Record Reviews

by JOHN M. CONLY

Anderson, Leroy : A “Pops” Concert (Leroy Anderson conducting his “Pops” Orchestra; Decca DL 9749: 12″ LP). Good light humor in music is rare, making this record almost worth buying for “The Typewriter” and “Sandpaper Ballet” alone, even without the other ten delightfully catchy little Andersonian titbits— three have appeared in other collections—it contains. The recording is first-rate.

Bach : Goldberg Variations (Gustay Leonhardt, harpsichord; Vanguard-Bach Guild BG 536: 12″ LP). Mr. Leonhardt, a 26-year-old Dutch musicologist, here is competing against Wanda Landowska, on a Victor reprint, and Ralph Kirkpatrick, on a ‘52 Haydn Society disk. Landowska brings out the dance essence hidden in much of the music; neither of the others does. But her sound is old; theirs is new and extraordinarily faithful. Leonhardt has a declamatory vigor in his playing that makes me prefer it slightly to Kirkpatrick’s.

Beethoven: Piano Concerto in D, Op. 61 (Helen Schnabel, piano; F. Charles Adler conducting “Vienna” Orchestra; SPA 45: 12″ LP). This is, of course, the Violin Concerto transcribed for piano as solo instrument. Beethoven made the adaptation himself, showing in the process how completely the initial concept had suffused the work, for even he could not make it sound like a Beethoven piano concerto! Still, it is interesting, and here it is very well played and recorded.

Berlioz:The Damnation of Faust (Charles Munch conducting Suzanne Danco, David Poleri, Martial Singher, Donald Gramm, McHenry Boatwright; Harvard Glee Club, Radcliffe Choral Society; Boston Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 6114: three 12″ LPs, with French-English translation and notes by John N. Burk). This vast and exciting “dramatic legend” comes magically to life in what is probably the BSO’s best recording on microgroove. Fantasy in the grand manner was a specialty of Berlioz’s, and apparently any Berlioz specialty is a Munch specialty. The singers, all competent, also entered into the spirit of the thing, and so did the engineers, to judge by the awesome sound they have captured.

Chabrier: Seven Piano Pieces with Saint-Saens: Five Piano Pieces (dinette Doyen, piano; Westminster WL 5294: 12″ LP). Chabrier, a bedeviled French government lawyer most of his life, wrote much cheerful and inventive music in which the only problems were tonal. All such, Mlle. Doyen solves here delightfully, and the crisp and witty SaintSaëns music fares equally well at her well-educated hands. The piano sound is splendidly reproduced. The selections are a fine, varied assemblage, including Chabrier’s Bourrée Fantusque.

Chopin: Concerto No. 1 in E Minor (Artur Rubinstein, piano; Alfred Wallenstein conducting Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 1810: 12″ LP). People interested in Rubinstein and/or Chopin as pianistic phenomena should buy this. The piano performance is terrific, and Wallenstein isn’t bad either. To the general music lover, however, I suggest listening also to the Gulda-Boult version on London, recently reviewed. Gulda isn’t quite Rubinstein, but he’s very good indeed, and everything else about the London record is superior. It’s hard to appreciate Rubinstein when his piano sounds like a secondhand upright.

Mozart: Violin Concertos No. 3 and No. 4 (Arthur Grumiaux, violin; Bernhard Paumgartner conducting Vienna Symphony Orchestra; Epic LC 3060: 12″ LP). Taken as a pair, these are unbeatable, and a very safe buy. Grumiaux combines flashing virtuosity and fine taste, Paumgartner holds a sane pace, and the PhilipsElectric technicians have achieved exemplary fidelity.

Mussorgsky-Ravel:Pictures at an Exhibition with excerpt from Franck: Psyche and Eros(Arturo Toscanini conducting NBC Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 1838: 12″ LP). When Toscanini plays the Pictures, every brilliant touch of Ravel’s orchestration comes to light, and a thrilling experience it is. RCA Victor’s fidelity is the highest yet lavished on this confection of inspired sounds, too. Nothing more really need be said, need it?

Offenbach:Gaîté Parisienne with Meyerbeer: Les Patineurs (Arthur Fiedler conducting Boston Pops Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 1817: 12″ LP). A Fiedler Gaîté was one of Victor’s first LPs, now officially retired by this brisk, bouncy, extremefidelity version, garnished with Meyerbeer’s melodious “Skaters” balletmusic as bonus.

Prokofiev:Alexander Nevsky (Mario Rossi conducting Ana Maria Iriarte, mezzo-soprano, Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Vanguard VRS 451: 12″ LP). Prokofiev’s cantata, based on the score he wrote for Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 movie of the same name, deals with the thirteenth-century defeat of the invading Teutonic Knights by a Russian peasant army under Prince Alexander Nevsky. It has been available in an early Columbia LP with Jennie Tourel, which still sounds pretty good, but nothing like this one. The Vanguard is a real spellbinder: beautifully played; sung in Russian, as it should be; and recorded with almost startling presence-effect. It’s a good record to have around; it reminds people that the Russians have something to be patriotic about besides Mr. Malenkov.

