Record Reviews

by JOHN M. CONLY

Bach: Concerto in D Minor for Violin, Oboe, and Strings; Concerto in A Minor for Flute, Violin, Harpsichord, and Strings (Antonio Janigro conducting I Solisti di Zagreb; Anton Heiller, harpsichord; Vanguard BG-562: 12”). A pluperfection of sound, from both players and recording engineers, and a brisk, joyous, and knowledgeable beat from Mr. Janigro make this a disk to be loved at first hearing and lived with happily ever after.

Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Jascha Heifetz, violin; Charles Munch conducting Boston Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM-1992: 12”). This gains immediate preferment over all other versions. It may not be an “inspired” performance, but I’m sure I don’t know how inspiration could have enhanced the utter mastery and flawless taste displayed here by everyone concerned. So don’t wait, unless it be for the stereophonic tape version, sure to come forth soon.

Bernstein: Serenade for Violin, Percussion, and Strings (Isaac Stern, violin; Leonard Bernstein conducting Symphony of t he Air; Columbia AIL-5144: 12”). This is but one of four records Columbia has issued simultaneously in tribute to, or recognition of, the somewhat fabulous Mr. Bernstein, who can do anything (last year, for instance, he became codirector of the New York Philharmonic and wrote the score for the musical play Candide). On one of these disks (ML-5145) he doubles as pianist and conductor in the .Mozart Concertos No. 15 and No. 17, landing in each case among the lop two of existing versions. On another (CL919) he analyzes jazz, with the aid of a good combo and Bessie Smith. On a third (CL-918) he traces the evolution in Beethoven’s sketchbook of the first movement of the Fifth Symphony, illustrating orchestrally (the reverse of the record offers the Bruno Walter reading of the complete Fifth). Both of the foregoing, intensely interesting, were Omnibus programs. As for the Serenade, it is a 1954 work in a big, sane style, inspired by Plato’s Symposium, not uncomplicated hut charged with charm and force which are more and more apparent on repeated listening. Stern and the Symphony of the Air play it beautifully.

Debussy: Songs with Brahms and Hugo Wolf:Lieder (Suzanne Danco, soprano; Guido Agosti, piano; London LL-1329: 12”). One side is given over to three Debussy cycles — Trois Chansons de Bilitis, Le Promenoir des Deux Amants, Ariettes Oubliees. On the reverse are ten of the best-known songs (five each) of Brahms and Wolf. The salient feature of the performance is intelligence. Aliss Danco’s voice is lean, linear, not pretty in all ranges. Only the Brahms suffers because of this. In the Debussy and the Wolf, the flawless matching of verbal to musical subtlety far more than outweighs any lack of mere prettiness. The recording is good except for some rumble — the Debussy side, at least, is a remastering of a ten-inch disk now withdrawn.

Haydn: Symphony No. 100, “Military” (Hermann Scherehen conducting Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London; ‘Westminster W-LAB-7024: 12”). Seven years ago Scherehen and Westminster astounded record fanciers around the world with a “ Military” deemed then a sonic wonder. It was inevitable that they would re-record this, using newer techniques, and they have, on one of Westminster’s super-fi Laboratory Series disks. I was a little disappointed. The new recording offers a better orchestra, but there seems to be a hint of tongue-in-cheek about the performance, and the sound effects are exaggerated, especially the triangle: I thought my telephone was ringing! Despite all of which, I am sure the record will sell like fury.

Lalo:Symphonie Espagnole with Bruch: Concerto No. I (Isaac Stern, violin; Eugene Ormandv conducting Philadelphia Orchestra; Columbia ML-5097: 12”). So close an approach to technical perfection in a musical performance you don’t often hear: this is for all fanciers of fine fiddling. Stern’s Bruch will stand interpretative comparison with any version in the catalogue. His Lalo, too, is excellent, but this work sounds like better music when there is less emphasis on violin virtuosity. I slightly prefer the London playing by Campoli and Van Beinum.

Mozart:Così Fan Tutte (Karl Böhm conducting Lisa della Casa, Christa Ludwig, Emmy Loose, Anton Dermota, other soloists, Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; London XLLA-32: three 12”). On a crudely comic plot, Mozart superimposed some of his most beautiful operatic writing. The fairly recent Angel version (Von Karajan) concentrated on the latter, playing down the comedy. The older Columbia English-language recording played up the comedy. In Böhm’s new effort he tries to do justice to both aspects, and with some success. The result is something perhaps less purely beautiful than the Angel set, but rather more operatic. The London sound is just slightly better, too.

Mozart: Symphonies No. 39 and No. 41, “Jupiter” (Bruno Walter conducting New York PhilharmonicSymphony Orchestra; Columbia ML5014: 12”). Neither of these most majestic of Mozart symphonies exists in any other recording so satisfactory, so charged with enveloping vigor or couched in such bright and solid sound. A very safe buy indeed.

Strauss, Richard:Don Quixote (Arturo Toscanini conducting NBC Symphony Orchestra; Frank Miller, cello; Carlton Cooley, viola; RCA Victor LM-2026: 12”). One must suspect that Toscanini was interested in the works of St rauss chiefly as technical achievements, from the way he played them. Even so, with the Maestro and the drilled adepts of the NBC Symphony at their best, this approach could produce real excitement, as it does here. The record was made from a 1953 broadcast, and the sound is not bad. I’m still inclined toward the version by Clemens Krauss and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 with Bax:The Carden of Fand and Butterworth:A Shropshire Lad (Sir John Barbirolli conducting Halle Orchestra; Mercury MG-50115: 12”). Vaughan Williams’ Eighth, finished a year ago when he was eighty-three, is engagingly unmonumental, being by turns pleasantly rambling, gently rhapsodic, and vigorously playful. Altogether it is compact and thoroughly English; indeed it put me so much in mind of Shakespeare’s Henry IV that I got out Elgar’s Falstaff and played that, but there is no resemblance. The recording was Mercury’s first overseas venture, and a very successful one. The Butterworth and Bax works, worthy but unassuming, fill out Side 2 most adequately.

Samuel Beckett:Mailing for Codot (Bert Lahr, E. G. Marshall, Kurt Kasznar, other members of the New York cast; Columbia 02L-238: two 12”). Playgoers and critics both were furiously divided about the merits of Beckett’s tragicomedy Waiting for Godot. Some called it great, others called it nonsense. I don’t know if it’s great, but it certainly isn’t nonsense: it made good sense to me. It has no real plot, except the one you build out of a series of situations, some shocking, that Beckett gives you. Not for everyone, but very stimulating to some.

John Donne: Sermons and Meditations (Herbert Marshall, reader; Caedmon TC-1051: 12”). Death and Doubt are our great fears, and a mind that can harry them out in itself, and hold them up for investigation, merits not only our admiration but something warmer. Such a mind was Donne’s, a rarity made rarer by a wondrous gift for improvisation in Earth’s most potent and beautiful language. There are other aspects of Donne, in effect equally poignant, but until we can have those let us have these. Mr. Marshall reads undcrstandingly and a little too close to the microphone: turn down the bass control slightly.

Shaw:St. Joan (Siobhan McKenna, Ian Keith, Earle Hyman, other members of the Cambridge Festival Production, directed by Albert Marre; RCA Victor LOC-6133: three 12”). Not many people could get into the Phoenix Theater in New York and the other small houses where this production has been presented, so this record should be welcome. It remains to be said that the play makes excellent phonographic fare, exciting and comprehensible, and that Miss McKenna (whose brogue proves irrelevant) makes an endearing and irresistible Joan. You may need a handkerchief before she’s through with you.