Record Reviews

Beethoven: Symphonies No. 4 and No. 5

Bruno Walter conducting Columbia Symphony Orchestra; Columbia MS-6055 (stereo) and M L-5365 Here is more of a great conductor’s great phonographic testament. The Beethoven Fourth always has seemed to me a Bruno Walter specialty; he gets into it a sort of golden quality that hardly anyone else does. At his hand here it glides and glistens in the remembered way, giving out healthy serenity and captivating with its cleverness; no better Fourth need be sought. In the Fifth, however, Dr. Walter provides us a perplexity. His first movement is taut and strangely toneless in the loud parts; his second is dark and nostalgic. Ernest Ansermet for London has offered lately a far more fiercely dramatic opening movement and a sunnier second. Yet Walter’s finale, organized and solidified into something at once monumental and alive, is without peer; by contrast Ansermet’s analytic vigor seems calculated. Perhaps I make too much of comparisons. Here are two Beethoven Fifths mightily able to ennoble any of us. The main virtue of the Columbia disc is that it bears two symphonies instead of one. But the London has much the stronger dynamics. It has not been issued, incidentally, in monophonic version.

Handed: Organ Concertos, Op. 7, Nos. 1-6

E. Power Biggs, organ; Sir Adrian Boult conducting London Philharmonic; Columbia M2S-604 (stereo) and MIL261: two records

This is the second set of what will be three, containing the complete organ concertos of Handel. Mr. Biggs and Sir Adrian made them, as is now pretty well known, at a church in Great Packington, Warwickshire, using an organ Handel helped design. It is a pleasure to report that this huge and worthy venture of Columbia’s continues to be just about as much fun as you can have through a pair of ears. Biggs and Boult are perfect Handelians, in gay mood or grave, and the sound of the little church is ideal for the music.

Hanson : Symphony No. 2, “Romantic”; Lament for Beowulf

Howard Hanson conducting EastmanRochester Orchestra; Eastman School Chorus; Mercury SR-90192 (stereo) and MG-50192

The “Romantic” Symphony was written thirty years ago and sounds as new today as it did then. Which is not to say that it ever sounded startlingly novel. I think young Dr. Hanson, writing it, had the same wish Brahms had felt before him: to show that the old form of the symphony could still be forceful and convincing if informed with original musical ideas well thought out. He proved his point, as you will agree hearing this vigorous and moving work in Mercury’s fine, strong sound. Yet Beowulf, written earlier, is in a way even more interesting. This is North American music, perhaps the most North American I have ever heard, with its triple connection of Scandinavia to Britain to America. It is very powerful. Carl Orff contrived a theme much tike one of Hanson’s here to launch Carmina Burana, but he could not get into its treatment the pure bigness that Hanson conveys. It must be added that Mercury’s microphoning was essential to the effect. In stereo especially, Beowulf is an engrossing experience.

Haydn: Symphony No. 94, “Surprise”

Oivin Fjelstad conducting Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra; RCA Camden CAS481 (stereo)

This may not be the greatest “Surprise” ever to come off the stereo stampers, but it was plenty good enough to surprise me at $2.98. RCA seems to have a considerable backlog of these Norwegian treasures for use under its low-price stereo label, and all I have heard so far have been handsomely played and beautifully recorded.

Mozart: Concertos No. 11 and No. 20

Rudolf Serkin, piano; Alexander Schnei-der conducting Marlboro Festival Orchestra; Columbia MS-6049 (stereo) and ML-5367

The D Minor Concerto, No. 20, is not only one of’ Mozart’s most immediately endearing works (who can resist the Romanza?), it is perhaps the first really grown-up piano concerto, with no hint of concerto grosso about it and with real dialogue between piano and orchestra. Rudolf Serkin has been studying it fondly for years, and the results are admirably apparent on the record. His New Hampshire summer-school orchestra does not sound like a summer-school orchestra at all, thanks to Mr. Schneider; indeed, the whole record seems a highly skilled labor of love. Concerto No. 11 is a bright impish confection, a nice counter to the masterpiece overside.

Wagner: Götterdämmerung: Brünnhilde’s Immolation; Tristan: Prelude and Liebestod

Eileen Farrell, soprano; Charles Munch conducting Boston Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LSC-2255 (stereo) and LM2255

These two great scenes prove a dual sonic virtuosity never really held in doubt. The BSO can make the world’s biggest, grandest orchestral sound, and Eileen Farrell can be heard above it, secure as an eagle in the sky. This may not be the most perceptive Wagner ever recorded, but rates among the most exciting.

Joyce: Selections from Finnegans Wake

Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack, readers; Caedmon TC-1086 Hearing and reading simultaneously the words of James Joyce is a naughty joy like no other I know of. The good folk of Caedmon Records now offer us nearly an hour of this: Shorn the Penman and Anna Livia Plurabelle from Finnegans Wake. The readers on the disc are true lovers of the great man’s stopless wit, and the record jacket states that two texts are enclosed (there was only one in mine), which is a good idea. Joyce’s work may not long outlast the century, shot through as it is with permutations (orthographical and otherwise) on timely idiom, but this is no time to pause and pity posterity. It is a time to join the epiphanous epiphanist and go happily (in his own words) winging away on a wildgoup’s chase across the cathartic ocean. Nothing could be much more fun.