grierson (pianos).
REICH: Four Organs for Four Electric Organs and Maracas.
Michael Tilson Thomas, Ralph Grierson, Roger Kellaway, and Steve Reich (organs);
Tom Raney (maracas). ANGEL S-36059
$5.98.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: A bit dry
This recording is notable on several counts. It is a rare entry by Angel into the contemporary field, a souvenir of the Ojai Festival in California, and a pairing of two notable pieces. It also suggests connections between the old, orientalizing American post-avant-garde of the late Thirties and Forties and the new post-avant-garde music of slow changes.
The early music of John Cage belongs to and is an outstanding representative of a fascinating and largely forgotten movement (oh, how we destroy our real history in favor of Disneyland fantasies!) that turned the West it was California-centered- toward the East.
Cage's prepared piano was, among other things, a one-man gamelan, and his long-term interest in Eastern ideas is mirrored in the rhythmical/modal structures: patterns and cycles of repetition of highly distinctive percussive colors. Cage's music (not necessarily his underlying ideas) have changed so radically in the intervening years that it is easy to forget that he was once the master of a really simple and beautiful art, very closely allied to the dance.
The dances here, written in 1944-1945, are a kind of apotheosis of his rhythmical/prepared-piano period. The preparations--nuts, bolts, screws, washers, and whatnot between the strings-are the most complex of any of his works, and the rhythmical modes, cycles, and changes are equally rich. The musical results are very engaging.
Steve Reich's music sounds anything but engaging even to the initiated. The bursts and increasingly sustained organ tones with the endless swatch of maracas eighths in Four Organs may not immediately suggest many connections to the Cage prepared piano, but the connections are nonetheless real. Reich has, in fact, pursued the study of both African gamelan--not out of ethnic interest but because those traditions have elements of long-range rhythmic cycle and process that are his primary concern. His music is a slow-motion composing-out of sound shifts. There are obvious analogies to so-called minimalism in the visual arts- analogies that Reich rejects in favor of such terms as "process" or (ambiguous, this one) "structural." In fact, however, one important branch of minimal art was (is?) involved with the creation of "primary structures," and primary structures are certainly what Reich creates. Of course, structure in music is not static but involves change, and controlled, predetermined change-and its perception-is what Reich's music is all about. (Even a Don Judd primary structure sitting in a museum changes as you walk around it; in a Reich piece, it's the performers who make the changes for you). At any rate, the notion of slow, cyclical, or phased change is central to this music, and it is interesting that, at a time when the global electronic network suggests seemingly end less possibilities, there should a reactive refocusing inward on the minute details of making and perceiving sound. The changes that take place in Four Organs might be a twenty-four-minute spinning out of a single arpeggio taking only a few seconds of a Bach organ prelude.
Like the early work of Cage, Reich's music is rhythmic. Most listeners more easily (and gratefully) perceive this in his highly rhythmic tape pieces or in a work of obviously kinetic appeal like Drumming, written after his visit to Ghana. Four Organs. with its changing pat tern of sustained notes, is subtler, more of an abstraction. It is a demonstration piece that makes no case at all for listening, hearing, and retaining the audible sense of process that Reich says he wants to be heard. The process of this piece is not "cultural" but invented by Reich for the occasion; therefore, it is purely arbitrary and not at all part of the socializing process of creating, remembering, playing, listening, remembering, hearing, noting, expecting, forgetting, following, remembering. . . .
Both of the works on this disc were originally performed at the 1973 Ojai Festival-of which Michael Tilson Thomas is the music director-and later recorded in Los Angeles.
The performances are excellent. The recordings seem a little dry, though; the Cage in particular seems to want a bit more air around it.
E.S.
DEBUSSY: Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Faune; Petite Suite (see POULENC)
DURANTE: Four Concertos for Strings and Continuo.
Collegium Aureum, Rolf Reinhardt cond.
BASF KHB 21681 $5.98.
Performance: Very satisfactory
Recording: Excellent
Francesco Durante (1684-1755) was a Neopolitan whose output consisted largely of church music. In contrast to some of his con temporaries, Leonardo Leo, Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli, or, say, Handel, he was a bit of a conservative, interested in correctness of part writing, conventional contrapuntal effects, and an older style of writing linked with church use rather than the newer operatic style which he mainly eschewed. He had a bevy of important pupils, including Pergolesi and Paisiello, and he was considered an important teacher in Italy. Of his eight Quartetti Concertanti, a sampling of which may be heard in the four works contained on this disc, the writing is above all lyrical; most of the string writing is very rich in texture and harmony, as well as expressive in affect, though there is virtually no solo display to be heard.
Durante's ability to engross the listener is on a distinctly lower plane than, say, Corelli's in his Concerti Grossi; there are some fine moments, but the composer is not always able to sustain inspiration as were the greatest of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, these four concertos will prove themselves a worthy example of the instrumental capabilities of an important second-rank late-Baroque composer; it is music that lends itself most effectively to late-night listening, for example. The seventeen-member Collegium Aureum performs these works with a slightly languorous approach (a more detached and sprightly style might have made the music sound more exciting), but the level of ensemble playing is first class. The reproduction, considering the fact that the music was recorded eleven years ago, is very satisfactory. J.K.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
DVORAK: Piano Quartet No. 1, in D Major, Op. 23; Piano Quartet No. 2, in Elicit Major, Op. 87. Walter Trampler (viola); Beaux Arts Trio.
PHILIPS 6500 452 $6.98.
Performance: Good No. 1; sizzling No. 2
Recording: Splendid
Not only has Philips carried off a fine bit of packaging by getting both of the Dvorak piano quartets on a single disc, they also have come up with a pair of splendid performances, splendidly recorded.
The D Major Quartet dates from 1875, when the composer was just getting the hang of managing, with some degree of ease, the major instrumental forms. Of the three movements, the slow-movement variations and the succeeding scherzo-finale fall most pleasingly on the ear, verging on top-drawer Dvorak.
The E-flat Quartet, composed almost fifteen years later, is the work of a fully matured master and is endowed with the combination of spontaneity and absolute command of form and substance that marked Dvorak's output of the late 1880's. The impassioned slow movement and the scherzo, with its delightful cimbalom effect for piano, are my particular favorites among the many fine pages of this work.
Pianist Menahem Pressler and his colleagues face stiff competition from the re corded performance of Op. 87 by Artur Rubinstein and members of the Guarneri Quartet. But in my opinion this new recording has the upper hand not only because of the sizzling vitality of the playing, but also because of the extraordinarily rich and well-balanced recorded sound achieved by the Philips engineering staff. A highly recommendable disc on all counts-especially for listeners just becoming acquainted with the classics of the chamber-music repertoire. D.H.