Rimsky-Korsakov: “Antar” Symphonic Suite; Great Russian Easier Overture (Hermann Scherchen conducting London Symphony Orchestra; Westminster WL 5280: 12″ LP). Mercury has this same sonorous pairing on an “Olympian” release, with Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony. Scherchon has more fun with the scores, and I find Westminster’s high fidelity a little more credible.

Sarasate:Danzas Españoles (Ruggiero Ricci, violin; Louis Persinger, piano; London LL 962: 12″ LP). About 50,000 fiddle students and enthusiasts have bought the redoubtable Mr. Ricci’s London records of the Paganini caprices. The same folk will want this well-recorded Sarasate album and a companion disk, a Paganini recital which includes the almost weird “God Save the Queen” Variations.

Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major (Arturo Toscanini conducting NBC Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 1835: 12″ LP). The single disk is housed in a book album which contains a four-page appreciation of Schubert by André Maurois. No doubt it will sell well, but it won’t satisfy everyone. It has majesty and exeitement, but also an unrelenting tension which sometimes seems at odds with the music. The recording is good, though the trombones occasionally sound uncomfortably close.

Schumann : Cello Concerto in A (Pablo Casals, cello; Prados Festival Orchestra; Columbia: 12″ LP). This is the first concerto Pau Casals has recorded since he made the Dvořák in Prague, before World War II. (It is being reviewed from a test pressing —wherefore no master number or list of the short pieces which will fill out the disk.) The Old Master moans and grunts audibly, and his touch is rougher than it once was, but the amazing insight is still at work and the result is something beautiful: Schumann seems a size larger than he usually does. It is not supposed to be generally known (the assignment apparently wasn’t cleared with the union), but Eugene Ormandy is the conductor.

Strauss:Also Sprach Zarathustra; Salome:Dance of the Seven Veils (Fritz Reiner conducting Chicago Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 1806: 12″ LP). Since Clemens Krauss died, Reiner may well be the world’s best Richard Strauss interpreter, and here he certainly sounds like it. Even to people not normally swept away by Strauss, the tremendous roaring introduction to Zarathustra will be thrilling; and to Straussians, so will all the rest. Chicago’s richly resonant Orchestra Hall probably had something to do with the astounding tonal impact of the record.

Strauss:Salome (Clemens Krauss conducting Christel Goltz, Julius Patzak, Hans Braun, Anton Dermota, other soloists; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; London LL 1038/30; two 12″ LPs in album with text). Krauss is the only unmatchable asset in this. Christel Goltz obviously knows her part, but doesn’t get it across on records; nor can any of the others steal the show. The sound is not very vivid, either. London’s standard is high, and perhaps they’d have held this if Krauss were to be around for another try. As is, it barely outshines a recent routine Columbia version with Rudolf Moralt as conductor.

Verdi:Falstaff (Arturo Toscanini conducting Giuseppe Valdengo, Frank Guarrera, Herva Nelli, Cloe Elmo, other soloists; Robert Shaw Chorale, NBC Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM 6111; three 12″ LPs with illustrated text). This is the 1950 broadcast trarescription, faultlessly processed by the Victor engineers for listeners who have been awaiting it long and none too patiently. Valdengo is a good Falstaff, but there isn’t much real virtuoso singing here, which doesn’t matter at all. This is philosophical Verdi, and Toscanini is the man in the world to make the most of it. Everything is under control—and what inspired control! — as the great and dreadful comedy moves to its close. This will never stale.

Verdi:La Traviata (Gabriele Santini conducting Maria Callas, Francesco Albanese, Ugo Savarese, other soloists, chorus, Orchestra of Radio Italiana, Turin; Cetra C-1246: three 12″ LPs in album with texts). In direct contrast to the old Toscanini set, where the Maestro was all and the singers mere responsive instruments, the new Cetra is built around one singer — Maria Callas. Not that the other participants aren’t good. Albanese and Savarese, neither known here, measure up very handsomely, and Santini conducts a solid, Saturday-afternoon kind of performance. But Callas is it: she carries the drama, not always in perfect voice but electric in personality. The reproduction is only so-so.

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz Goes to College (Brubeck, piano; Paul Desmond, alto sax; Bob Bates, bass; Joe Dodge, drums; Columbia CL 506: 12″ LP). The tapes for Brubeck’s first major-label recording were made at three Midwestern campus concerts, but the sound is very good. This group’s improvisational chamber-jazz playing has set something of a nation-wide standard in its field. The reciprocating inventions of Brubeck and Desmond are fantastically clever. Sample “Le Souk” or “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” in this collection, if your ideas are still young.

Burl Ives: Coronation Concert (Burl Ives, folk-singer with guitar; Decca DL 8080: 12″ LP). Nobody ever thought to make Burl Ives ambassador to anywhere, but it might not be a bad idea. Anyway, he went on his own hook to the coronation of Elizabeth II in London and sang a concert in Festival Hall. It was recorded, and is worth listening to. Not many of the songs aren’t already in his recorded repertoire, but the British audience seems to have inspired him (and they certainly applaud him!). He hasn’t sounded so good in a long time.