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Modesty "Sir Henry Wood heard Ravel's orchestration of Moussorgsky's Pictures-and promptly withdrew his own" (Irving Kolodin's "Choosing Sides," November). Sir Henry must have died without issue, for certainly we have not seen his modest like since. JEAN-CLAUDE DU PONT Montreal, Can. Ravel Portrait Unless I missed one, the portrait of Mau rice Ravel on the November cover is the second such Alan Magee has done for STEREO REVIEW (the other was the eerily hypnotic one of Sergei Rachmaninoff in May of 1973). How does Mr. Magee manage to fill his like nesses of long-gone subjects with so much life? And when will he do another? DONNA POOL Phoenix, Ariz. In the cases of Rachmaninoff and Ravel Mr. Magee had to rely, of course, on photographs, but that does not explain completely the vital "presence" he managed to bring in from somewhere-perhaps an Ouija board wired into a TV set? Mr. Magee's next cover will be in February. Sono-Blast and Super-Brute Bravo, Julian Hirsch! I was expecting some day Mr. Hirsch would strike back at those Sono-Blast and Super-Brute Freaky-Files (November). Not with over-kill, mind you, but with a sober presentation of facts and logic. For about fifteen years I have been reading Mr. Hirsch's reviews and listening to many of the products he reviewed favorably. I have always found his conclusions correct, except for one speaker he liked and I did not. And, then again, I'm not sure about my judgment on this item since my place may not have been ideal for that speaker! CARLOS E. BAUZA; San Juan, P.R. Racket Mumpsimus As an early-music enthusiast I was pleased to see the attention given to "A Dazzle of (Early European) Dances" in your November issue. My confidence in the review was some what shaken, however, by the qualification of racketts--that is, "not ranketts as the jacket carelessly has it." Racketts appeared in several countries be tween 1520 and 1640 and there are at least four acceptable spellings: ranket, rankett, rackett, and racket. Curt Sachs, in Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente ( Dover, 1964) states that the name comes from the Upper German "rank," meaning to be bent back on itself. The cylindrical bore within this sausage-shaped double-reed instrument winds to and fro seven to nine times, giving the instrument a soft, low voice. Thus "racket" or "rackett" can be misleading, and "ranket" is preferred by the Random House Dictionary, 1966 unabridged edition. The organ stop named after this instrument is usually called the ranket or rankett. JOHN E. HALL; Morgantown, W. Va. Stoddard Lincoln replies: According to Marcuse, Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary, Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Mu sic, and Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "racket" is the preferred term, and "rankett" is listed as the second preferred German term. As an American I naturally prefer English usage. Perhaps my remark should have read "not ranketts as the jacket snobbishly has it." The Missing Python Person In the November issue, Peter Reilly states that Terry Jones seldom appears in, but is responsible for the animations for, the Monty Python Show. In fact, Terry Jones is on the screen as much or more than any of the others; the animations are the work of Terry Gilliam, a transplanted American (the only one in the group who is not a native Englishman), who does seldom appear and whose name was not mentioned except in the picture caption. JOHN M. LANDSBERG; Boston, Mass. Springsteen-Both Sides I have long regarded Steve Simels as the significant voice in rock criticism, but his sophomoric slobbering over the frog-voiced, would-be Dylan, Bruce Springsteen (November), who is supposed to supplant all the sacred heroes of rock, convinces me that Mr. Simels' heretofore unerring taste and perception have been dulled to a terminal degree. CLAY HAGEN; Ft. Wayne, Ind. Steve Simels has captured in a nutshell what I've been thinking for two years now (November). You cannot describe the music of Bruce Springsteen. You cannot describe the feeling you get when Rosalita hits the peak that drives you out of your chair and on top of your loudspeakers screaming at the top of your lungs, or the sense of triumph which is felt at the end of Thunder Road. I've seen quite a few live performances, but none can top the show Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band put on. They're total musicians who give you all they've got-they can pick you up higher than you've ever been before or sink you down low in your chair. MARTIN REIDELL; Pittsburgh, Pa. If I hear anyone else singing the high holy praises of the farcical messiah Bruce Springsteen (I refer here to Steve Simels, who, I was starting to believe, had some saving grace, and the letter from Tom Columbo of West Orange, both in the November issue), I will surely scream for an hour, and then release my tension by listening to "The Jeff Beck Group" at absolutely maximum volume! MARK PAGAN; Little Falls, N.J. On the night of September 30, I was lucky enough to see Bruce Springsteen in person with the E Street Band. He is even