HANDEL: Cantatas. Nel dolce dell'oblio (Pensieri notturni di Filli); Ah, the troppo inegali. Elly Ameling (soprano); Hans-Martin Linde (recorder); Johannes Koch (viola da gamba); Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord continuo): Collegium Aureum. Silete Venti.
Halina Lukomska (soprano): Helmut Hucke (oboe); Collegium Aureum, Rolf Reinhardt dir. Recitative and Aria: Look down, harmonious Saint (Praise of Harmony). Theo Alt meyer (tenor); Collegium Aureum, Reinhard Peters cond. Joseph: Overture. Collegium Aureum, Rolf Reinhardt dir. BASF KHF 21687 two discs $9.98.
Performance: Very good to excellent
Recording: Excellent
This interesting collection of Handel vocal works stems from early in the composer's career (the Italian cantatas sung quite exquisitely by Elly Ameling), mid-career in England (the nearly half-hour-long Silete Venti, effectively performed by Halina Lukomska), and almost the end of his life (the remarkable recitative and aria, "Praise of Harmony," well sung, if not with the most idiomatic pronunciation, by Theo Altmeyer).
In addition to the vocal pieces, which involve sacred as well as secular texts, there is one orchestral item, the overture to Handel's 1744 oratorio, Joseph and His Brethren, not otherwise available on discs. The selections are certainly of more than average interest to Handel collectors, and the performances are on the whole very good ones. observing such stylistic niceties as discreet da capo embellishments, added vocal cadenzas, and an apropos instrumental transparency.
t should be noted, however, that the con tents of these two discs come from three separate Harmonia Mundi collections, all recorded around 1964 or before; RCA Victrola issued these in this country in 1967, and they are still available as the following:
VICS 1264, Silete Venti and the Joseph Overture; VICS 1275, the two Italian cantatas with Elly Ameling plus that soprano's version of Bach's Cantata No. 209, "Non sit cite sia dolore": VICS 1281, Altmever singing Handel's "Praise of Harmony," the other side of the disc containing in addition Bach's Wedding Cantata (No. 202) in a lovely performance by Elly Ameling. According to my figuring, the three RCA Victrola discs with their two additional Bach Cantatas add up to just under nine dollars, in comparison with a ten-dollar price tag for the BASF two disc version minus the Bach. Finally, all of these discs reproduce very satisfactorily.
BASF provides texts in the original languages only ("Praise of Harmony" is the only one in English), whereas Victrola offers some translations in addition to all the texts.
j.K.
HANDS: The Czech Year, Op. 24. Jan Kuhn Children's Choir; Antonin Sidlo (piano):
Chamber Ensemble of the Czech Philharmonic: Prague Radio Symphony, Jan Kuhn cond.
SERENUS SRS 12046 $6.98.
Performance: Not innovative but nice
Recording: Very good
Jan Hanus is a Czech composer born in Prague in 1915, and the influences of Dvorak and Smetana on his style have been conspicuous all during his career. Like Dvorak, he has found his inspiration in folk material, but much of his work has been for children-children's songs, children's studies for piano and other instruments. The present work was written for children's chorus and small orchestra, and performances of it have become something of a tradition in Czechoslovakia during the Christmas season. The popularity of this chronicle of the seasons in song is easy to understand. The music is melodious, ebullient, even humorous in places, and every where expertly crafted. It is also strictly traditional in every sense, without a single chord that could offend a commissar.
The record sorely needs a text, with which it does not come, but the notes provide an ink ling of the contents: verses related to "Na ture, the flowers, trees, streams, winds, the sun and rain, the clouds, the animals that are found in the . . . forests and in the farmyard." At the same time, there are frequent references to God, Jesus, Mary, the saints. And there are singing games, ballads, plays on words that probably would be entertaining enough if the listener were let in on their con tents. The opening section, Spring, pertains to Eastertide: Summer stresses the children's joy in nature and the games they play: Autumn brings rather literal effects of falling leaves and the chill of equinoctial winds: and Winter deals with the theme of a country Christmas in Bohemia. I don't know of many American children who would be content to sit still through all this, but the adult listener will find the score diverting enough- abounding in pastoral harmonies, hummable melo dies, and wholesome energy. Yet, in sum, this is the contribution of a musical academician, and there are few surprises. P.K.
LASSO: Chapel Music (see Collections- Bavaria's Courts and Residences) LITOLFF: Concerto Symphonique No. 4, in D Minor, Op. 102. Gerald Robbins (piano);
Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra, Edouard Van Remoortel cond.
GENESIS GS 1035 $5.98.
Performance: Fluent
Recording: Good
As a fledgling record collector in the early Thirties I took great delight in a little Colum bia ten-inch disc featuring Irene Scharrer as soloist with Sir Henry Wood and the London Symphony in something called Scherzo from Concerto Symphonique No. 4 by one Henry Litolff. The music was tuneful, sparklingly orchestrated and scintillatingly written for the piano soloist, and I have remained curious to this day as to what the rest of Concerto Symphonique No. 4 would sound like-that is, until Genesis came through with this first complete recording of the work.
Born in England, Henry Litolff (1818-1891) enjoyed a first career as a virtuoso pianist, and later also enjoyed great success as a music publisher and as a composer of works for concert platform and stage. A world-shaking masterpiece his Concerto Symphonique No. 4 is not; but it is remarkably advanced for its time (1851) in some aspects, including as it does certain of the cyclic devices exploited later by Franz Liszt (who dedicated his E-flat Concerto to Litolff). And it seems to anticipate in every respect the idiom and structural manner of Saint-Satins' piano concertos, the first of which was not composed until 1858.
In any event, the Litolff Concerto is agreeable listening fare, highly effective without being overblown, and in general worth an occa sional revival. This recorded performance, especially Gerald Robbins' piano, is fluent in the extreme, and Edouard Van Remoortel's orchestral support is spirited, though I could have done without the curious vibrato quality of brass playing in the slow-movement open ing. The recorded sound is consistently good throughout. D.H.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 8, in C Major (K. 246); Piano Concerto No. 26, in D Major (K. 537, "Coronation"). Jorg Demus (hammerklavier); Collegium Aureum. MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY MHS 1614 $2.99 (plus 75c handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society, Inc., 1991 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023).
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 8, in C Major (K. 246); Piano Concerto No. 26, in D Major (K. 537, "Coronation"). Jorg Demus (forte piano); Collegium Aureum. BASF KH B 29311 $5.98.
Performance: Intimate
Recording: Good
These two discs are, of course, the same re cording. How the dual release came to be I will leave to the lawyers, and simply get on
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GERALD ROBBINS An extremely fluent Litolff Concerto
... with the music. The instrument J6rg Demus plays, identified as a "hammerklavier" by MHS and a "fortepiano" by BASF, was built by Johann Schantz of Vienna in 1790 and recently restored by Josef Watzek of the same city. By either name, its sound is sheer enchantment, falling somewhere between that of a harpsichord and that of a modern piano.
The orchestra (conducted, presumably, either by Demus himself or by concertmaster Franzjosef Maier--or guided by some informal chamber-music agreement between them) comprises only seven violins, two violas, a single cello, and one bass in addition to the winds and timpani. The winds are original eighteenth-century instruments, or faithful copies of them, played by such well-known performers as Erich Penzel (natural horn) and Helmut Hucke (baroque oboe). In such an instrumental setting, the familiar "Coronation" Concerto emerges in somewhat smaller proportions than one is used to, but, to my ear, it makes a stronger impression in this intimate context than in the "festive" one usually associated with it. The earlier and slighter C Major Concerto is even more of a gainer in this treatment.
Naturally, this is not a matter of instruments playing themselves. Demus showed his affinity for K. 537 in a Westminster recording, on a modern piano and with a large orchestra, twenty years ago; he and his Collegium Aureum associates are obviously in love with both concertos, and they are both eager and able to communicate the joys of the music this is no mere demonstration of quaint sounds. There is a quaint touch, though:
Harmonia Mundi, which originated the recordings, was unable to excise a short bird-song between the first two movements of K. 246, but that avian applause (a bit more for ward on MHS) seems not the least out of keeping with the very natural charm of the human music-making.
Many collectors may wish to consider this as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, a conventional recording of the two concertos, or at least of the "Coronation." In that context, Demus and company have only themselves as competition--on these two discs derived from the same tapes. There are no bands to separate the movements on either side of the BASF disc, while there are on MHS; this is hardly bothersome, but the crunchy surfaces on BASF definitely are, and MHS, whose surfaces are impeccable, has also done a better job of mastering. The MHS edition is clearly preferable and well worth the trouble of ordering by mail, quite aside from the minor economy involved.
R.F.
POULENC: Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Strings, and Timpani; Concert Champetre for Harpsichord and Orchestra. Marie-Claire Alain (organ); Robert Veyron-Lacroix (harp sichord); Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon cond.
MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY MHS 1595 $2.99 (plus 0.75 handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society. Inc., 1991 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023).
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Good
POULENC: Concerto in D Minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra. Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir (pianos); Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sergiu Comissiona cond.
DEBUSSY: Prelude it d'un Faune (arr. Ravel); Petite Suite.
SATIE: Trois Mor ceaux en Forme de Poire. Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir (pianos).
LONDON CS 6754 $5.98.
Performance: Hard Recording: Good It seems a good idea to consider these two releases in tandem, even though there is no duplication between them, for admirers of the Poulenc works will find that considering alter native versions of these pieces does raise duplication problems. The MHS disc is an at tractive proposition, especially for Jean Martinon's superb conducting and Marie-Claire Alain's brilliant playing. Robert Veyron-Lacroix's brisk and businesslike approach in the Concert Champetre is a good deal less ingratiating than Aimee van de Wiele's more relaxed one on Angel S-35993, but Martinon's conducting is so much more persuasive than Georges Pretre's (the slow movement is al most a different piece of music in the two versions--a real siciliano in Martinon's hands, but choppy and charmless in Pretre's) that on balance MHS is to be preferred.
Complications arise, though, when the Concerto for Two Pianos enters the picture: the really incomparable performance of this work, with the late composer and his frequent performing partner Jacques Fevrier at the two keyboards, is on the other side of the Angel Concert Champetre. Poulenc composed this sparkling concerto for himself and Fevrier; they gave the first performance together in 1932, and the one they recorded nearly thirty years later exudes a comfortable sauciness, an almost improvisatory good cheer which is not to be supplanted by anything so trivial as mere virtuosity. Pretre, perhaps because the com poser was on hand, is much more in the spirit of things on this side than in the Concert Champetre. On the new London disc, Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir have steely brilliance to burn, but they seem so seriously bent on driving home the humor of the concerto that they quite miss its charming point: this is not brutal satire, but a sophisticated, some times parodistic piece that benefits most from understatement.
Having the Angel means either settling for Pretre's not very attractive conducting of the Concert Champetre or duplicating that title by adding the MHS version. Since Aimee van de Wiele is, after all, a more appealing soloist than Veyron-Lacroix, one could forgo the MHS disc altogether and pick up a still more satisfying version of the Organ Concerto: the one by Ben Zamkochian with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony on RCA LSC 2567 is even more brilliant than the Alain/ Martinon version and, despite its ten- or twelve-year seniority, more vividly recorded.
The coupling on RCA is Munch's marvelous account of Stravinsky's Jett de Cartes.
So, although the economical MHS release has very solid attractions, neither it nor the London disc is a must for the Poulenc collector. As for the piano duets played by Eden and Tamir (the title on the London jacket is "French Music for Two Pianos," but all three of the works without orchestra are for one piano, four hands-though it sounds as if they were recorded on two instruments), Ravel's arrangement of the Faun is a totally unnecessary gesture, and the Petite Suite is more evocatively played by Walter and Beatriz Klien on Turnabout TV-S 34234. Eden and Tamir are at their best in the Satie, but I can't see buying the record just for that. R. F.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
PUCCINI: The Girl of the Golden West. Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Minnie; Andrea Mongelli (baritone), Jack Rance; Joao Gibin (tenor), Dick Johnson: Renato Ercolani (tenor). Nick: Antonio Cassinelli (bass), Ashby: Enzo Sor dello (baritone), Sonora: Nicola Zaccaria (bass), Jake Wallace: Carlo Forti (bass). Jose Castro: others. Orchestra and Chorus of Tea tro alla Scala. Milan, Lovro von Mata6e cond.
SERAPHIM SC L-6074 three discs $8.94.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Very good
The naïveté of this opera's libretto will never permit it to be taken seriously by American audiences, despite Puccini's skill in manipulating American elements (in a similar fashion he wove Oriental elements into his basically Italian fabric in both Madams Butterfly, and Turandot). In any case, it is rewarding to re discover the opera's solid musical values through this atmospheric, well-conducted, and well-sung recording, a reissue of Angel S 3593, originally released about a dozen years ago.
No one would call Birgit Nilsson's Minnie ideal typecasting, and yet she portrays la fan ciulla vividly, with lots of temperament and bright, well-focused tones. There is always ample reserve in her singing, and the upper range (in the climax of "Laggihnel Soledad," for example) is quite spectacular. Joao Gibin, a Brazilian tenor who began with considerable promise some years ago and has since gone nowhere in particular, brings no sensuous appeal to the role of Dick Johnson, the ro mantic bandit, but he is certainly acceptable.
The real surprise, however, is Andrea Mongelli (1901-1970), a durable bass-baritone whose limited exposure on records did scant justice to his stature. His Rance is properly sinister throughout, a vital portrayal resting on a solid tonal foundation.
