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above: At a ceremony in Paris, newly decorated Lorin Maazel is flanked by CBS vice presidents Peter de Rougemont (left) and Ervin Veg.
PRIZES and awards abound during late spring and early summer American conductor Lorin Maazel was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur, and Dutch soprano Elly Ameling was given an honorary doctor ate by the University of British Columbia This year in Munich the annual Ernst von Siemens Musik Preis--a whopping $78,500 -was awarded to Elliott Carter The first American composer to receive the prize, Carter said, "My cello sonata was excellently played at the ceremony and seemed to be liked by the large audience." American composers did not fare so well back home When the Pulitzer Prizes ($1,000 each) were awarded this year, it was announced that none was being given in music on the recommendation of the nominating committee made up of composers Lester Trimble and Donald Martino and critic Donal Henahan if the New York Times We asked around and got a few reactions. Composer Lee Holby said, "I don't really think the prize means very much except perhaps in terms of promoting a career. My Second Piano Concerto was submitted this year but without expectations because no composer who likes to write tunes or feels a commitment to memorable melody as an essential component of music will ever get any thing but the most grudging recognition from the musical establishment " Eric Salzman, who with Michael Sahl won the Prix Italia for the opera buffa Civilization and Its Discontents (just re leased on Nonesuch), said, "Interesting new music is not being heard in places where members of the Pulitzer jury are likely to be listening, and I think the spirit of the mandate, not the letter, should be observed. A composition shouldn't have to be an opera or a piano concerto to win the Pulitzer Prize " Joan Peyser, author, critic, and editor of The Musical Quarterly, said, "I think it's an out rage There are already enough people out there attacking the state of music today without having our own judges in the field state publicly and officially that in a whole year nothing was played that was worthy of the prize This is a stingy response.
What are they trying to tell us? That music has declined in quality since the great ages of the past? Surely, this is not the best time for high art, but there are still composers working as effectively as the journalists and authors who did receive prizes.
I can think of several pieces premiered in 1980 that I could have voted for rassment at all."
- W.L.
THE young American operatic bass Samuel Ramey has built his repertoire and his reputation at the New York City Opera Company, performing in such works as Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Bolto's Mefistofele, and he is now doing the Chalia pin roles on both sides of the Atlantic. Last fall, after switching from the title vole to that of Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the NYC Opera, Ramey flew off to Europe to sing the lead in Massenet's Don Quichotte in France, Banquo in Verdi's Macbeth in Germany, and the title role it Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in Holland.
------ Samuel Ramev as Attila
"The Don Quichotte went especially well," Ramey says, "and I've been trying to persuade Beverly Sills to put it on at the New York City Opera." This spring Ramey returned to home base long enough to score a triumph in Verdi's Attila (see photo) and then flew back to Europe. After making his de but at Milan's La Scala as Mozart's Figaro (the conductor May, he is scheduled to record that role for London Records with Kiri Te Kanawa, Lucia Popp, and Thomas Allen under conductor Georg Solti Then he goes on to Vienna for a Staatsoper debut as Escamillo in Carmen.
All that travel does not bother Ramey. "I haven't yet gotten to the point of thinking that if to day is Tuesday, this must be Brussels. My wife and I are enjoying the opportunity to see different places, and, when I go somewhere to sing, we are usually there for a few weeks.
For the Scala Marriage of Figaro four whole weeks were set aside for rehearsals!" Ramey can be heard on a variety of record labels at present He is well represented on Philips with Bach's Mass in B Minor, Donizetti's Lucia di Lam mermoor, Handel's Ariodante, Rossini's Otello, and Verdi's I Due Foscari, and he can be heard in Verdi's Rigoletto on Angel and Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri on RCA (reviewed on page 70). There are others yet to come "I've recorded the Bruckner Te Deum for Deutsche Grammophon and Bach's Cantatas Nos. 80 and 140 for Philips. I expect to record Il Turco in Italia for an Italian company, and it will probably come out here on CBS."
This impressive list of accomplishments has not taken Ramey's breath away, and he speaks of his engagements al most matter-of-factly Although he remains a member of the New York City Opera, he explained that he will not be able to sing there in the fall because he will be tied up at the Paris Opera with Carmen and Rossini's Semiramide. Asked if the Metropolitan is in his future, he answered simply, "Well, I don't have repertoire details to re lease yet, but I have just signed a contract with the Met to sing there in the centenary season of 1983-1984 "
-W.L.
FOR the first time in its fifteen year I- history, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival is taking its act on the road From July 7 to 11, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra will give guest performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington under conductors Leonard Slatkin and Alexander Schneider Soloists include such Festival stars as pianists Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, Richard Goode, and Lee Luvisi, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma. and the Kalichstein Laredo-Robinson Trio. The Tokyo String Quartet will also give a concert as part of the Washington visit.
Alicia de Larrocha, the unofficial Queen of the Mostly Mozart Festival, was absent in 1980, but she is compensating with extra performances this year. She will be the soloist at the opening concert on July 13 with conductor Slatkin, she will perform again the following week when Michael Tilson Thomas conducts, and she will give her traditional Mostly Mozart recital on July 28. This year Miss De Larrocha is not adding to her Festival series on London Records, which now consists of "Mostly Mozart, Vols. I-IV," but her recent concerto album with David Zinman conducting the London Sinfonietta includes (in addition to works by Bach and Haydn) Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, in A Major (K. 414).
Among artists appearing at the Festival for the first time this year is the Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger. Another name new to Mostly Mozart programs is that of Mozart's most successful rival, composer Antonio Sailed (1750-1825) Peter Shaffer's current hit play Amadeus is about the rumor that Sailer' poisoned Mozart Today Mozart is the most frequently recorded composer (112 new listings in Schwann in 1980), and Sailer' is To celebrate the release of their first album, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Winds and ballet music from Idomeneo on Nonesuch, members of the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble made an in-store appearance at the Orpheus Record Store on Lexington Avenue in New York The Orpheus Chamber Ensemble is the only American group of its kind that performs without a conductor, limited to one recording of his Sinfonia in D and four listings of his Concerto in C for Flute, Oboe, and Orchestra One of those four recordings is Holliger's (Deutsche Grammophon 139152), and he is scheduled to perform the work with flutist Carol Wincenc at the Festival this summer. O the Orpheus Record Store is one of the few American record outlets that handles only classical recordings Their sharing a name is coincidental Members of the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble shown above are (left to right) Randall Wolfgang (oboe), Julian Fifer (cello), Ruth Waterman (violin), William Purvis (French horn), Frank Morelli (bassoon), and Guillermo Figueroa (violin) .
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Disc and Tape Reviews
By RICHARD FREED DAVID HALL GEORGE JELLINEK PAUL KRESH STODDARD LINCOLN ERIC SALZMAN
J. S. BACH: Goldberg Variations (see Best of the Month) BARTOK: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 (see Best of the Month. page 7.5)
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BARTOK: String Quartets, Nos. 1-6. Tokyo Quartet. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2740 235 three discs $29.94.
Performance Superb
Recording Excellent
The Bartok string quartets have certainly never lacked for recorded representation.
The Juilliard Quartet recorded them at least twice, Vox has had at least two complete sets over the years, Deutsche Grammophon has done it before (with the Hungarian Quartet), and there are fairly recent versions from Telefunken (the Vegh Quartet) and RCA (the Guarneri). Even Brahms has hardly done as well.
Nevertheless, 1981 is the Bartok centenary year, and, despite the usual ups and downs of reputation, interest in Bartok's music has not waned. Indeed, these latest performances have a youthful beauty and freshness of approach that kicks up the spirit of the music more than a bit. The string quartet was not a stuffy contrapuntal/Classical medium for Bartok, and from the very First-supposedly the most traditional of the six-the Tokyo Quartet takes a lively view of these works. In fact, the performance of the First Quartet is in some ways the most impressive in the set, putting that work, not always regarded as a prime one, in a new perspective. Even the difficult Second Quartet-Bartok's musical journey upriver from Budapest to Vienna--is almost enjoyable here.
