New Records
Three record companies--Victor, London and Westminster--went to market on the same sustained D minor last week: Beethoven's hour-long Ninth Symphony.
For those who like crisp, musical perfection, Victor's Toscanini version is the last word. The NBC Symphony gives the music all the urgency it can bear, a sweeping flow and contrasting moments of intimacy hard to match. But the choral finale--one of the music's worst bugaboos --seems imperfectly recorded: the Robert Shaw Chorale clears the vocal hurdles all right, but the part singing is sometimes cloudy.
The most satisfying finale on records is in the London set; the vocal parts by Vienna's Friends of Music chorus are noble and distinct, and Basso Ludwig Weber's commanding entrance is something to hear. Conductor Erich Kleiber leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a fine performance, and the recorded sound is sumptuous.
The Westminster Ninth is led by Vienna's Hermann Scherchen. a more academic conductor; his tempos are sedate, his accents concise. The orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, soloists, and the Vienna Singakademie play and sing accurately, if not thrillingly, and have been recorded with striking clarity (in the scherzo, the kettle drums go off like pistol shots). This set, like Victor's, includes Beethoven's Symphony No. I on the fourth side.
Other new records:
Casds Festival at Perpignan, Vol. I (Perpignan Festival Orchestra conducted by Pablo Casals; Columbia, 4 LPs). The great cellist is heard here as a Mozart conductor (he plays a Haydn cello Adagio on a personally inscribed fifth disk for purchasers of the complete album), shows that it is still possible to make such old veterans as Eine kleine Nachtmusik sound daisy-fresh. The orchestra is the fervent group that gathered around the Master in 1951; soloists include Violinist Erica Morini, Oboist Marcel Tabuteau.
Roussel: The Spider's Feast (Paris Philharmonic conducted by Rene Leibowitz; Esoteric). The composer's most popular work, in an LP premiere. The music was written for a ballet (vintage 1912) about insects, but it is a work of freshness and real symphonic flow.
Alessandro Scarlatti: Sonata a Quattro (New Music Quartet; Bartok). A pre-Bach genius (1660-1725) who specialized in operas and cantatas, Scarlatti was one of the first to write a real string quartet. This one, full of surprising glints and glows, is played to perfection by one of the U.S.'s finest ensembles. On the same disk: quartets by Tartini and Boccherini.
Schlusnus Sings (Decca, 2 LPs). The late Berlin Opera star, Heinrich Schlusnus, was an outstanding bel canto baritone in the '30s, when these 24 songs were recorded. He sings Schubert, Wolf, Brahms, Strauss, with striking vocal quality and sensitive shading.
Vaughn Williams: Flos Campi (Francis Tursi, viola; Cornell A Cappella Chorus; orchestra conducted by Robert Hull; Concert Hall). An attractive musical evocation of The Song of Solomon, in which the viola's alto voice sings of Oriental love with considerable dark passion, while the chorus sings wordless syllables.
Other noteworthy new releases: Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach: Magnificat (Vienna State Opera Orchestra) ; Akademie Choir and soloists conducted by Felix Prohaska; Bach Guild, 2 LPs); Conrad Beck: Viola Concerto (Walter Kagi; L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Jean Meylan; London); Beethoven: "Kreutzer" Sonata (Jascha Heifetz, violin; Benno Moiseiwitsch, piano; Victor).
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