New Records

Two Frenchmen (so the story goes) were listening to a Beethoven quartet. "Ah, magnifique," sighed one, "what a beautiful theme." "Yes indeed," agreed the other. "Let's get out of here before he starts developing it."

That seems to be the philosophy behind RCA Victor's new Listener's Digest (10 EPs), which presents the themes of great compositions, throws away most of the rest. Why has Victor, which has made some of the most devoutly accurate recordings on the market, gone in for vandalizing great music? By serving up serious music in easily digestible chunks, Victor hopes to attract a whole new audience to classical fare. Whether friends can be won for classical music this way is dubious; the experiment is comparable to editing the tougher passages out of Shakespeare or redrawing El Greco to fatten his perspective.

Listener's Digest is subtitled "The exciting new short cut to great music." The cut is not only short but unkind: the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (in a ragged performance by the Halle Orchestra under John Barbirolli) runs a mere three minutes--minus the development section, where, in effect, the composer explains what his music is about. Overall cut: from 32 minutes to 14. Other emasculated masterpieces: Franck's D Minor Symphony (38 to 14), