Record Reviews
by JOHN M. CONLY
Bach: “Coffee” Cantata, No. 211;Amore Traditore, Cantata No. 203 (Rolf Reinhardt conducting vocal soloists, Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra of Stuttgart ; Vox PL-8980: 12″). Of J. S. Bach’s delight in musical fun-making, well attested, we have little evidence on records, so this new version of the “Coffee” Cantata is very welcome indeed (it has appeared on LP only once before). Bach wrote it in strict cantata-style, sehr ernst, but it deals with a Papa’s attempt to save his daughter from the horrors of coffee-drinking — a newfangled vice in the 1700s. Very funny, and here performed with great jollity in an excellent recording. The Italian cantata, Love the Traitor, may not be a Bach composition, but it makes a pleasant filler.
Bartók: Violin Concerto (Yehudi Menuhin, violin; Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting Philharmonia Orchestra; HMV LHMV-3: 12″). Next to the Concerto for Orchestra and the Viola Concerto, this is the most popular of Bartók’s major works, with its essentially classical form and strong, wry flavor. It is also, by far, the best product of several concerto collaborations between Menuhin and the late Wilhelm Furtwängler, and HMV has delivered it in excellent reproduction.
Boccherini: Piano Quintets No. 1 in A, No. 4 in D Minor (Chigi Quintet; London LL-749: 12″). Limpidity, lucidity, grace, and unfailing melodic ingenuity in two works which seem always on the point of becoming piano concertos; perfect fare for the modern high-fidelity living room.
Debussy: Three Song Cycles:Proses Lyriques; Chansons de Bilitis; Trois Ballades de Villon (Flore Wend, soprano; Odette Gartenlaube, piano; Haydn Society HSL106: 12″). Portions of this enchanted territory have been explored by Teyte, Tourel, Singher, Danco, and Souzay, but Miss Wend’s effort is the most inclusive and—since she obviously knows and loves the music, and her transparent voice fits it perfectly—hers seems the Debussy song-record to buy.
Dohnányi: String Quartet in D Flat; Piano Quintet in D Flat (Curtis String Quartet; Vladimir Sokoloff, piano; Westminster WL5301: 12″). Ernst von Dohnanyi, once a protégé of Brahms, weathered the turn of the century without scars, the last unspoiled Romanticist of them all. His music has an untroubled, expressive intimacy, uncommon these days but welcome. The performance and recording here are all anyone could ask.
Elgar:Falstaff,a Symphonic Study (Anthony Collins conducting London Symphony Orchestra; London LL-1011: 12″). Sir Donald Tovey considered this Elgar’s greatest work. Inevitably it calls to mind Strauss’s Don Quixote, but there is a more sympathetic commitment by the composer here, both to history and to his tragicomic subject. Like the Strauss poem, however, the work makes very good listening even out of literary context. The recording is vivid and the performance seems to me firstrate.
Franck: Symphony in D Minor (Two versions: Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Orchestra; Columbia ML-4939; and Arthur Rodzinski conducting Vienna State Opera Orchestra; Westminster WL-5311: both 12″. The Westminster also includes Le Chasseur Maudit). Thirteen versions of the D Minor Symphony have preceded these. Of them, the best-played are the Cluytens (Angel) and Paray (Mercury) performances. But none presents an orchestra so rich as the Philadelphians, and none has quite the balanced vigor of the Rodzinski interpretation. On the other hand, Ormandy’s direction is somewhat unimpassioned, and Westminster’s up-close recording displays raggedness in Rodzinski’s orchestra. Still, one of these two versions would be my choice.
Puccini:Madame ItutterfIv (Clara Petrella, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Giuseppe Taddei, other soloists; Angelo Questa conducting Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Radiotelevisione Italiana; Cetra ('-1248: three 12″ in album with English-Italian libretto). All told, this seems to me the best-organized, best-recorded Butterfly I’ve heard on microgroove; everything in it is done creditably, and the cumulative impact is considerable. Against it compete some excelling artistry in the elderly Victor set (Gigli, etc.) and the marvelously moving Cio-Cio-San of Renata Tebaldi in London’s spotty performance.
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody oil a Theme of Paganini with Dohnányi: Variations on a Nursery Song (Julius Katchen, piano; Sir Adrian Boult conducting London Philharmonic Orchestra; London LL1018: 12″). The trouble with the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations bus been that Rachmaninoff himself put them on records, with the collaboration of Leopold Stokowski (Victor LCT-1118), in a performance memorable if now antique in its reproduction. Surprisingly few other performers have risen to this challenge, and none, with much success until now. Katchen has obviously done the intelligent thing — listened attentively to the Rachmaninoff version, practiced like the devil, and put forth a reasonably exact facsimile. It’s really beautiful, in London’s glistening new sound, and so is the endearing Dohnányi (“Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”) on the reverse of the disk. Highly recommended.
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 (William Steinberg conducting Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Capitol P-8293: 12″). Before the fact, any attempt by the Pittsburghers to dislodge from its primacy the OrmandyColumbia recording of this exquisite, bitter-sweet symphony would have appeared foolhardy, for in ML-4433 both the Philadelphia instrumentalists and the Columbia engineers seem to have been inspired. But I’m not sure it hasn’t been done. Steinberg’s orchestra has not Ormandy’s velvet, but it contrives a gossamer delicacy wonderful to hear. From now on, buyers had best hear both.
Scarlatti: Sonatas, Vol. VI (Fernando Valenti, harpsichord; Westminster WL-5325: 12″ LP). Anyone who thinks a solo harpsichord cannot pack enough dramatic punch to make your hair stand on end should try band 3 on side 2, Sonata in G Major, Longo 286. So far, in more than 60 sonatas recorded in this series, Scarlatti has yet to give me a dull moment. The man was a wonder. Of course, the almost weirdly realistic sound of the instrument helps, too, not to mention Valenti’s vivid and vigorous performances.
Schubert: Quintet in A, “The Trout,” with Nocturne in E Flat Major (Friedrich Wührer, piano; Barchet Quartet; Vox PL-8970: 12″). Extremely realistic recording makes this the best “Trout” on the market, for at least three others are as well played — the Columbia, Westminster, and Capitol. However, Wührer is a fine Viennese-style Schubertian, and his spirit infects the Barchets. The Nocturne offered as a bonus is minor but beautiful, well worth recording and hearing.
The Golden Age of Brass (Roger Voisin conducting eight Boston Symphony Orchestra brass-players; Unicorn Records UN-1003: 12″)Much sixteenthand seventeenth-century music was outdoors-music, and brass was the medium. These absorbing pieces, full of muscle and merriment, follow its evolution from Giovanni Gabrieli through Purcell to Bach, in fine, bright recording.
Poe:The Raven; Annabel Lee; Eldorado; To— Alone; The City in the Sea; The Masque of the Red Death; The Black Cat (Basil Rathbone, reader; Caedmon TC-1028: 12″). An indefatigable reader of horror and fantasy anthologies, I was surprised to find how long it was since I really had read “The Black Cat” and the “Red Death,” and how much more of Mr. Poe comes across in oral than in ocular reading. The man could write. But don’t take my word for it: try Rathbone’s, they’re much more convincing.
The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music (collected and edited by Alan Lomax, assisted by local experts in Ireland, French Africa, England, France, Australia and New Guinea; Scotland; Indonesia; Canada; Venezuela; British East Africa; Japan, the Ryukyus, Formosa and Korea; India; Spain; and Yugoslavia; Columbia SL-204 to SL-217: fourteen 12″ in albums with illustrated notes). Between 30 and 40 albums in this series will come forth if Mr. Lomax lives long enough. The initial issue is evidence of enough work to satisfy anyone else. To try to describe it would be fruitless, and I am no musical anthropologist. Among the familiar materials, I was most taken with the songs from the British Isles, particularly the Scots (some beautiful singing) and the Irish (some genuinely funny songs). Of the exotic, the most impressive were the drumming, chanting, and instrumentplaying from British East Africa and Australia (not “Waltzing Matilda,” but Bushman music, featuring some giant horns of astonishing suitability to high-fidelity reproduction).