The large cast includes a group of excellent Milanese stalwarts, fused by Lovro von MataZie into a very fine ensemble without weak spots. If the London set (OSA 1306) has an edge in its more idiomatic rendition by the Tebaldi-Del Monaco team, the present release offers a viable and less expensive al ternate. There is no libretto with it, though, and the legend "International copyright restrictions prohibit the enclosure ... " is not quite correct. What is prohibited is the enclosure without the payment of royalties to the copyright owner. G.J.
PUCCINI: Tosca (see Best of the Month)
REICH: Four Organs (see CAGE)
REINECKE: Piano Concerto No. 1, in F-sharp Minor, Op. 72; Piano Concerto No. 2, in E Minor, Op. 120. Gerald Robbins (piano), Monte-Carlo Opera Orchestra, Edouard Van Remoortel cond.
GENESIS GS 1034 $5.98.
Performance Excellent
Recording: Excellent
In order to demonstrate the brevity of our musical past (and the quickness of cultural change) I once postulated a composer who studied with Haydn and was Schoenberg's teacher. Such a composer never existed, of course, but the point was that he could hare.
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke did exist, for instance. He was born in 1824 during the lifetime of Ludwig van Beethoven, and by the time of his death eighty-six years later atonal music had already arrived on the scene.
Not that Carl Reinecke is likely to have approved of that sort of thing: he was a pro found conservative in a progressive age. At an early age he settled in Leipzig where he came under the spell of Mendelssohn and Schumann. and their early Romanticism seems to have been sufficient for him for the rest of his life. In 1860 he became the conductor of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, which he directed for no less than thirty-five years, carefully insuring it against modernism and effectively relegating it to the provincial position it has occupied ever since. Reinecke was apparently an excellent pianist, and he was skillful enough in the Classic-Romantic vein to be regarded as a link between the early Romantics and Brahms (whom he occasionally resembles and may have cross-influenced).
The F-sharp Minor Concerto was Reineke's big number, and he was particularly successful with it in England, always appreciative of fluent, mellifluous conservatives. One gets the idea right away: flowing, caressing, minor-key music of tasteful quality. The E Minor Concerto is, if a little less engaging, on the same lines. It's nothing earth-shaking but certainly worthy of inclusion in the concert-hall-without-walls.
Gerald Robbins is a very capable pianist with a fine feeling for this German bourgeois Romanticism. The Monte Carlo Orchestra under Edouard Van Remoortel gets by, and the recording is quite attractive. E.S.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: The Tsar's Bride.
Yevgeny Nesterenko (bass), Sobakin: Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), Marfa; Vladimir Atlantov (tenor), Lykov; Vladimir Valaitis (baritone), Gryaznoi; Irina Arkhipova (mezzo-soprano), Lyubasha; Andrei Sokolov (tenor), Bomelius; Eleanora Andreyeva (soprano), Saburova; Boris Morozov (bass), Malyuta; Galina Borisova (contralto), Dun yasha; others. Orchestra and Chorus of the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow, Fuat Mansurov cond.
MELODIYA/ANGEL SRCL-4122 three discs $17.94.
Performance: Good, with rough spots
Recording: Good
Rimsky-Korsakov's most characteristic op eras (The Snow Maiden, Christmas Eve, Sadko) reflect the world of fantasy and fairy tales, but his ninth opera, The Tsar's Bride (1898), takes its subject from Russian history; the time of Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his feared elite guard, the Oprichniki. The work represents a stylistic departure as well, even a sort of retrenchment. Breaking away from the declamatory style pioneered by Dargomizhsky and further developed by Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov here returns to a more melodic expression, with arias and ensembles clearly delineated after the Italian models and the large orchestra relegated to the support of the singers. While in many respects this adds up to updated Glinka, there is a more pronounced national element in the music, and the orchestra manages to become a stronger participant in the overall picture despite the composer's determined effort to keep the spotlight on the voices. The Tsar's Bride is an opera put together with great skill. Its story is a compendium of horrors, leading from lust and jealousy to seduction, conspiracy, and multiple murder. While the musical treatment rarely reaches moments of true inspiration, it is fast-moving, colorful, and never dull.
The large cast involves some of Russia's most prominent singers. In the title role, Galina Vishnevskaya gives evidence that her once impressive vocal resources have declined lamentably-she sings Marfa's two lovely arias with a much steadier tone on her earlier recital disc (Melodiya/Angel 40220). Irna Arkhipova is superb in the passionate role of Lyubasha, scorned mistress-turned-poisoner.
Somewhat reminiscent of the raging Amneris, she turns a scene in the second act into a re markable display of luscious-toned, high powered dramatic singing.
Other outstanding performances come from Yevgeny Nesterenko, a big, hearty-sounding bass whose tones are firmly focused, and Vladimir Atlantov, not the most subtle tenor perhaps, but blessed with a healthy sound and a good technique that stand comparison with most of his front-line Western colleagues. The others range from respectable (Borisova, Morozov) to virtually unlistenable (Andreyeva). As usual, the singing of the Bolshoi Chorus is exceptionally fine, and the en tire performance is excitingly paced by conductor Mansurov, about whom (and about the singers) the annotations disclose nothing. The booklet does contain the English text, but it would have been more helpful if the transliterated Russian had been included alongside the English.
ROREM: Ariel. Phyllis Curtin (soprano); Joseph Rabbai (clarinet): Ryan Edwards (piano). Gloria. Phyllis Curtin (soprano): Helen Vanni (mezzo-soprano); Ned Rorem (piano).
DESTO DC-7I47. $5.98.
Performance: Authoritative
Recording: Good
Ariel, composed in 1971 as "a gift to my friend Phyllis Curtin," comprises settings of five Sylvia Plath poems- Words, Poppies in July, The Hanging Man, Poppies in October, and Lady Lazarus—un-pretty, even grisly texts which defy conventional song treatment.
The sequence, in fact, strikes me as more in the nature of an instrumental fantasy (some astonishing colors are drawn from the two instruments) with vocal commentary than a song cycle, but that is a personal reaction; it is a pungent work and, not incidentally, one in
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PHYLLIS CURTIN -- Impressive vocal finesse in Rorem songs
which the demands on the singer are formidable in terms of characterization as well as vocal finesse. All the demands of the music are impressively met here, as they are in the utterly different Gloria, an imaginative setting of the liturgical text composed a year earlier than Ariel (but premiered a year later, by the same performers who recorded it), "a gift to all the singers who bemoan the lack of duets." This Gloria is more exultant than serene, its chaste coolness warming at intervals to brief glows of passion; it is a work that will find a readier response than Ariel. The performances must be regarded as definitive; full texts are provided, the sound is unrestricted (if a little dry), the pressings clean. I only wonder why there is no separation between the different numbers of Ariel. R.F.