The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Quartets, from the heartland of Bart6k quartet country, are very impressive. These are not the fastest or the most dissonant or the most rough -skinned quartets, just the most dynamic and expressively beautiful. There is no need for ultrafast tempos or rough tone or harsh accents unless you're afraid of being thought too polite, too well mannered, not sufficiently intense or expressive. That's no problem for the Tokyo Quartet. Intensity and vigoe in these performances come from inside, from phrase and accent and rhythmic vitality. They are strong and effective, but also beautiful and musical. Even the strange, reflective Sixth Quartet (it always seems to fall a little flat after the dynamism of its predecessors) here reveals itself as subtle, ironic, full of rough humor and in ward depth ---one of the composer's cleverest and most original works.
These recordings of Nos. 2 and 6 were first released in 1977; the others appear to have been made more recently for this set. They are all models of clarity.
E.S.
BARTOK: Violin Duos, Nos. 1-44. Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman (violins). ANGEL SZ-37540 $9.98.
Performance: Polished
Recording: Close-up
Bartok composed these duos in 1931 (about the time he was completing his Second Piano Concerto) as his contribution to the same pedagogical project for which Hindemith wrote his Fourteen Easy Pieces the following year. The duos brilliantly transcend their occasion and are among the most intriguing products of Bart6k's fascination with folk music; all but two of them are based on actual folk tunes (drawn from Arabic sources as well as from throughout East-Central Europe). The pieces are enjoyable in five-minute segments, but no less so heard complete in a single sitting. The variety and subtly increasing difficulty from the Teasing Song that begins the sequence to the Transylvanian Dance that ends it assure the listener of more than simply a jumble of bright miniatures; we might call the whole a Mikrokosmos for strings.
The old Supraphon recording by Josef Suk and Andre Gertler, which circulated here on the short-lived Crossroads label, had, I think, a somewhat more idiomatic, folk-flavored approach, yielding qualities that are obscured in the very polished playing on the new Angel. But Perlman and Zukerman, as they could hardly fail to be, are highly ingratiating as well as highly polished, and their commitment is beyond question. The sound is close-up, very warm, and perhaps a little larger than life, but this enjoyable re lease is well timed to refill what had been a major gap in the Bartok discography. R.F.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BEETHOVEN: Septet in E -fiat Major, Op. 20. Academy of St Martin-in -the-Fields Chamber Ensemble. PHILIPS 9500 873. $9.98, 7300 873 $9.98.
Performance Outstanding
Recording. Excellent
Since the very first release to bear the rather cumbersome name of the fine ensemble skimmed off the top of the famous chamber orchestra was an outstanding account of the Schubert Octet (Philips 9500 400, reviewed here in November 1978), it is fitting that we now have this companion-and eminently companionable-version of the early Beethoven work that served as Schubert's mod el. The performance is so extremely sympathetic, and at the same time so polished, that there is little to be said except to congratulate the players and thank Philips for recording it so handsomely. Some listeners may feel that the amiable pace of the final movement is not quite a true presto, but I'm quite comfortable with the tempos through out the work, and most especially with the steadiness of tempo within each movement; how good it is to hear the cellist take the trio in the scherzo without the conspicuous down -shift affected in so many performances. It is curious that Schwann lists only two other recordings of this work at present, both of them on budget labels. The 1959 version by the Vienna Octet (London STS 15361) still more than holds its own, both musically and sonically, though without quite the rhythmic steadiness or beautiful detail of this new one, which strikes me as the most winning account of the work yet recorded. R.F.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CHOPIN: Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65; Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, Op. 3.
SCHUMANN: Adagio and Allegro in A -flat Major, Op. 70. Mstislav Rostropovich (cel lo); Martha Argerich (piano). DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2531 201 $9.98, Co 3301 201. $9.98.
Performance. Impassioned, brilliant
Recording First-rate
CHOPIN: Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65.
GRIEG: Cello Sonata in A Minor, Op. 36.
Roger Drinkall (cello); Rene Lozano (piano). ORION ORS 80387 $8.98.
Performance Conscientious
Recording First-rate
For cello buffs the legendary Feuermann performance (issued originally on 78s and once available in LP format on Camden 292) has always been the touchstone for Chopin's Op. 3. But Mstislav Rostropovich need take no back seat to his illustrious predecessor, even though he adopts a more expansive and free way with the polonaise section. The collaboration of Martha Argerich, whose nimble fingers toss off the glittering passagework with the greatest of ease and rhythmic élan, adds something special to the performance. The same goes double for the far more musically demanding Cello Sonata, whose rondo -sonata last movement points, harmonically and formally, toward the new creative horizons Chopin might have explored had he lived another few years. The elegant Jacqueline Du Pre/ Daniel Barenboim reading on Angel has heretofore held the top position among available recorded versions, but in terms of keeping one's attention at highest pitch from start of finish, I find that Rostropovich and Argerich run all competition off the boards. There is terrific sweep and passion here, but not at the expense of musical structure. In short, I never realized before what a really fine work this is. The Schumann piece, with its wistful song-without-words opening section and energetic allegro, also gets a splendid workout. The recording job is outstandingly fine, particularly in the cello -piano balance and the fine room tone.
Don't pass this one up.
Messrs. Drinkall and Lozano on Orion are no match for either Rostropovich and Argerich or Du Pre and Barenboim in the Chopin. Theirs is an honest and conscientious reading, but also one that is at times a bit labored. The rather infrequently re corded Grieg sonata fares better. The folk - flavored finale outstays its welcome by dint of excessive repetition of its main motive, but there is strong music in the opening movement, and the slow movement, which recalls the Hommage March from Sigurd Jorsallar, is a decided improvement on that rather banal piece. Drinkall and Lozano come through with a virile and warm-hued reading that is helped by very effective pacing in the finale. The Orion sonics are tops.
D.H.
CHOPIN: Waltzes. Claudio Arrau (piano).
PHILIPS 9500 739 $9.98, 7300 824. $9.98.
Performance: Simple is best
Recording: Not brilliant
CHOPIN: Waltzes. Leonard Pennario (piano). ANGEL 0 DS -37332 $10.98.
Performance Fast and brilliant
Recording: Brilliant
Well, sometimes simple is best, and certainly Claudio Arrau's light, delicate, gentle performances of the Chopin waltzes are winning. The earlier ones are played in quite a steady manner, as if they were actually meant for dancing (which they probably were). The later ones are freer, but the basic notion of a dance impulse is never entirely lost. These performances are not brilliant, not even perfectly polished, but they are a delightful tribute from one artist of sensibility to another.
Leonard Pennario's performances, in contrast, are brilliant and virtuosic. The tempos are dance steady, but any potential waltzers had better be ready to move.
Waltz time here is a real swirl; everything goes fast and then a bit faster. Paradoxically, I much prefer Pennario's slow waltzes to all his flying -finger fandangos. Whereas in the fast waltzes he is constantly pushing ahead past the front edge of the beat, the slow waltzes-the A Minor, the C -sharp Minor, two or three of the posthumous ones-are steady and, curiously, much more dancey (usually the reverse is the case). I like the steadiness, but the trick is to hold the line on tempo and, if anything, lay the right hand a little back of the beat a simple and almost universal formula for dance or dance -inspired music that classical performers seem to have forgotten. Pennario plays brilliantly, but Arrau is more sym pathetic most of the time. E.S.
COPLAND: Piano Concerto. Leo Smit (piano); Rome Radio Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland cond. Monza; Cubano. Leo Smit, Aaron Copland (pianos). Our Town, Suite; Early Blues; Four Piano Blues, Nos. 1 and 4. Leo Smit (piano). Ukulele Serenade; Rodeo. Hoe-Down. Louis Kaufman (violin); Annette Kaufman (piano). Nocturne. Louis Kaufman (violin); Aaron Copland (piano).