better than Steve Simels says he is. He is still fairly un known, has not acquired the rock star syndrome, and is an extremely likable fellow. Thanks for telling me about Bruce Springsteen so I could witness the "future of rock and roll." DENNIS ATKINSON; Omaha, Neb. More Sins of the Critics I would like to add two more "Sins of the Critics" to Editor William Anderson's delightful November editorial. A slap on the wrist is earned by any critic who states that the performance of a lesser-known work by a well-known artist "makes the work sound better than it is." In such a case, hasn't the artist actually conveyed the full potential of the piece? A bonk on the noggin goes to each critic who commits my un-favorite sin: searching the work for the damning influences of previous composers (I enjoy it when Beethoven sounds like Haydn or Mozart, Schubert like Haydn or Beethoven, Brahms like Schubert or Schumann, Dvorak like Brahms or Wagner). Could it be that this critical attitude has helped create our present musical difficulties? Each young composer must "find his own voice," free of the taint of yesterday, even before she or he is out of school. CHARLES LONG; Minneapolis, Minn. Jennie Tourel I greatly enjoyed Robert Offergeld's article on Jennie Tourel (November). His rhapsodizing over her "Cruda Sorte!" from Litalia na in Algieri had me listening to it again. But I feel that his statement that she wittily sketches florid passages is not a sufficient explanation of her expressiveness. What Miss Tourel does is treat embellishments as what they are--embellishments to a melodic line, not an integral part of it. In this way they serve their true purpose-as decoration to heighten expressivity. This also allows for greater attention to the words, since they are not lost in the melisma of notes all given equal value. This latter approach may lead to an ex citing virtuosic performance but a less dramatically meaningful one. It is the difference be tween technique and art. Miss Tourel's approach brings dramatic expression through the music itself. Isn't this the purpose of all operatic music, and must this not be the true tradition of Malibran and all great singers? MICHAEL YOUNG; Spring Valley, N.Y. Gershwin's Pupils I'm working strictly from memory, but Ravel's quote about George Gershwin in Eric Salzman's article (November) may have been spoken by Stravinsky. Another anecdote has Ravel refusing to take Gershwin as a student with the words, "Why would you want to be come a second-rate Ravel when you are al ready a first-rate Gershwin?" JACK BRIN; Longmeadow, Mass. The nice thing about apocryphal remarks is that if the attributee didn't make them, then he certainly should have! Piqued Dame I really enjoyed William Livingstone's "Opera File" column (November) about learning foreign languages by listening to op era. 1 have learned a lot of Italian that way, but I'm not sure that my recitation of how beautiful my Tosca's eyes are would do me much good when arriving at the Rome airport! I am afraid, however, that Mr. Livingstone's project to learn Russian has scrambled some of his facts: Galina Vishnevskaya does not sing on the Melodiya/Angel recording of Pique Dame. The soprano role in that recording is sung by Tamara Milashkina, who also sang it with the Bolshoi company in New York this summer. If Mr. Livingstone is correct about the projected Columbia recording of Pique Dame, she will repeat the role of Lisa there too. JAY KAUFFMAN; Philadelphia, Pa. Beecham Discography Readers of STEREO REVIEW may be interested in the recent publication of an official discography of all known commercial, private, and noncommercial recordings of Sir Thomas Beecham. The discography includes matrix numbers and recording dates for virtually all the recordings, supplied through cooperative research with the various originating companies. It costs $5.50 and may be ordered from the Sir Thomas Beecham Society, P.O. Box 1112, El Cerrito, Calif. 94530. NATHAN E. BROWN; El Cerrito, Calif. Purcell's Fairy Queen In his November review of Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen by the Deller Consort, Stoddard Lincoln concludes that "the performance ... brings to the listener a concept of theater music that he will probably never have the opportunity of experiencing in the theater itself." New Haven theatergoers have had just such an experience. For the end of the ninth season (last May) and the beginning of the tenth season (October), Yale Repertory Theater mounted a superb production of A Midsummer Night's Dream using the Purcell score. The company believes this is the first time the Purcell score has accompanied the original Shakespeare script, as opposed to a severely cut, bowdlerized version. The mu sic, beautifully adapted by Yale's Otto-Werner Mueller, was performed by members of the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Gary Fagin, with soloists and chorus from the Yale School of Music. MARKLAND J. TAYLOR; Monroe, Conn. Mignon, Anybody? Why, in this age of stereo and modern re cording techniques, has one of the most beautiful of all operas, Ambroise Thomas' Mig non, been so neglected? The only available re cording is in mono with a dated performance and heavily cut score. For an updated version, I would cast Marilyn Horne as the heroine, Mady Mesple or Beverly Sills as Philine, Gedda or Domingo as Wilhelm, and Milnes or Plishka as Lothario. There is presently a revival of Massenet and French opera in the United States. So, how about it, London? Angel? RCA? Anybody? MATTHEW TERRELL; Richmond, Va. Cassette Quality Concerning the quality of cassettes: (1) too many companies still refuse to Dolbyize their cassettes, which can make the difference between a merely decent cassette and a good to great one; (2) the album artwork is reduced to an almost invisible state, and liner notes and other important information that could easily be included are omitted; (3) worst of all is the constant confusion of song order-making side one side two and vice versa, taking separate songs off one side and putting them on the opposite side, and jumping the first song on the second side to the last song on the first side. These and other problems keep many people from buying cassettes. D. F. SWEEDLER; Great Neck, N.Y. Cassette Convert I stopped buying records after discovering that 88 percent of the time when I returned them for major pressing defects the replacements had the same or identical defects. Now that the Dolby system and CrO2 tape have made the cassette a viable medium for the critical listener, I couldn't be made to buy a disc if it featured newly discovered 78's of Jean de Reszke singing Tristan. TERRY A. TEACHOUT; Liberty, Mo. Repudiated Stravinsky Regarding Michael Brunson's October letter lamenting Columbia's decision to discontinue several of their Stravinsky recordings, a clue as to the reason for the disappearance of the Entremont reading of the two piano and orchestra works can be found in Lillian Libman's memoir And Music at the Close. In a chapter on Stravinsky's 1966 visit to St. Louis, where conductor Eleazar de Carvalho's wife was to be the piano soloist in a performance of the Capriccio, Ms. Libman notes that Stravinsky "was particularly exacting as to performance requirements .... He had raised strong objections to Columbia's choice of a well-known European pianist for a re cording of the Capriccio. With incredible stupidity Columbia had ignored his wishes; Stravinsky refused to attend the session and never conducted this work on records, and this incidence was added to the list of grievances which later ended his contract with Columbia." If Mr. Brunson is a true believer in "the composer's role as the only valid Interpreter' of his own works," then he would do well not to agitate for a return to the catalog of a re cording repudiated by the composer. PETER GOLDSMITH; Middletown, Pa. Some of Our Eggheads Are Missing James Goodfriend notes in his October column on modern music that only three hundred out of a possible 1,600 "composers, conductors, performers, critics, educators, and others" responded to a survey in their field. There are only two possible explanations: our absent-minded intellectuals haven't checked their mail boxes lately or, more likely, the Post Office couldn't locate the ivory towers in which the remaining eggheads live. DAVID ARTURI; Honolulu, Hi. Rocky Mountain High I have just finished reading Noel Coppage's September article on John Denver for the second time. Mr. Coppage has come closer than anyone I know to capturing in print the beauty, the depth, the soul of this supposedly "simple" mountain man. As a social worker serving young people and families, I know of no single more powerfully positive influence affecting and directing the lives of so many persons today: a pleasant but awe some statement to make about anybody! I am myself an avid, over-thirty believer in his mountain messages. DOUGLASS C. LAWSON; Lake Charles, La. Dimensions, Please As a sixty-two-year-old audio enthusiast my first component purchase was a Jensen A-12-PM speaker in a utility bass reflex cabinet in 1939-1 should like to suggest to all manufacturers that they give the dimensions of their equipment pieces advertised in STEREO REVIEW and in similar publications. I once bought a tuner that was too large, and it cost me all of $45 to have one shelf shaved a bit on the inside. I have a rather large listening room, but it has furniture in it. If I am going to buy new components I want to know the dimensions to determine if they will fit. JAMES H. HARGER; Annandale, N.J. Junior Citizen Editor William Anderson fails to recognize a small portion (0.1 percent?) of STEREO REVIEW'S readers-those under eighteen years old-in his September editorial on reader demographics. I'm fourteen years old and I take my music very seriously--I must be the youngest audiophile on record. WAYNE BROWN; Tuskegee Institute, Ala. Anyone care to contest reader Brown's claim? Correction Because of a duplication of names, the American Music Conference has changed the name of its awards from the American Music Awards (as noted in the November letters column) to the National Music Awards. Also see: GOING on RECORD Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine) |
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