Record Reviews

Beethoven: Symphony No. 2; Overture and Incidental Music for The Ruins of Athens

There have been other good Beethoven Seconds on LP, but this is my favorite. Beecham has a special big way with early Beethoven, as he has with Mozart and Haydn, that yanks the music out of the eighteenth century and into our own. His larghetto movement here is ecstatically romantic, as it should be, and his finale crashes and flashes with stormy gaiety. The Ruins of Athens music is an equal revelation. Scholars dismiss it as a potboiler, and maybe it was, but what a wonderful potboiler! The Overture has a nine-note theme that haunts; the high-flown choral evocations really do fly high; the overworked Turkish March is irresistible in its proper setting; the Chorus of Dervishes sounds like an earlier and merrier Polovtsian Dances. The Angel sound measures up nobly to the music, and the stereo version of the performance is convincingly spacious.

Blitzstein: Regina

Samuel Krachmalnick conducting Brenda Lewis, Carol Brice, Elizabeth Carron, other singers; New York City Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Columbia 03S-202 (stereo) and 03L-260: three records Marc Blitzstein’s Regina was first presented in 1949 and became at once Lillian Hellman’s favorite opera, which signifies something rare. It is a musical adaptation of her play The Little Foxes, and playwrights seldom like the operas their plays engender. Blitzstein’s music ranges in tenor from innocent pathos to bitter irony, very effectively. Some parts come across better than others, naturally, but Blitzstein has had much Broadway experience, which shines through plainly. You can understand the action always and the words most of the time. The New York City Opera is successor to the City Center, which has presented the work before and knows it well. Technically the Columbia production is beyond reproach; the stage atmosphere is very real. Perhaps special praise should go to Elizabeth Carron as Birdie, the romantic spinster, whom you can practically see.

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (excerpts)

André Previn conducting Robert McFerrin, Adele Addison, Cab Calloway, Inez Matthews, other singers, and orchestra: Columbia OS-2016 (stereo) and OL-541O Except for Cab Galloway, presented in lieu of Sammy Davis, Jr., this is made from the sound track of the Goldwyn film. The film has been acclaimed, but sound-track records are usually bad, and so is this one. Singing histrionics have to be played down or corned up on a wide screen; either way they are failures in the living room. If you really want a good recording of Porgy and Bess, buy Goddard Lieberson’s 1951 threerecord set, Columbia OSL-162. It isn’t stereo, but it is high art, purveyed by a much better cast of singers than Mr. Goldwyn got. It is also complete, and the sound remains good (better than that of the new recording) even after eight years.

Quantz, Sammartini, Telemann, and Loeillet: Four Sonatas for Flute, Recorder, and Continuo

Jean-Paul Rampal, Mario Duschenes, Robert Veyron-Lacroix; Erato EFM42037: 10”

It may seem silly to review a French record, but it can be imported, and this non-stereo treasure probably never will be included in the American catalogues. Clearly the participants had a gleeful time making it. All four sonatas are delicious frolics, played here to perfection. I have a special affection for the prancing finale of the Quantz. If Quantz played this for his pupil, Frederick the Great, I am surprised that he was not dubbed a margrave on the spot. If you want to make yourself a bit of a connoisseur in your friends’ eyes (or ears), this is worth paying duty on.

Winds in Hi-Fi

Frederick Fennell conducting Eastman Wind Ensemble; Mercury SR-90173 (stereo) and 50173

Mr. Fennell and his young Rochester bandsmen are back at their old tricks, making woods and brasses sound like thunder and summer lightning. The works are Percy Grainger’s rustic Lincolnshire Posy, Bernard Rogers’ Three Japanese Dances, Milhaud’s charmingly fake antique Suite Française, and the Strauss Serenade in E-flat. Musically the pieces suit one another admirably. The fi is hi in both versions — in the stereo edition it is positively enveloping.

Foster: Stephen Foster Song Book

Robert Shaw conducting Robert Shaw Chorale, with John Cali, banjo and guitar; RCA Victor LSC-2295 (stereo) and LM-2295

The obvious way for RCA Victor to respond to Columbia’s best-selling Mitch Miller series, Sing Along with Mitch, was to come out with an album of America’s all-time favorite song writer’s works, and they’ve done so. Moreover, they’ve done so very well. The recording is absolutely lovely, especially in the stereo edition, and the Robert Shaw-Alice Parker arrangements effectively lighten the sentimentality of the songs. In case you want to compete with Shaw, there is a score of vocal and piano arrangements by Skitch Henderson in the package.

Rome: Destry Rides Again

Lehmann Engel conducting Andy Griffith, Dolores Gray, other members of the Broadway cast; Decca DL-79075 (stereo) and 9075

Here from Harold (Wish You Were Here) Rome comes the most engaging musical to hit the West Forties since My Fair Lady. It is the famous Max Brand saga of the gunless Sheriff of Bottleneck and his dance-hall queen, Frcnchy. It has been in movies twice, once with Tom Mix, once with Marlene Dietrich. It is at its very best in this musical, graced by the inimitable Tarheel humorist, Andy Griffith, and by the sweet, trumpet-voiced Dolores Gray. Rome, for his part, forgot all about sneaking in pop hit tunes and simply wrote a show. It is a wonderful, wild, Western show, wide open and full of fun and sentiment and tunes from beginning to end. Decca has recorded it so well that you can hear it better at home than in the theater.