VARESE SARABANDE VC 81098 $8.98.
Performance Authoritative
Recording Historical
Although Aaron Copland and his longtime keyboard associate Leo Smit have, between them, recently rerecorded about half the material on this record in up-to-date stereo for CBS, the restoration of these recordings made between 1947 and 1951 is of interest historically and fills in some actual gaps in the composer's current discography. Both Copland himself and Leonard Bernstein, who happened to be the pianists in the 1942 premiere of the Danzon Cubano, have con ducted the orchestral version of that work on records, but there has been no recording of the original two -piano setting for some time, and it could hardly be in more authoritative hands than Copland's and Smit's; the sound quality is the dullest in this entire collection, but one adjusts to it. The very brief Early Blues, from the early 1920s, somehow missed being included in Smit's 1979 two -disc collection of Copland's works for solo piano (CBS M2 35901), and I don't think either the Ukulele Serenade or the Nocturne (both composed in 1926) has been around since these recordings by Louis Kaufman last circulated on the Concert Hall label. The piano arrangement of the Our Town music and the violin transcription of the Hoe -Down from Rodeo may not qualify as indispensable, but they haven't been available since then either. The Piano Concerto was taped in 1951; since then Copland has rerecorded the work as both conductor (with Earl Wild, Vanguard VSD-2094) and soloist (with Bernstein, CBS MS 6698), but this collaboration with Smit is worth preserving, both musically and historically. The transfers have all been accomplished with great care for this Varese Sarabande release, the sound quality ranging from deadish in the Danzon Cubano to surprisingly bright in the contemporaneous violin items.
- R.F.
GLUCK: Orfeo ed Euridice. Julia Hamari (mezzo-soprano), Orfeo; Veronika Kincses (soprano), Euridice; Maria Zemploni (soprano), Amore. Hungarian State Opera Chamber Chorus and Orchestra, Ervin Lu kics cond. HUNGAROTON SLPX 12100/ 101 two discs $19.96 (from Qualiton Records, Ltd., 39-28 Crescent Street, Long Is land City, N.Y. 11101).
Performance Reverential
Recording Very good
Considering the many performing editions in which Orfeo may be heard, it is important to establish that this recording is based on the Barenreiter Complete Edition and represents the original Gluck/Calzabigi version as performed in Vienna's Burg theater in 1762. In this respect it resembles the Angel set (S-3717); all other current versions incorporate, to varying degrees, the additional material Gluck prepared for the opera's revised Paris production in 1774.
From the historical point of view, going back to the first version is a very commend able undertaking, for it allows us to evaluate Gluck's concept of "azione teatrale per musics" in its original concise and dignified simplicity. On the other hand, many listeners familiar with the 1774 ballet sequence with its sublime flute melody, the aria "E quest' asilo amen," and the expanded version of Orfeo's "Chefaro senza Euridice" will miss them here. I, for one, find the opera's dramatic impact considerably weakened by their absence.
Whether Gluck conceived a performance along the statuesque lines favored here by Ervin Lukfics is a matter for speculation. I find it an overly reverential approach in which the recitatives lack dramatic fire, and neither Euridice's death nor her subsequent miraculous return to life seems to alter the prevailing stately mood. Even the Furies at the opening of Act II are affected: they are not really furious and actually seem rather pleased by Orfeo's persuasive pleading. Julia Hamari sings that music appealingly in deed, with a smooth, creamy tone and exquisite legato. Like most mezzos, however, she finds the low tessitura occasionally un comfortable. The roles of Euridice and Amore are relatively modest in the 1762 version, and the two sopranos here bring them off satisfactorily.
All five currently available recordings of Orfeo ed Euridice have something worthy to offer, though none is ideal in all respects.
This opera has always been a problematic work to present to modern audiences. In fact, according to reliable accounts even the original male -alto Orfeo, Gaetano Gua dagni, was found less than ideal in 1762. So how can we complain? In any case, Hungaroton deserves praise for its deluxe multi lingual album presentation. G.J.
GRIEG: Cello Sonata in A Minor, Op. 36 (see CHOPIN)
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
HAYDN: II Ritorno di Tobia. Barbara Hendricks (soprano), Raffaelle; Linda Zoghby (soprano), Sara; Della Jones (mezzo-soprano), Anna; Philip Langridge (tenor), Tobia; Benjamin Luxon (baritone), Tobit; Brighton Festival Chorus and Royal Phil harmonic Orchestra, Antal Dorati cond.
LONDON OSA 1445 four discs $39.92, 4 1445 $39.92.
Performance Very good
Recording Excellent
Il Ritorno di Tobia (The Return of Tobias) was written in 1774 for the Musicians' Aid Society in Vienna. It was a great success and was revived in 1784, when it was again very successful, and in 1808, by which time it was considered too old-fashioned even though the score had been "updated" by one of Haydn's pupils. (Revivals in those days, as in pop and show music today, were always brought up to date.) It is the 1784 version -revised, added to, and modernized -that we have on this new recording.
Even "fixed up," II Ritorno di Tobia be longs to the genre of Italian oratorio. Such works were designed to be performed during Lent when the opera houses were closed, and they tended to be discursive, un-dramatic, be! canto treatments of sacred subjects.
This one is no exception; it has almost no dramatic interest at all. Long, contemplative arias are separated by longish recitativo descriptions of off-stage events and relieved only now and then by instrumental numbers, choruses, or set ensembles.
Haydn, like Handel, was later able to break away from the traditional forms and subjects, but here he was still bound by the lyric architecture of Alessandro Scarlatti, Jomelli, Hasse, and the other great Italian masters of a previous generation. Don't expect to be carried off anywhere by this mu sic. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy; the lyric -classic beauties of the score will reveal themselves.
The work has been recorded before--there was a reasonably attractive Hungarian recording not too long ago -but this version should hold the field for a while.
The cast is very good to excellent, with particularly notable contributions from the low voices: mezzo Della Jones and baritone Benjamin Luxon. The chorus is solid and well recorded, with nice balances between chorus and orchestra, and the generalship of Antal Dorati is impressive. E.S.
KODALY: Thiry .hinos, Suite, Op. 15; Concerto for Orchestra. Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, Janos Ferencsik cond. HUNGAROTON SLPX-19190 $9.98 (from Qualiton Records, Ltd., 39-28 Crescent Street, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101).
Performance Affectionate
Recording Good
Janos Ferencsik is a very good conductor - a very good Hungarian conductor -so it is hardly surprising that his performance with the Budapest Philharmonic of Kodaly's most popular work, the Hary Janos Suite, should prove to be utterly idiomatic and utterly delightful. True, the suite has come off even more brilliantly in recordings under other conductors of Hungarian birth (Ormandy's latest version, RCA ARL I -1325, is probably the most fetching of the current listings), but a rash of deletions has eliminated several Kodaly titles, among them the Concerto for Orchestra, from Schwann al together. The new Hungaroton disc is especially welcome for making the concerto available again. Ferencsik's approach in the concerto is geared more toward breadth than brilliance, but it does not lack vitality.
If this coupling is appealing, you won't be disappointed in these performances or the fine sound. R.F.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
KORNGOLD. Violanta. Walter Berry (baritone), Simone Trovai; Eva Morton (soprano), Violanta; Siegfried Jerusalem (ten or), Alfonso; Horst R. Laubenthal (tenor), Giovanni Bracca; Ruth Hesse (mezzo-soprano), Barbara; Manfred Schmidt (tenor), Matteo; others. Bavarian Radio Chorus;
Munich Radio Orchestra, Marek Janowski cond. CBS M2 35909 two discs $19.96.
Performance Very good
Recording. Artificial sounding
Even allowing for the familiar case histories of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schubert, the prodigious exploits of a latter-day Wunderkind named Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) should give one pause. As a student of Alexander von Zemlinsky, Korngold at thirteen had a pantomime produced at the Vienna Hofoper; when he was nine teen, two of his one -act operas formed a double bill at the Munich State Opera, introduced under the leadership of Bruno Walter. One of the two, Violanta, has now been recorded in a first-class performance.
Considering the era (1916) and the com poser's age, there is a predictable eclecticism about the score. Wagner and Richard Strauss are the main influences, but echoes of D'Albert's Tiefland (1903) are detect able, along with Puccini's thumbprints. The story is verismo, if not quite unadulterated.
Violanta, married to a Venetian officer at the time of the Renaissance, is determined to avenge the seduction and suicide of her younger sister. She locates the seducer, a man of power as well as irresistible charm, and persuades her devoted husband to kill him at a given signal. But Violanta herself becomes infatuated with the man, and when her husband strikes, she interposes herself to receive the fatal blow. Aside from the Tristanesque element -the longed -for night (death) that is to release Violanta from a passionless present--the libretto (by a Viennese playwright) manages to transform the tenor's final aria into a kind of Freudian self-analysis. The opera is, however, very effective. It has atmosphere, it is skillfully paced with sagely contrasted ebb and flow, and it is lushly orchestrated and expertly written for the voice, if a bit cruelly (a la Strauss) for the lead soprano.
Siegfried Jerusalem, who seems to be wearing Nicolai Gedda's mantle more fit tingly with each recorded appearance, pleads the case of the amorous Alfonso persuasively, though I am won over more by the appeal of his singing than by his argument. There are two other good tenors in smaller parts: Horst R. Laubenthal, as the ...
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Delius' Tristanesque Magic Fountain
NORMAN DEL MAR: a sympathetic baton
FREDERICK DELIUS composed The Magic Fountain, his second opera, in 1893, the year after he completed Irmelin. He never heard either of those works performed (nor the fifth of his six operas, Margot -la -Rouge, composed in 1902). Irmelin was finally staged at Oxford in 1953; the pre miere of The Magic Fountain did not take place until July 30, 1977, when the BBC, in London, produced and recorded the concert performance that has now been issued in the U.S. by Arabesque.
The libretto, by Delius himself, has rather stilted language ("Ay! 'tis even as thou sayest," etc.) but is nonetheless touching in its treatment of a tale based on American Indian legends he picked up during his productive sojourn at Solana Grove, Florida.
Indeed, we are reminded of the locale in the very name of the work's hero, Solano, a Spaniard shipwrecked on the Florida coast in the sixteenth century in search of a Magic Fountain whose waters confer not only eternal youth but wisdom as well on those who are "prepared." He is rescued by Indians, and the young Seminole Princess Watawa volunteers to be his guide, but only in order to lead him to his death in vengeance for the white man's slaughter of her people. Naturally they fall in love. After being reminded by the seer Talum Hadjo that the Magic Fountain yields its blessings only to "those prepared" and is deadly to the un initiated, Watawa drinks of its waters to forestall Solano from similar rashness, but when she dies at his feet he immediately follows her example.
This Tristanesque tale brought forth some mildly but recognizably Wagnerian touches in Delius' music (Robert Threlfall, in his annotation, reminds us that Delius visited Bayreuth and Munich while at work on this score), but the dominant, unmistakable voice is Delius' own. If the music seems to have a familiar ring, it is not simply be cause it conforms to his characteristically nostalgic, bittersweet style; portions of it actually come from some of his other works.
Some of the music of the Indians and the Everglades was adapted from the orchestral suite Florida of 1886, and the Prelude to Act 11 was subsequently reused to introduce the third act of his next opera, Koanga.
In any event, The Magic Fountain, which Delius said he wanted to be "essentially Indian," is so well constructed, and flows so smoothly, that it seems shorter than the 101 minutes indicated as the timing of this performance. For this the major credit must go to Norman Del Mar's extremely sympathetic conducting. The principal singers are rather less distinguished.
As Watawa, Katherine Pring (a mezzo, not a soprano as listed on the box) perhaps can't help sounding more like a matriarch than a young princess, simply because the part is written so low. As Solano, John Mitchinson, very Heldentenorish, is never less than stentorian, even in tender passages, and both he and Norman Welsby, as the noble Chief Wapanacki, tend to wobble a bit. While these faults can hardly escape notice, the work itself is such a delight and Del Mar's pacing is so apt that they are easily dismissed as minor flaws. The last of the principals, Richard Angas, is gratifyingly firm and Sarastro-like as the seer, and the well -drilled chorus is especially effective in the Act iii episode involving invisible spirits and the God of Wisdom, actually a ballet that takes place while the lovers sleep prior to their discovery of the Magic Fountain.
SOME tasteful sound effects have been added for the sake of atmosphere, and the sound is first-rate. I would think a staged production of The Magic Fountain would find an enthusiastic audience by no means limited to dyed-in-the-wool Delians; in the meantime, those same Delians, whose ranks may well be increased by this most welcome recording, can only rejoice over it-and look forward to the similar realization of Margot -la -Rouge that the same producers have promised for this year.
-Richard Freed
DELIUS: The Magic Fountain. Katherine Pring (mezzo-soprano), Watawa; John Mitchinson (tenor), Solano; Norman Wels by (bass), Wapanacki; Richard Angas (bass), Talum Hadjo; Francis Thomas (bass), a Spanish sailor. BBC Singers; BBC Concert Orchestra, Norman Del Mar cond. ARABESQUE 8121-2L two discs $14.96, 9121-2L $16.96.
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frivolous Bracca, and Manfred Schmidt, who does a nice bit clearly modeled on Narraboth in Salome. The role of Violanta needs a Salome voice too, and Eva Marton has the range and power for it, if not all the tonal sensuousness. Walter Berry is solid as the husband, and conductor Marek Janowski gives us all the tension and tonal rich ness the music demands. That very orchestral richness may, however, have caused some engineering problems--I find the recorded sound compressed, lacking in warmth, and unkind to the singers.
As is demonstrated by the better-known, later opera Die Tote Stadt, Korngold was a late Romantic who sustained the Straussian ideals at a time when his contemporaries Berg, Weill, and Hindemith-were pursuing radically opposed operatic paths. Korngold's essentially melodic writing, spiced with mild dissonances, and his enthusiastic explorations of the erotic in music may antagonize those for whom every kind of Romanticism is a dead issue. For me, Violanta-closer in spirit and aesthetics to Monte mezzi and Zandonai than to Berg and Weill-is an eminently stage-worthy opera.
G.J.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
MIASKOVSKY: Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 13; Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 19. RACHMANINOFF: Prelude in C -sharp Minor.
SCRIABIN: Preludes, Op. 74. Idil Biret (piano). FINNADAR SR 9029 $7.98.
Performance The best Recording: Very good It is a bit of a shock to put on a record conspicuously titled "Mostly Miaskovsky" and hear on the first band a magisterial performance of the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C -sharp Minor. If you look closely, the cover also says "Some Rachmaninoff and Scriabin too." So this record is really a précis of the late -Romantic side of Russian piano music before the Revolution: Rachmaninoff with his crowd-pleasing bravura, Scriabin with his elliptical, mystical modernism, Miaskovsky with his dark, powerful, personal expression.
Miaskovsky? Some older music lovers may remember rumors coming out of Russia and even occasional performances of Miaskovsky symphonies numbered in the upper twenties. Unlike Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, or Scriabin, Nikolai Miaskovsky (1881-1950) never left Russia, and his reputation didn't either. His early period, represented here by a sonata written in 1912 and another from 1920, is in the full-blown post -Romantic tradition, not very distant (as Richard Taruskin points out in his excellent notes) from the early work of Schoenberg-or, one should add, Berg.
Later in his life, Miaskovsky had cause to regret and apologize for the dark pessimism of these works; along with Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian, he was honored by the infamous Stalinist attacks of 1948. That alone might serve to compel our interest in these works; they are personal, inward -looking, strong, and well written.
They are also smashingly played by Idil Biret. This Turkish pianist has perhaps not had the impact here that her playing de serves, but her Finnadar records have been consistently impressive. This one -extremely well recorded at New York's Town Hall-is performed with strength and passion. I commend it to your attention. E.S.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL: Pictures at an Exhibition. MUSSORGSKY/RIMSKY KORSAKOV: Night on Bald Mountain.
Amsterdam Concergebouw Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond. PHILIPS 0 9500 744
$10.98, 7300 829 $10.98.
Performance Highly poetic
Recording Opulent
Sir Colin Davis eschews the merely spectacular in his traversal of the Mussorgsky/ Ravel Pictures, with the result that episodes such as "Tuileries" gain a fresh and special realism. Note Davis' subtle hesitation at phrase ends to suggest the occasionally un steady gait of small children, for example, and the care he gives to wind -string contrast to establish an air of chatter between nurses and their young charges. The "Bydlo" ox cart has tremendous weight here and, with the extended low end of this recording, liter ally shakes the floor at its nearest passing.
And there is a singular eloquence to the heart -wrenching outcry of the solo trumpet in "Catacombs." While the Lorin Maazel/ Cleveland Orchestra recording of Pictures for Telarc remains my top choice, this one is certainly among the best. Like Maazel, Davis includes Night on Bald Mountain as a filler, doing best in the poetic epilogue.
In the recording itself there is a certain imbalance that puts the violins a bit off in Bald Mountain.
But on the whole the Philips digital tape mastering offers sound that's extremely opulent, if not unusually brilliant on the high end. D.H.
PAISIELLO: II Maestro ed i Sui Due Scolari (see SUSSMAYR) RACHMANINOFF: Prelude in C -sharp Minor (see MIASKOVSKY) ROSSINI: I: Italians in Algeri (see Best of the Month, page 70) SAINT-SAENS: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. Op. 28 (see SIBELIUS) SCHONTHAL: Totengesiinge (see WEILL) SCHUMANN: Adagio and Allegro in A -flat Major, Op. 70 (see CHOPIN) SCRIABIN: Preludes, Op. 74 (see MIAS KOVSKY)
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
SIBELIUS: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47.
SAINT-SAENS: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28. Dylana Jenson (violin); Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy cond. RCA 0 ATC I -3972. $15.98, ATKI-3972 $15.98.
Performance. First-rate Sibelius
Recording Rich, tending to hugeness
RCA has gone all out-Ormandy and the Philadelphia, 3M digital recording, press –
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Two Tenths of Mahler
BOTH Angel and RCA recently released digitally mastered recordings of the late Deryck Cooke's second complete per forming version of Mahler's Tenth Sym phony, the former with Simon Rattle con ducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the latter with James Levine con ducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. The two releases differ profoundly in interpretation and sonic approach, but both are remarkable realizations that in their different ways take pre-eminent positions among re corded versions of this music. Personally, I would not part with either.
At his death in 1911, Mahler left a full sketch of the Tenth Symphony but had finished scoring only the opening adagio-a unique masterpiece that is often performed and recorded on its own-and the oddly disquieting little Purgatorio third movement. I find the music as completed by Cooke completely enthralling. With Cooke's versions of the two scherzos and the magnificent finale in place alongside the two movements Mahler finished, the symphony not only makes sense as a whole but throws a revealing light on the last two years of the com poser's life, racked as they were with anxiety engendered by the heart disease that finally killed him as well as by the torment of his young wife Alma's involvement with the architect Walter Gropius. In the music of the Tenth Symphony, as in the often terrifying marginal inscriptions on the manuscript score, we can trace Mahler's path to ward eventual resolution and acceptance, a transcendence of self that at last left him "free within." But aside from such programmatic implications-which are touched on by Jack Diether in his notes for the RCA set and dealt with in lengthy and fascinating detail by Michael Steinberg for Angel-the music stands superbly on its own, with all kinds of motivic interrelationships and metamorphoses threading their way through the five movements. In terms of sonic impact, two features stand out above all others. First is the astonishing "primal scream" heard two thirds of the way through the first movement and again toward the end of the finale-a nine -note dissonant chord for full orchestra culminating with the trumpet's high A. Second is the deathly thud of the bass drum that ends the second scherzo and recurs periodically in the finale like the crack of doom-a sound that Mahler re- membered from a stay in New York when from his hotel window he witnessed a funeral procession for a fireman killed in line of duty. Less obvious but perhaps even more crucial is a third event in the score, just be fore the end: an upward -leaping sigh (C, A -flat) in the strings leading to the exquisite final measures.
As conductor Simon Rattle observes, with the Mahler Tenth "one is presented with a unique challenge: a masterpiece of seventy years' standing for which there is no established performing tradition." Certainly this factor helps explain the enormous range of timings among the dozen or more recordings of the initial adagio, with Wyn Morris, for instance, requiring only about twenty-two minutes and Klaus Tennstedt taking nearly twenty-eight.
The differences between Rattle's and James Levine's interpretations pertain less to matters of tempo-save in the finale, where Levine is a full four minutes slower than to their views of the work as a whole and the effect of these contrasting views on the agogic elements in the score. As I hear it, Rattle's view of the work is intensely dramatic and extroverted, whereas Levine's is equally intensely lyrical and inner-directed.
Some confirmation of this characterization is supplied by three instances in which Rattle has second-guessed Deryck Cooke:
(1) restoring the cymbal crash at the end of the second movement, which was in Cooke's first performing version but omitted in the second; (2) adding additional percussion to the ferocious middle section of the finale; and (3) letting the bass-drum death knell heard at the very end of the second scherzo serve as the connecting link to the finale.
(Rattle lets the finale begin with the tuba solo, whereas in Levine's recording one hears the crack of the bass drum both at the end of the fourth movement and at the be ginning of the fifth.) BOTH performances are of the. highest standard, but there is no question that Le vine has the finer ensemble. While Rattle carries the field in terms of dramatic impact, Levine elicits playing of unearthly finesse and beauty from the Philadelphians.
Even allowing for the greater brightness and coloration of the Bournemouth record ing locale as compared with the rather neutral acoustics of the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Philadelphia, it is clear that Rattle can- not command comparable pp and ppp playing from his group. The finest moments in Levine's recording are, for me, in the last pages of the finale. I scarcely dared to breathe-and thank goodness RCA's Ger man -pressed surfaces are noiseless.
In sonics the two recordings again differ sharply in basic ways. Angel's sound is bright, assertive, recorded at peak level.
The microphone pickup is fairly close, but the spacious ambiance of the hall is amply evident. RCA's recording is at a decidedly lower basic level-I would guess some 6 dB less, presumably to allow more head room for climaxes. The miking seems more distant than Angel's, but the neutrality of the U CC hall makes it difficult to judge. In any case, the sound is certainly less spectacular than Angel's, but it may wear better over repeated listenings.
It is interesting to note that Levine's re cording of the first movement derives from an analog tape of a 1978 session; it was previously released on RCA ARL2-2905 along with the Mahler Fifth Symphony. I could detect no meaningful difference in sound quality between this part of the set and those that were digitally mastered originally (the analog tape of the adagio was remastered digitally for this release). Both Angel and RCA have done first-rate jobs with these recordings in terms of their respective approaches. As usual, in my view, the digital technology makes the choice of recording ambiance and microphone setup even more critical.
In sum, for those who want a Mahler Tenth with maximum dramatic impact, there can be no choice at present other than Simon Rattle's Angel set. But for those who prefer to assimilate the spiritual essence of Mahler's final musical testament through repeated listenings over an extended period of time, I feel that James Levine on RCA is the only choice. -David Hall MAHLER: Symphony No. 10 (Second Per forming Version by Deryck Cooke). Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle cond. ANGEL 0 DSB-3909 two discs $25.98.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 10 (Second Performing Version by Deryck Cooke). Philadelphia Orchestra, James Levine cond.
RCA 0 CTC2-3726 two discs $27.98, CTK2-3726 $27.98.
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ing by Teldec in Hamburg-for the recording debut of nineteen -year -old Dylana Jen son, and the special attention is by no means unwarranted. Her name is by now far from unknown: she has been performing as soloist with major American orchestras for more than a half -dozen years, has had opportunities to study with Heifetz, David Oistrakh, and Josef Gingold, and was the youngest member of Nathan Milstein's master class in Zurich-where, on his recommendation, she gave a recital in the Tonhalle at the age of fourteen. In the same year (1975) she gave a private recital for Irving Kolodin, who recalls that event in his annotation for the new RCA disc and who wrote about her in Saturday Review some sixteen months ago, by which time she had added to her credits a silver medal in the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
A subsequent audition for Eugene Ormandy led to last December's concerts and this recording.
Jenson is a splendid musician. Like the still younger Anne -Sophie Mutter, she need ask no allowances on account of her youth, for she shows unquestionable maturity as well as a formidable command of her instrument. Her tone is big and warm, her technique sure, and her identification with the Sibelius concerto convincing in every bar. (Kolodin refers to a live recording of her 1978 Moscow performance of the concerto, which she played in Saint Louis as early as April 1975 and no doubt on several occasions later.) Since Ormandy and his orchestra have proprietary authority in this music, this is an altogether satisfying, highly competitive version. In the Saint-Saens filler the playing is every bit as beautiful as in the Sibelius, but here I felt a lack of the spontaneity and dash that give life to the piece, and I was more aware, too, of the hugeness of the sonic frame RCA contrived for this presentation. Whether the same set tings were used for the Sibelius and the Saint-Saens, whether the concerto simply wears the hugeness more comfortably, or whether some other factor is operative is hard to tell, but I enjoyed the richness of the sound in the concerto and found it swollen in the Saint-Saens. In any event, this is a most impressive debut, one that will surely inspire eagerness for a follow-up. R.F.
SUSSMAYR: Des Namensfest. Children's Chorus and Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio/Television, Laszlo Csanyi cond.
PAISIELLO: II Maestro ed i Sui Due Sco Jozsef Dene (baritone); Margit Laszlo (soprano); Zsuzsa Barlay (mezzo-soprano); Budapest Madrigal Choir; Hungarian State Orchestra, Ferenc Szekeres cond. SERENUS SRS 12088 $6.98.
Performance Good
Recording. Good
These two comic cantatas, long hidden from public view, came to light after World War II when the Esterhazy Archives became part of Budapest's Szechenyi Library and were made accessible to scholars. The spirit of Mozart lends unity to the pairing: Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816) was influential in Mozart's operatic development, and Franz Sussmayr (1766-1803) was Mozart's pupil.
Both works were designed for intimate presentation. Das Namensfest seems to have been composed to celebrate the name day of a certain Baron Lang, with various grandchildren singing Grandpa's praises individually and in ensemble. (I recall having heard this cantata in its original release on a Qualiton import a number of years ago, and if I find it more attractive now that is probably because I too have become a grand father in the interim.) The Paisiello work follows the popular eighteenth -century formula of a music master spoofing his own profession (Cimarosa's II Maestro di Cap pella is probably the best of the genre). It goes on a bit too long, in my opinion (so does Das Namensfest), but it is modestly entertaining.
The children's chorus is quite remarkable (testifying to the high level of Hungarian musical education based on Kodaly's methods), the soloists are all competent, and both works receive polished performances.
There are a couple of noisy spots on the Sussmayr side, but overall the recorded sound is clean and well balanced. G.J.
TELEMANN: Trumpet Sonata in B -flat Major; Trumpet Sonata in C Minor; Heldenmusik (excerpts). Roy Smedvig (trumpet); Sherman Walt (bassoon); Joyce Lindorff (harpsichord). DIGITECH 0 DIGI 106
$14.98, DIGI C 106 $9.98.
Performance Clean-cut
Recording Good
Roy Smedvig is a familiar name to Boston Symphony concertgoers and fans of the Empire Brass Quintet. With the collaboration of his BSO colleague Sherman Walt in the B -flat Major Sonata and of harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff throughout, he gives us here a most agreeable forty minutes or so of Telemann's pleasant and sometimes exhilarating music. The final movement of the B -flat Sonata is especially agreeable, in fact, with Walt's obbligato bassoon a major contributing factor. The remainder of the disc is for trumpet and harpsichord only, and I would have preferred the harpsichord to sound a bit more forward with perhaps a cello (or even Walt's bassoon) to reinforce the continuo.
Smedvig himself displays a very pure tone, secure phrasing, agility as needed, and first-rate sostenuto. I only wish he had not been so skimpy with his ornamentation. The Risoluto movement of the Heldenmusik, which I found more interesting than the C Minor Sonata, is a good example. Listen to the same piece on Columbia MS 6354 as played by E. Power Biggs and the New England Brass Ensemble and you'll hear the kind of ornamentation that is needed. (I should mention, incidentally, that the Heldenmusik is not original trumpet music at all; Telemann composed it for flute and continuo.) I don't feel that the digital mastering is a major contribution here, but the acoustic ambiance of the Corpus Christi Church in Housatonic, Massachusetts, does fall very nicely on the ear. The jacket notes, I must say, are grossly inadequate, and some of the label copy is downright laughable.
- D.H.
WEILL: Frauentanz, Op. 10. Edith Gordon Ainsberg (soprano); Bronx Arts Ensemble.
ZAIMONT: Two Songs for Soprano and Harp. Berenice Bramson (soprano); Sara Cutler (harp). SCHONTHAL: Totenge singe. Berenice Bramson (soprano); Ruth Schonthal (piano). LEONARDA LPI 106 $8.98.
Performance Good
Recording. Good
Leonarda is a record company largely run by women and with a policy emphasizing contemporary music and music by women.
This collection of song cycles includes the early Women's Dance (or Dance of Women) by Kurt Weill and two attractive works by important U.S. women composers.
Ruth Schonthal was actually born in Hamburg and studied in Berlin, Mexico City (with Manuel Ponce), and Yale (with Hindemith). These Songs of Death, written in 1963 on her own German texts, are very much in the Central European tradition and must have seemed awfully old-fashioned when they came out. Yet their neo-Romanticism no longer seems like anything to hold against them. Or rather, in spite of and per haps even through their very traditionalism, they make a personal statement. The music is skillful and inventive and has profile. Judith Lang Zaimont belongs to a younger generation, but she is also a lyric traditionalist; her settings of Adrienne Rich and Thomas Hardy are engaging.
Weill's Frauentanz, written in the early Twenties and part of the composer's modernistic period, is the driest and most cut ting, dissonant music on the album. Obviously, it is the work that will carry the widest interest, but it is not necessarily the most grateful or immediately engaging. The poems are all from the Middle Ages, and the setting is very close to that dry, Hindemithian chamber style of the Twenties that one could call neo-medieval.
Both singers-Edith Gordon Ainsberg in the Weill and Berenice Bramson in the others-make a good impression, but it is Ms. Bramson and the Schonthal that make the best match. The Weill and the Zaimont are particularly well recorded. E.S.
ZAIMONT: Two Songs for Soprano and Harp (see WEILL) COLLECTIONS
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
BOSTON POPS: Pops on the March. J. F.
Wagner: Under the Double Eagle. Eiger: Pomp and Circumstance. No. 4. Tchaikovsky: Coronation March. Walton: Orb and Sceptre. Gershwin: Strike Up the Band.
Handy: St. Louis Blues
March. Williams: Midway
March. Wilson: 76 Trombones.
Baudac/Haggart: South Rampart Street Parade. Newman: Conquest. Boston Pops Orchestra, John Williams cond. PHILIPS 0 6302 082 $10.98, 7144 082 $10.98.
