Record Reviews

By John M. Conly

by JOHN M. CONLY

Albéniz-Arbós:Iberia (George Sebastian conducting Orchestre des Concerts Colonne; Crania: 12" LP). Arbós orchesl rated his friend Albéniz’s piano suite in 1927, losing no delicacy or folk flavor, and adding sensuous appeal. Urania has recorded it richly. Wonderfully Spanish!

Beethoven: Septet in E Flat with Cherubini: Symphony in D (Arturo Toscanini conducting NBC Symphony; RCA Victor: 12" LP). Two favorites of the Maestro and his Saturday network following, performed with grace, fondness, and fantastic virtuosity; recorded with great clarity.

Beethoven-Weingartner:Huntmerklavier Sonata (Kurt Graunke conducting Bavarian Symphony Orchestra; Crania: 12" LP). In orchestrating the Hammerklavier, the late Dr. Weingartner said he used no orchestral devices unknown to Beethoven— and he was a Beethoven authority. Yet, for some reason, this transcription always sounds more like Brahms, with touches of Wagner. Graunke’s vividly reproduced performance is romantic. Weingartner’s own performance, on LP reprint, will have been issued by Columbia when this review appears.

Charpentier, Marc-Antoine:Médée (excerpts); (Nadia Boulanger conducting vocal soloists, chorus, and instrumental ensemble; Decca: 12" LP). Charpentier’s Médéc (“Medea”) was produced only four years after the premier of Purcell’s Dido, to which it bears an astonishing and delightful resemblance, even to the wry treatment of a grim theme. The Boulanger group sing and play it faultlessly, and the engineers have treated them well.

Festival of Choral Music (Choral Chamber Group of Pamplona; Westminster: 12" LP). Pure, undiluted, heart-warming charm is the magical ingredient in this amateur Spanish , group’s success, though there is competence aplenty, too. The repertory ranges from classics to folk songs. Listen and succumb!

Flamenco (Carlos Montoya, guitar; Lydia Ibarrondo, mezzo-soprano; Remington: 12" LP). Splendidly infectious rhythm in big, gay sound. Authentic, too.

Goeb, Roger: Symphony No. 3 with Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (Leopold Stokowski conducting symphony orchestra; Gerson Yessin and Raymond Viola, pianos; RCA Victor: 12" LP). The jacket notes describe the Goeb symphony as, frankly, hard to take. It’s not. Its idiom is modern, but it’s gay and communicative. The Goeb and the more familiar Bartok get fine high-fidelity treatment from Stokowski and his confreres.

Liszt: Concerto No. 1; Hungarian Fantasy (Claudio Arrau, piano; Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Orchestra; Columbia: 12" LP). Columbia here challenges, directly, Westminster’s hi-fi feat with the “Triangle” concerto. Who wins is open to dispute; the sounds are different, and about equally spectacular. Ormandy’s orchestra stands the exposure much the better.

Morley and others:The Triumphes of Oriana (David Randolph conducting Randolph Singers; Westminster: two LPs in album, with text). About 1600, Thomas Morley (as editor) and twenty-four of England’s best, madrigal composers prepared a musical bouquet for their queen, Elizabeth I. The coronation year of Elizabeth II seemed to David Randolph a good time to reassemble and record the madrigal bouquet, so he did. It’s a beautiful job. Randolph even dug up seven madrigals that missed Morley’s deadline. The engineers haven’t lost, a syllable.

Mozart: Divertimento in E Flat Major, K. 563 (Jean Pougnet, violin; Frederick Riddle, viola; Anthony Pini, cello; Westminster: 12" LP). Why Mozart called this six-movement trio a divertimento is a mystery. Written in his maturity, it is a big, deep, attention-gripping work, played here with taste and verve in a live, close-up recording.

Ravel:Daphnis and Chloë (Ernest Ansermet conducting Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Geneva Motet Choir; London: 12" LP). This review was delayed through mischance, but it is still worth pointing out that here is one of the year’s great recording “firsts”—a true masterwork (complete) played by exactly the right, musicians and recorded to perfection.

Schubert: Symphony No. 4, “Tragic” (Eduard van Beinum conducting Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra; London: 12" LP). Schubert was only nineteen when he wrote this; its “tragedy” consists of a few Beethovenian touches. Just the same, if is endlessly inventive and melodic. Both performance and recording do it justice.

Villa-Lobos:Cirandas (Joseph Battista, piano; M-G-M: 12" LP). A week before he made this recording, Battista received a final coaching from the composer, who was happy about his interpretation — and so should you be! This piano-song cycle, under Battista’s driving fingers, is wild, eloquent, moving, and beautiful. The piano sound is full, a little clangorous, just as it ought to be.

Benny Goodman Presents Eddie Sauter Arrangements; Benny Goodman Presents Fletcher Henderson Arrangements (Benny Goodman with his new and “old orchestras; Columbia: two separate 12" LPs). Almost no comment is needed, except that the new band, recorded just before Goodman’s illfated tour, sounds fine in hi-fi. The interlarded reprints originated in the late 1930s.

Sauter and Finegan: Extended Play Suite (Sauler-Finegan Orchestra; RCA Victor: EP 45). Apparently this is the first composition written for the new 12-minute 45 rpm records. It’s really two works, Sauter’s Horseplay and Finegan’s Child’s Clay. Both are grown-up, fanciful, clever, and appealing in the extreme. The reproduction is spectacular.

Shakespeare:Hamlet (John Gielgud, Dorothy McGuire, Pamela Brown; directed by Homer Fickett for The Theatre Guild on the Air; RCA Victor: two 12" LPs, boxed with text). This radio version exemplifies some very clever, if extreme, cutting. Unfortunately, the acting is hurried and unsubtle, John Gielgud’s incessant hollow vibrato being especially tiresome. Just passable.

Adlai Stevenson Speaks (Campaign speeches, edited by James Fleming; RCA Victor: 12" LP). Through September of 1952, Democratic Presidential Candidate Adlai Stevenson stuck to campaign topics. In October, for reasons known best to himself, he suddenly began to discuss, almost as a nonpartisan, the great issues of the day — and as few people ever had heard them discussed before. The man is a rare, real orator.