SATIE: Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire (see POULENC) SCHUBERT: Songs (see Best of the Month, page 83) SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 2, in B-flat Major (see The Basic Repertoire)
SCHUMANN: Lieder (see Collections-Elly Ameling)
SCHUMANN: Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, Op. 52; Symphony No. 1, in B-jlat Major, Op. 38 ("Spring"). Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti cond. LONDON CS 6696 $5.98.
Performance: Brilliant
Recording: Very good
SCHUMANN: Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, Op. 52. Westphalian Symphony Orchestra, Recklinghausen, Richard Kapp cond. Introduction and Allegro Appassionato in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 92; Introduction and Allegro in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 134. Michael Ponti (piano); Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg, Louis de Froment cond.
TURNABOUT TV-S 34537 $2.98.
Performance: Adequate to good
Recording: Adequate
Top-drawer Schumann, as represented by the "Spring" Symphony, presents enough performance problems for even the finest conductors and orchestra, but it takes nothing short of interpretive genius to bring to surging life those works of Schumann that are not among his best. These discs are cases in point.
The London disc is extracted from Solti's 1971 set of the complete Schumann symphonies, and the "Spring" Symphony reading remains for me the most successful part of that set. This performance of the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale sounded overwrought when I first heard it, and it still sounds that way to me (especially when I compare it with a beautiful Pierre Boulez reading with the BBC Symphony I heard at the London Proms last summer).
But the Richard Kapp performance on Turnabout goes too far in the other direction, being slack in rhythm and too easy-going in tempo to bring any genuine measure of vitality top the music.
The indefatigable Michael Ponti, for all his fluent pianism, is up against not only the less-than-top-drawer quality of the music (Op. 134 has more apparent brilliance but less substance than Op. 92), but formidable competition from Rudolph Serkin with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. I fear that this disc is only for the more impecunious of Schumann fanciers.
D.H.
SLONIMSKY: Silhouettes Iberiennes; Modin ha Russo-Brasileira. Laurindo Almeida (gui tars). Five Advertising Songs. Deltra Eamon (soprano); Nicolas Slonimsky (piano). Thesaurus: 50 Minitudes. Nicolas Slonimsky (piano). ORION ORS 72100 $5.98.
Performances: Authentic
Recordings: Good to very good
What is a sensible person to make of Nicolas Slonimsky anyhow? Raconteur and hon vi vant, champion of avant-garde music and gossip-mongerer of music history, compiler of the vast Thesaurus of Scale and Melodic Pat terns, one-time assistant to Koussevitzky, chronicler of twentieth-century music, wit, encyclopedist, word-inventor, pianist, trivia expert, musical humorist, major conductor of new music, composer of just about any kind of music you care to imagine- Slonimsky is, at the very least, all those things.
Upon arriving in America from Russia many years ago he became fascinated by American advertising and set a whole series of magazine ads to music in various styles ranging from operatic to Rachmaninoff. His incredible Thesaurus is a compendium of every sort of imaginable combination. Out of this arises his Minitudes--a sort of Mikrokosmos of tiny piano pieces (many of them are only seconds in length) including deranged versions of Bach and Schoenberg. twelve tone versions of Happy Birthday and A ch, du lieber Augustin (which even Schoenberg him self was happy to quote in its tonal original), a "Stultifying March," a pair of pieces entitled Vulgar Banality and Banal Vulgarity (pretty much living up to their titles), various etudes on endless tonal combinations, a waltz and a polka based on the notes C-A-B-B-A-G-E and A B-A-D E-G-G, and more, much more.
Piled on top of this-indeed the stellar attraction of the record-are Laurindo Almeida's arrangements of Spanish and Russian-Brazilian style music played by the guitarist as a duet with himself.
Again, what's to be made of all this? Certainly Slonimsky's music reflects the multiple inputs, confusions, pleasures, insecurities, possibilities, and foolishnesses of the twen tieth century, but it does not, I'm afraid, offer very much new insight or synthesis of its own.
Still, if you don't take it too seriously-and provided you are ready and willing to switch mental sets constantly and be under aesthetic attack every few moments-you just might enjoy the wit and self-deprecating skill (not to mention the performances) on this disc. E.S.
TRAVIS: The Passion of Oedipus (excerpts).
William Du Pre (tenor), Oedipus; Maureen Lehane (mezzo-soprano), Jocasta: Joy Mannen (soprano), Oracle; John Robert Dunlap (baritone), Stranger: Robert Lloyd (bass), Corinthian Envoy; Richard Hale (speaker), Old Shepherd: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Jan Popper cond. ORION ORS 73129 $5.98.
Performance: Power-packed but predictable
Recording Very good
Sophocles' Oedipus has inspired some strong music in our day-the strongest, indisputably, being Stravinsky's succinct two-act opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex composed in 1927. Now Roy Travis, a music professor at UCLA, a recipient of the Gershwin Award and Fulbright Fellowships for composition, and a composer who often has been inspired rhythmically by the dances of West Africa, has tackled the theme again. Mr. Travis improvises freely on the Sophocles text in his own libretto, and, judging from this hour of excerpts, his, too, is a score of some power.
The Passion of Oedipus was composed in 1965 and produced originally in 1968 at the UCLA Opera Theater under Jan Popper, who once more is at the helm here. Too bad the Regents of the University of California provided funds for only one record of excerpts. Trying to judge an opera you haven't heard in its entirety from two scenes is a little like looking at one of those closeups of a "de tail" from a large painting without seeing the entire canvas. But the scenes are arresting enough, and the careful notes provide a synopsis of the action before and after to refresh the listener's memory. One of the scenes is a flashback invented by Travis to dramatize the moment when Oedipus hears from the oracle that he has killed his father, will marry his mother, and "beget a brood that all will hate." Out of the craggy, thunderous texture of the score the voice of the oracle emerges to startling effect as she issues her prophecy in the form of a neo-Mozartian aria. The other scene here is a crucial one dealing with the hero's discovery that the oracle, whose words he has scorned in an expression of contempt for reli gious superstition, has accurately foretold his fate and that "the doors of Nightmare House" are opened now "to the noonday sun." The libretto is a sturdy one, and the same can be said of the rugged, almost barbaric music with which Mr. Travis has embellished it. If there is anything disappointing about the score, it is only a kind of predictability in the raucous twentieth-century idiom: I don't feel that the composer has yet found a voice entirely his own. Yet the oracle's aria is a real surprise, and the record is well worth hearing, especially as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus sing and play superbly throughout. The performance, recorded in London at St. Giles Church. is also fortunate in its soloists-William Du Pre in glorious command of the tenor title role, Joy Mannen an awesome Oracle, Maureen Lehane a brilliant Jocasta, John Robert Dunlap impressive as the Stranger who turns out to be the former King of Thebes. Also on hand is Richard Hale as the Old Shepherd, a speaking role that brings out the best from this actor who is famous for his narration of Prokofiev's Peter and Wolf. A text is provided. P.K.
VECCHI: L'Amfiparnaso (see Best of the Month )
VIVALDI: Stabat Mater; Two Introductions to the Miserere; Sinfonia "Al Santo Sepolcro" (P. Sinf 21); Sonata "Al Santo Sepokro" (P. 441). Aafje Heynis (contralto): I Solisti di Milano, Angelo Ephrikian cond. TELEFUNKEN SAWT 9590-A $5.98.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Very good
Here on two sides are all the works of Vivaldi that can be associated with Good Friday. The two instrumental pieces, the haunting Sinfon ia and the Sonata "At the Holy Sepulchre," and the Stabat Mater have been recorded before, of course, but new to the catalog are the two introductions, each consisting of an aria flanked by recitatives, which are meditations on the crucifixion. Vivaldi intended them (one or the other) to preface his music for the Miserere, but his score for the Miserere has not yet come to light (it is also possible, of course, that another composer's setting of it might have followed the Vivaldi introduction).
The general mood of all five pieces is one of quiet, introverted, yet intense resignation.
Aafje Heynis, a Dutch contralto with a very beautiful vocal quality if not great variety of color, performs throughout with controlled feelings and an emotionality that quite proper ly avoids operatic bathos. It is good to hear her voice again on records; the last time I can recall hearing it was in some Bach cantatas which she recorded in the Sixties and which were released on Epic. Angelo Ephrikian directs his ensemble with sensitivity for the subject, though he doesn't really have much sympathy for Baroque stylistic practices (cadential trills are missing in both vocal and instrumental parts). The sound is reasonably transparent for the Italian source; the balance favors the strings slightly over the solo voice, but, considering the poignancy of the subject, this works quite well in eliciting the proper atmosphere. Texts but no translations are provided. I.K.
WAGNER: Die Meistersinger: Prelude. Tannhauser: Overture. Tristan and Isolde: Prelude.
A Faust Overture. New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez cond. COLUMBIA M 32296
$5.98, MA 32296 $6.98, MT 32296 $6.98.
Performance. Variable
Recording: Good
Except for a genuinely dramatic and musically illuminating interpretation of the youthful Faust Overture, I don't sense any great involvement on M. Boulez's part with the Wagnerian concert-halt chestnuts that make up this package. The Meistersinger Prelude starts off promisingly in broad-gauge fashion, but the deliberate tempo adopted for the parody woodwind episode is disconcerting in its deliberateness, as well as out of character with the music itself. The Tannhauser is very dull, certainly, alongside Bruno Walter's recording of the Paris version with the Venus berg music. For reasons that I don't pretend to understand, the Tristan Prelude, instead of remaining at the same basic tempo from start to finish, goes through all the old clichés of --speeding up tempo from the beginning of the climactic work-up to its peak on the opening chord progression- The orchestral playing is good, the recording satisfactory. D.H.
WAGNER: Die Walkure: Act 1; Closing Scene, Act 3. Helga Dernesch (soprano), Sieglinde; William Cochran (tenor), Siegmund; Hans Sotin (bass), Hunding; Norman Bailey (baritone), Wotan. New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer cond.
ANGEL SBLX-3797 two discs $12.98.
Performance: Somewhat ponderous Recording: Excellent Wotan's Farewell, which concludes this ninety-minute program of excerpts from Die Walkure, is Otto Klemperer's Farewell, too: this may turn out to be the last recording completed by .the iron-willed conductor who died last July at eighty-eight. Some of that unbending Klemperer quality is present in this valedictory Wagner interpretation. The music moves forward in a stately manner, with firm rhythmic outlines framing massive orchestral sonorities, with tempos that are logically inter-related and somehow seem slower than the clock indicates. Klemperer's long experience as a theatrical conductor assures firm support for his singers, never burying them under a blanket of sound. And yet, his weighty manner with the music is not ultimately beneficial, for the drama unfolds in such a large-scaled, epic manner that the characters are robbed of their identifiable human qualities. I find the Act 1 protagonists all admirable.
The Sieglinde of Helga Dernesch is appealingly vocalized-the missing measure of rap ture is surely within her reach, possibly in the context of a more flexible musical leadership.
William Cochran makes an excellent impression with his steady tone and clear textual projection. With a little more experience un der his belt, this 1969. winner of the Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation Award may yet become a worthy successor to his mentor. The sonorous and ominous Hunding of Hans Sotin rounds out a cast that would do any opera house proud.
Wotan's Farewell also suffers from the conductor's overly expansive pacing. Nor man Bailey, an English baritone with impressive Bayreuth credentials, carries out his task in a musicianly manner. His vocal re sources-like those of other Wotans currently active-are of almost, but not quite, Helden baritone quality. G.J.
WAGNER: Opera Excerpts (see Collections Rene Kollo)
WEBER: Piano Sonatas (complete). Janine Dacosta (piano).
MUSICAL HERITAGE Soc. MHS 1636/7 two discs $5.98 (plus handling charge from the Musical Heritage Society, Inc., 1991 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023).
Performance: Good field, no hit Recording: Okay Carl Maria von Weber was a famous pianist, and his four sonatas, written between 1812 and 1822, were more immediately influential than the contemporary production of,: Beethoven and Schubert that we value so highly.
How did these attractive pieces get lost in the shuffle, then? For lost they have become. Did you know that Weber's Perpetuum Mobile is really the rondo finale of his brilliant C Major Sonata, Op. 24, of 1812? Surprised me! Yet the music has been sitting over at the library all the time, and Weber is, after all, still a famous composer.
The attractions of the Weber sonatas only begin with No. 1. The A-flat Sonata, Op. 39, of 1816 is Schubertian (no other term will do) in its lyric breadth and intensity. The last two sonatas-No. 3, in D Minor, Op. 49, also of 1816, and No. 4, in E Minor, Op. 70, of 1822-are highly original, Romantic works with a striking combination of dramatic and lyric ideas. Both are full of good tunes, what with all the lyric subjects of the D Minor, for instance, and the E Minor Sonata's heart rending con duolo opening, its fine slow movement, and the Mendelssohnian tarantella finale. Where have all the pianists been? What's the matter with history anyway? The problem with these sonatas is Beethoven. Not that Beethoven had much to do with them. Weber didn't care for Beethoven and was perhaps jealous of his great contemporary. If there was any influence it was undoubtedly unconscious-these things were in the air anyway. Weber was, more or less, doing. what Beethoven was doing but with less scope, seeming to connect Haydn and Glementi directly with Mendelssohn and Schumann. We know better; Beethoven and Schubert came in between and did it better. But that's cultural history; it doesn't change one note of Weber's music. These sonatas are as good as they ever were and just exactly as good as they have to be.
What they do need is advocates. Not mere critics but pianists with a sense of the Classic/Romantic appeal of the music and the knowledge of how to bring it across to a public. Janine Dacosta is a very capable musician with the ability to-play this music with great ease and naturalness. But there is no deeper communication, no great flair, no pain, no passion, only a little grace and no fire, no soul.
Yet, there is no argument about what this music needs, for Weber was perfectly specific in his directions.
Still, these are not bad recordings, and while they will not spur a major Weber revival they add some excellent music to our recorded repertoire in a perfectly viable form. Good field, no hit. E.S.
COLLECTIONS RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
ELLY AMELING: Lieder of Robert Schumann. Widmung; A uftrage; Sehnsucht; Frage; Mein schoner Stern; Schneeglock chen; Erstes Grun; Er ist's; Die Sennin; Sehnsucht nach der Waldgegend; Die letzten B lumen starben; Jasminenstrauch; Schmet terling; Der Nussbaum; Marienwurmchen;
Kouzlein; Waldesgesprach; Loreley: Die Meerfee; Der Sandmann; Die Kartenlegerin.
Elly Ameling (soprano); Jorg Demus (clavier).
BASF HB 29369 $5.98.
Performance: Charming
Recording: Very good
There are no less than twenty-one songs here, all relatively brief, and virtually all intimately scaled. I cannot say that the lesser-known songs (some of which were quite unfamiliar to me until this hearing) brought any revelations;
after all, the famous ones-such little gems as Widmung, Erstes Grun, and Waldesge sprach- have not become famous by accident. But even the most childish and ephemeral inspirations take on artistic meaning in Elly Ameling's delicate and enchanting interpretations. Listeners tempted to hear the entire program in one sitting will encounter a certain sameness in both mood and interpretive approach, but Miss Ameling sustains the sheer loveliness of her fresh and immaculately pure singing throughout.
Jorg Demus provides fleet and sensitive accompaniments. He plays a Hammerflugel from 1839, the year before Schumann's famous "song year" of 1840. At first one misses the familiar sound of a modern piano, but the ear quickly adjusts and accepts the old instrument as an element in the period charm of this collection. GJ.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BAVARIA'S COURTS AND RESIDENCES.
Munich, Vol. 11-Sixteenth Century Bavarian Court Chapel Music. LassorMissa Sexta, octo vocibus, ad imitationem "Vinum bonum," Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Osanna, and A gnus Dei; Timor, Domini, principium;
Kombt her zu mir, spricht gotten son; Magni ficat Sexti Toni; Schaff mir doch Recht in Sachsen mein (.1 udica me Domine); Timor et tremor- Exaudi Deus; A voi G ttgliemo; Sy billa Europea; Vedi !'aurora; 0 fugace do! cezza; Matona min cara; La nuict froide et sombre; Bicinium; Der Tag ist so freuden reich; Im Mayen hoert man die hanen krayen; Die fasstnacht ist ein schoene Zeit; Am Abend spat beim buehlen Wein. Fossa: Missa super theutonicam cantionem "Ich segge a dieu," Kyrie and Gloria. Daser: Dominus re git me; Benedictus Dominus. Vento: Herr, dein Wort mich getroestet hat; Frisch ist mein Sinn; Ich weiss ein Maidlein; So wuensch' ich ihr ein gate Nacht. Reiner: Mane nobiscum, Domine; Behuet each Gott zu alter Zeit. Hoy oul: Wenn mein Stuendlein vorhanden ist.
Lechner: Allein zu dir, Herr Jestt Christ; Nach meiner Lieb vie! hundert Knaben trach ten. Sennfl: Das Gelaut zu Speyer; Es wont' ein Frau zum Weine gehn; Ich armes Kauz lein Klein; Fortuna-Nasci, pati, mori; Es taget vor dem W aide; Patiencia muss ich han.
Gosswin: Am Abend spat, lieb Bruederlein.
Capella Antigua of Munich, Konrad Ruhland dir.
BASF KBF 21192 two discs $11.96.
Performance: Superb
Recording: Very good
Quite a number of record companies have organized anthologies around the theme of specific European sacred and secular locales.
Electrola in Germany, for example, has a fairly extensive series entitled "Music in Old Towns and Residences"; Erato's series, avail able here on Musical Heritage Society, is devoted to France and is called "Of Castles and Cathedrals." Now, here is yet another one from BASF/Harmonia Mundi: " Bavaria's Courts and Residences." Of the two-disc Munich, Vol. II set (Vol. 1 is devoted to Mozart and Danzi), two sides are given to Orlan do di Lasso, the most distinguished musician of his age and a member of the Bavarian Court Chapel for forty years. Lasso (1532 1594) succeeded the earlier Capellmeister, Ludwig Daser (d. 1589), who in turn had succeeded Ludwig Sennfl (d. 1543). Music by both of these is included, as are works by various of Orlando's contemporaries: Johannes de Fossa, the number two Capellmeister; Ivo de Vento, organist at the ducal chapel; Anton Gosswin, a Dutch countertenor in the choir; Leonhard Lechner, another chorister under both Lasso and later Vento; Jacob Reiner, and finally, Balduin Hoyoul, both of whom studied with Lasso. What may then be de scribed as something of a family gathering, then, is concerned primarily with sacred mu sic, motets, hymns, and excerpts from Masses. There are some non-chapel pieces as well, though often these tend to have religious overtones, and there are a few songs that are performed instrumentally.
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ELLY AMELING Enchanting Schumann leder.
It is altogether a superb assemblage, and it makes for splendid listening, especially when sung and played (instruments are used in many of the vocal pieces as well) as stylishly, sensitively, and stirringly as here. For a sample, try Reiner's grand motet, Mane nobis cum, Domine, or the charming bell effects of Sennfl's secular Das Gelaut zu Speyer. Those who already own collections of Lasso and his contemporaries will note that, although there are several justly famous pieces, such as Orlando's Timor et tremor and Senfl's Es taget vor dem Walde, most of the selections are not the ones that usually find their way into such anthologies. The only unkind word I have for this album, in fact, has to do with the printed presentation, which includes an approximately 1,000-word general essay in three lan guages, no description of the music or its sources, and, most unfortunate of all, no texts or translations. j.K.
RENE KOLLO: A Wagner Recital. Lohengrin: Hochstes Vertraun; In fernem Land.
Tannhauser: Rome Narrative. Der Fliegende Hollander: Mit Gewitter and Sturm. Die Meistersinger: Am stillen Herd; Morgendlich leuchtend. Rienzi: Prayer. Die Walkare: Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater; Winterstarme wichen dem Wonnemond. Siegfried: Dass der Mein Vater nicht ist; Selige Ode auf wonniger Hoh'. Parsifal: Amfortas! Die Wunde!; Nur eine Waffe taugt. Gotterdammerung: Sieg fried's Death. Rene Kollo (tenor); Berlin State Orchestra, Otmar Suitner cond. CoLUMBIA MG 32302 two discs $6.98.
Performance: Impressive
Recording: Very good
There is a wealth of Wagnerian tenor music here, and Rene Kollo performs much of it very well indeed. His aggressive billing not withstanding, he is not a real Heldentenor.
Surely, with his light timbre and without the fully supported bottom notes needed for such roles as the two Siegfrieds and Tannhauser, he would be well advised not to press his luck in those areas. On the other hand, his mellifluous yet dramatically aware and tellingly inflected singing produces very fine results in the Lohengrin scenes, in the atmospherically rendered Steersman's Song from Der Fliegende Hollander, and in the Preislied. With more concentration on even tone production and a steadier hold on sustained notes in the high register, Kollo may develop into a really topflight tenor in a repertoire congenial to his abilities.
The orchestral contributions are well above average. Some of the selections are not given with the so-called "concert endings," which means that textual adherence is observed at the expense of conclusive resolutions. On the other hand, Siegfried's Death includes the beautiful orchestral passage following the hero's last words, which is a distinct plus. In all, an impressive package of Wagneriana.
G J.
YEHUDI MENUHIN: Music of the Thirties (see Popular Discs and Tapes) THE ORGAN AT CHESTER CATHEDRAL.
Parry: Fantasia and Fugue in G Major. Wow, ells: Fugue, Chorale and Epilogue. Saint Sains: Fantaisie in E-flat Major. Roger-Du casse: Pastorale. Mulet: Carillon-Sortie. Roger Fisher (organ). LONDON STS 15241 $2.98.
Performance: Brilliant
Sound: Good
The Chester organ is not a historic Baroque organ but a modern English cathedral organ, originally built in 1876, rebuilt in 1909-1910, and rebuilt again just four years ago to the specifications of Roger Fisher, who has been the cathedral's organist and master of the choristers since 1967. Nominally this record, originated by Qualiton of Wales in 1971, is a showcase for the instrument. Surpassing that modest intent, however, the disc introduces us to some fresh and interesting music and to an unquestionably first-rate performer.
The Parry and Howells works are real war horses in English cathedral recitals, but hardly familiar items in this country. The former is an imitation of Bach, and it is a masterly one;
the latter is no virtuoso vehicle in the ordinary sense, but rather in the spirit of Vaughan Wil liams' Ta//is Fantasia for strings. The little Saint-Saens Fantaisie is an energetic, scherzo-like piece, Roger-Ducasse's Pastorale (as long and elaborate as the one by Bach) brings us organ music a /a Debussy, and the Carillon-Sortie of Henri Mulet (born 1878 and evidently still with us) is a stunning toccata built on bell effects. All of these pieces are attractive- some of them more than that-and the aural impression of the instrument itself and its surroundings is especially vivid. The strongest impression of all, though, is of the artistry of Roger Fisher, from whom we shall surely be hearing a good deal more. R.F.
ROMANTIC OVERTURES. Schumann: Manfred Overture, Op. 115. Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op. 81. Wagner: A Faust Overture.
Mendelssohn: The Fair Melusina, Op. 32.
Prague Symphony Orchestra, Dean Dixon cond. SUPRAPHON 1 10 1095 $5.98.
Performance: Drowsy
Recording: Fair
The age of the Romantics found almost every composer in Europe reading Lord Byron's poem Manfred and hoping to make music of it, or preoccupied with Faustian themes and dreaming up overtures on such subjects that were really symphonic poems, emotional adventure stories in music. Schumann's Manfred was one of many. Brahms originally started what turned into his Tragic Overture as an overture to Goethe's Faust. Wagner composed A Faust Overture early in his career (he was also going to write a symphony on the subject, but wisely left that job to his friend Franz Liszt). Some good music came out of so much ardor and aspiration, as the endurance of these works attests. Yet all are heavy, heaving, over-upholstered scores, and their presence on a single program is some what tiresome.
Moreover, Mr. Dixon is not at his best in this repertoire-at least on this occasion. He draws none of the nobility or sweeping sound from the orchestra that can bring the great lumbering passages in these overtures to dramatic life and catch the listener up in the Sturm and Drang of Romantic conflict: understatement is not exactly the ticket when it comes to Manfred. The only bright spot in the program is The Fair Melusina, an early work by Mendelssohn on a fairy-tale theme that promises and partly fulfills the magic of the incidental music he was later to compose for A Midsummer Night's Dream. But this effort does not sparkle as it should, either; the pace is too leisurely, the Prague players torpid.
Even the engineer at Supraphon seems to have been suffering from lethargy this time around. P.K.
IVO ZIDEK: Recital. Smetana: The Bartered Bride: Jenik's Aria from Act 2. Two Widows:
Ladislav's Aria. Dvorak: R IISalka: The Prince's Aria (Act I). Janacek: From the House of the Dead: Skuratov's Monologue.
Martinu: Juliette': Aria from Act 3. Mozart:
Don Giovanni: Dally sua pace. Beethoven:
Fidelio: Gott, welch Dunkelhier. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin: Lenski's Aria. Puccini:
Manon Lescaut: Donna non vidi mai. Stravin sky: Oedipus Rex: Non reperias veins scelus.
Ivo Zidek (tenor); Prague National Theater Chorus and Orchestra, various conductors.
SUPRAPHON 112 1164 $5.98.
Performance: Fair to good
Recording: Good
Ivo Zidek is a leading tenor of the Prague National Theater, with a considerable European reputation. He has appeared in many recordings of Czech operas and oratorios, and, as a matter of fact, some of the selections on this disc have been drawn from those very recordings. The Czech portion (side one) is by far the more valuable portion of the recital, for it shows the tenor as persuasive in the lyrical utterances of Smetana and Dvorak as he is in the stark Jangek excerpt (in which he successfully projects a number of different voices during his dramatic narrative) or in the unfamiliar opera by Martinu, Julietta, recently revived and recorded in Czechoslovakia.
The remainder of the program is less suc cessful, except for Lenski's aria, for which the singer's melancholy tone color is singularly appropriate. Zidek does not sing idiomatically in either German or Italian: his rendition of Florestan's aria is imperfectly synchronized with the conductor's pacing, and the tempo set for "Drilla sun pace" is damagingly slow. The voice itself is basically very good: a warm, ingratiating timbre with a caressing niezza voce. It tends to waver on sustained notes. however, and becomes tight around A.
The interesting repertoire offered on side one, though, makes this an appealing disc.
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Also see:
RAYMOND LEPPARD--A scholar-performer who hears-and understands--his critics.
THE COMPLETE RACHMANINOFF -- Fifteen discs, five albums--every note he ever recorded, ERIC SALZMAN