Performance Very good
Recording Excellent
The Boston Pops here presents a program of marches that are by no means all military in spirit. To be sure, the proceedings open with J. F. Wagner's bristling Under the Double Eagle. After that, though, things take a distinctly peaceful turn, with glittering coronation music from Tchaikovsky and William Walton, a rousing arrangement of Gershwin's Strike Up the Band, and several excursions to the South, including a St. Louis Blues wearing a martial uniform pro vided by arranger "Richard Hayaan" (Richard Hayman?), all 76 Trombones from Meredith Wilson's Music Man (in a Leroy Anderson arrangement), and an oversize version (by Billy May) of the South Rampart Street Parade that roars into town like a Dixieland tornado. There's also conductor John Williams' own Midway March, and Conquest from the pen of movie composer Alfred Newman brings matters to a victorious close. Mr. Williams obviously has the Pops firmly in hand and marching to a different drum: not a Sousa war horse in the regiment. P.K.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CZECH PASTORAL PARTITAS. Maiek: Partita in D Major. Havel: Allegro and Pastorella in B -flat Major. Fiala: Divertimento Pastorale in B -flat Major. Anon.:
Partita Pastoralis in G Major. Pick': Concertino con Pastorella in F Major. Colicgium Musicum Pragense. SUPRAPHON 1 11 1 2616 $9.98 (from Qualiton Records, Ltd., 39-28 Crescent Street, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101).
Performance Crack
Recording Excellent
I don't know if you've ever heard an alphorn on record (I don't know if you've ever wanted to), but here's your chance. The Allegro and Pastorella by the little-known Czech composer Vaclav Havel adds to its conventional scoring-for pairs of clarinets, horns, and bassoons-an obbligato part for alphorn in B -flat, here disguised under the name of tuba pastoralis. There is a picture of the instrument being played on the al bum's back cover, and it is indeed about nine feet straight out; it also seems to be growing hair, but perhaps that is merely hay from the stable in which, one presumes, it is kept when not in action. Vficlav Hoza, who plays the instrument in Havel's piece, does a splendid job with the unwieldy thing, managing to convey its rather exotic folk character and the difficulty of playing it while at the same time staying on pitch.
Nothing else terribly odd occurs on the record (although the Pichl piece has a tambourine in its last movement), nor is the music of any special importance. I am struck, though, by just how well made it is and how pleasant it is to listen to simply as entertainment (which is what it was written for). The anonymous piece in particular is a real delight.
It is, however, the performance quality that is the heart of this record. The players are uniformly superb, and their efforts prove once again that lesser music-pro vided only that it is competently crafted can give real pleasure if presented with the kind of spit -and -polish perfectionism often reserved for great masterpieces. Ephemeral this music may be, but it goes a long way in explaining how they got along without tele vision in those days. Fine recording.
-James Goodfriend
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
ESTHER LAMANDIER: Decameron Monodic Ballads of the Florentine Ars Nora. Masii: Non So Qua! Mi Voglia: Sento d'Amor la Fiamma; Non Dedi Tu, Amor; Non Perch' i' Speri. Gherardellus:
Vo' Bene: Donna, !'Altrui Mirar; De, Poni Amor; Per Non Far Lieto. Landini: Angeli ca Beltd; lo Son un Pellegrin. Anon.: Che Ti (.'ova; Amor Mi Fa Cantor; Lucente Stella; Per Tropo Fede. Esther Lamandier (soprano, portative organ, harp, vielle, lute). ASTREE AS 56 $13.98.
Performance: Exquisite Recording: Lovely In surveying music history, it has always been a relief to me to move from the spas mic isorhythms and jarring harmonies of the French Ars Nova to its sweet, flowing counterpart in Italy. Unfortunately, satisfy -
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Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt
A Stylish "Idomeneo"
ON a superb new Telefunken recording, conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt turns his back on the Baroque era (only briefly, I suspect) in order to address the question of authentic performance practice in the case of Mozart's opera Idomeneo.
The results are splendid. The hero of this performance is the orchestra, which is per haps as it should be, since Mozart was writing for nothing less than the fabled Mannheim Orchestra. As he wrote in a letter to his father, the orchestra was "very good and large; on each side 10 to 11 violins, 4 violas, 2 oboes, 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 4 violoncellos, 4 bassoons and 4 double-basses and trumpets and timpani.... You may well imagine that I am looking forward just like a child to the splendid orchestra." His delight is obvious from the score, on which he lavished an unusual degree of detail regarding dynamics and articulation, part and parcel of the Mannheim style.
Using modern instruments, Harnoncourt has duplicated the size and composition of the Mannheim Orchestra, furnished gut strings and wooden rather than metal or plastic mutes for all the stringed instruments, and supplied wooden beaters to the timpanist. All of Mozart's dynamic markings are scrupulously observed and the articulation played with full clarity. The sonority is heavily weighted toward the winds, which only highlights Mozart's genius in writing for them, and the crescendos, di minuendos, and accents are more pronounced than they would be in a modern-style performance. The effect is stunning;
one revels in the marches, accompanied recitative, and, especially, the ballet music.
Nor has Harnoncourt neglected the singers. The recitative is done melodramatically, with an emphasis on speech rhythms, al most -whispered asides, and full-bodied declamation. The recognition scene between Idomeneo and Idamante is a typical example of this high-flown dramatic style.
Of course, the very first question to be faced with Idomeneo is that of which version to use: Mozart's original score prior to the Munich premiere in 1781, the last Munich version, or the revision made for Vien na in 1786? Harnoncourt's decision to use the last Munich version, with cuts made by Mozart himself, is historically justifiable, but opera lovers accustomed to earlier recordings and to the various versions that hold the boards today may feel that the final scene is thereby rendered anticlimactic.
Omitting the arias for Idamante, Idomeneo, and Elettra ("D'Oreste, d'Aiace") leaves nothing but a large dose of accompanied recitative until the final chorus. The absence of Elettra's aria is particularly frustrating; audiences have come to regard it as the showpiece of the entire opera and look forward to it eagerly. But Harnoncourt makes up for these cuts by including the wonderful ballet music.
In the earlier arias, laurels go to Felicity Palmer as Elettra. She makes light of Mozart's technical demands in "Tutte nel cor vi sento," where her outrage is icy and fierce, and in "Idolmio, seritorno" her tenderness for Idamante is conveyed in singing full of warmth and grace. (All the more pity, then, to be denied her exit aria!) As Ilia, Rachel Yakar opens on the shaky side with some sliding on her high notes, but by the time she reaches "Zeffiretti lusin ghieri" she is thoroughly at home in the style and turns in an excellent account. Idamante is cleanly sung by Trudeliese Schmidt, though she unfortunately lacks the trill so necessary to the cadences of the period. But her characterization is noble, as is Werner Hollweg's of Idomeneo. The best feature of his singing is his constant projection of the character's feelings of horror and fatigue. Kurt Equiluz is forced -sounding as Arbace, and his vibrato renders his coloratura fuzzy. As the High Priest, however, Robert Tear turns in some excellent singing in the choral episode "Oh voto tremendo," and Simon Estes is appropriately sonorous as the Oracle.
IN any event, the singing is not the main point of this recording. While it is basically good, the soloists do not always seem quite at ease with Harnoncourt's stylistic requirements. Nevertheless, they put on a fine show-and they'll probably never sing Mozart like Bellini again. But what really makes the album worth its weight in gold is Harnoncourt's achievement in re-creating the eighteenth-century style of orchestral playing. -Stoddard Lincoln
MOZART: Idomeneo. Werner Hollweg (tenor), ldomeneo; Trudeliese Schmidt (al to), Idamante; Rachel Yakar (soprano), Ilia; Felicity Palmer (soprano), Elettra; Kurt Equiluz (tenor), Arbace; Robert Tear (tenor), High Priest; Simon Estes (bass) Oracle. Chorus and Mozart Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House, Nikolaus Harnoncourt cond.
TELEFUNKEN 6.35547 four discs S43.92, 4.35547 S32.94.
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... ing performances of the repertoire have al ways been difficult to come by since the modern voice seems too heavy for the supple lines the Florentines favored. Esther La mandier, however, commands a light, natural voice and tosses off the intricate melis mas with a thrilling ease and clarity. She is also a fine performer on several instruments and is extremely imaginative in her use of them for accompaniment. This album breathes the spirit of this fragile music, and the apt title, "Decameron," reminds us that each story in that cycle ended with a song and dance. Although the plague wreaked destruction in the outside world, the walls of Boccaccio's retreat enclosed much wit and elegance.
S.L.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
RAGTIME BACK TO BACK. Joplin/Mar shall: Swipesy Cake Walk; Lily Queen. Joplin/Hayden: Sunflower Slow Drag; Something Doing; Felicity Rag. William Bolcom (piano). J. P. Johnson: Mule -Walk Stomp; Eccentricity -Syncopated Waltz; (You've Got to Be) Modernistic; Snowy Morning Blues; Carolina Shout. William Albright (piano). MUSIC MASTERS MM 20002 $8.98.
Performance: Excallant
Recording Vary good
Since the Scott Joplin revival started one New Year's Eve in the late Sixties with Bill Bolcom playing the piano in my living room, I think my admiration for Bolcom's playing and for his role in reviving this very American music and bringing it up to the stature of the classics is no secret. Perhaps it will not be considered a crime if I repeat it here in reference to his playing of the very beautiful and lyric collaborations that Joplin published with Arthur Marshall and Scott Hayden.
The other side of this album is hardly of less interest. William Albright, like his good friend Bolcom an excellent composer, pianist, ragtime aficionado. and American popular -music revivalist, plays the stride--piano compositions of James P. Johnson with authority and panache. Johnson, more than a quarter-century younger than Joplin (he died only in 1955), was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and made his reputation in New York City shortly before World War I; Carolina Shout, his most famous piece, was written at that time. Its energy, bittersweet feeling, and showy virtuosity were followed by a whole series of pieces stomps, waltzes, and blues-that have hardly been bettered as jazz solos. By the time of the stock -market crash, Johnson's reputation was fading. (You've Got to Be) Modernistic is acerbic commentary-half making fun, half showing he could do it himself-on the younger musicians and the new jazz that were fast making his style obsolete. The music is not only historically important, it is delightful. E.S.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
KATIA RICCIARELLI AND JOSE CARRERAS: Love Duets Puccini: Madama Butterfly: Bimba, bimbo, non piangere (Act I). Verdi: I Lombardi: Dove solo m'inol tro? ... Per dirupi e per foreste (Act III). Donizetti: Poliuto: Ah! fuggi da morte (Act III). Roberto Devereux: Tutto a silenzio (Act /). Katia Ricciarelli (soprano); Jose Carreras (tenor); Ambrosian Opera Chorus; London Symphony Orchestra, Lamberto Gardelli cond. PHILIPS 9500 750 $9.98, 7300 835 $9.98.
Performance Very good
Recording Very good
This is an interesting collection of partly unfamiliar music in committed and authoritative performances. Katia Ricciarelli dis plays some particularly ravishing tones; it is gratifying to note her steady artistic development through the years. Both Ricciarelli and Jose Carreras are in excellent form in the Puccini duet, and their voices and temperaments are well blended, though the overall effect is somewhat handicapped by Lamberto Gardelli's uncharacteristically languid pacing. Except for the exciting Poliuto scene (which must have haunted Verdi when he wrote the Love Duet of Un Ballo in Maschera) with its exposed high tenor writing, Carreras also excels here in material congenial to his gifts. Both artists appear deeply involved, with excellent results, in the other two duets, though the / Lombardi scene is far from Verdi's best. In any case, the combination of two of the most beauti ful voices before the public today is hard to resist, and why should we?
- G.J.
JAMES TYLER: Music of the Renaissance Virtuosi. Vallet: La Chaconna; Sarabanda; Two Bowies. Borrono: Three Pieces from the Casteliono Book. Corbetta: Preludio; Sarabanda; Chiacconi; Sinfonia. De Rore/ Terzi: Contrapunto Sopra "Non Mi Toglia II Ben Mio." Allison: Sharp Pavin. Bernia: Toccata Chromatica. Kapsperger: Toccata. Puccinini: Toccata. Ferrabosco: Spanish Pavan. Castello: Sonata. Dowland: Fantasia. Anon.: Zouch, His March. James Tyler (lute, Baroque guitar, mandora); Nigel North (lute, theorbo, cittern); Douglas Wooton (lute, bandora); Jane Ryan (bass viol). NONESUCH H-71389 $5.98.
Performance Excellent
Recording Fine
Divided about equally between solo lute performances and ensemble pieces, this fascinating disc offers a rich sampling of Italian, French, German, and English music of the period (circa 1530-1650). James Tyler's playing is marked by technical excellence, a fine tone, and a pervading sense of serious ness. All I would have liked in addition is greater rhythmic flexibility so as to make the improvisatory pieces more rhapsodic.
One of the most arresting elements of the disc is the sonority produced by multiple plucked instruments accompanied by bass viol when Tyler is joined by his assisting artists. Perhaps the most ravishing sounds here are the deep tones of the theorbo and bass viol when heard together with the highly embellished lines of the Baroque guitar or mandora. The upper voice,deftly performed by Tyler, creates a tracery of figurations over the sober low-voice melodies.
The combination of lute, cittern, bandora, and bass viol is striking indeed, and how close it is to the sound of "country" music today! Would there were more of it! Let us hope for yet another collection from these artists with some of Thomas Morley's con sort music.
-S.L.
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Conductor Lorin Maazel … at his very best
Dazzling Bartok
COMBINING Bartok's 1910 Two Pictures, Op. 10 (In Full Flower, Village Dance), with his 1944 Concerto for Orchestra makes for an unusually interesting listening experience, and in a new recording conductor Lorin Maazel, the Berlin Phil harmonic players, and the Deutsche Grammophon production team all cover themselves with glory in their realization of both scores. This is quite the fullest sound I have heard from the Berlin Philharmonic on disc in many a moon, with the midrange in proper balance and a genuinely full bass, a nice clean high end, and magnificent presence for both the ensemble as a whole and the solo instruments and groups that are successively highlighted in the concerto.
Like some other analog-mastered discs I have heard over the past year, this one need defer in no way to digital technology, which suggests to me that the remarkable results achieved on the best digital and direct -cut discs have put analog recording teams on their toes. They've been forced to rethink such fundamentals as proper room acoustics, simplified microphone setups, and other ways of achieving the best possible sound at the recording session itself rather than leaving everything to the post-mix.
Interpretively, Maazel's reading of the Concerto for Orchestra is one of the three or four most satisfying I have encountered on LP. He preserves Bartok's rhythmic and harmonic edge, goes for the big line all the way, and clearly takes a keen delight in the music's coloristic aspects; the Berlin players stay with him, responding with just the right combination of zest and refinement.
The recording team has provided not only an appropriately warm and full-bodied sound but wonderful stereo imaging as well in terms of both depth and localization. The "couples" dancing across the sonic stage in the second movement are a delight, and the overtones of the drum strokes that propel them are all but palpable. I would criticize only a slight over-loudness in the brass chorale episode.
THE great slow movement of the concerto makes a shattering impact from its mighty opening cry onward, and the finale is dazzlingly brilliant, with Maazel more effective than most conductors in the motto rite nuto . . . accelerando passage just before the mad rush to the end. In short, this is a wonderfully satisfying record all around, displaying all concerned-composer, conductor, orchestra, and producers-at their very best. -David Hall BARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra; Two Pictures, Op. 10. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Lorin Maazel cond. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2531 269 $9.98, 3301 269. $9.98.
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Also see:
PIONEER--WE BRING IT BACK ALIVE
Editorially Speaking [May 1978]
Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine)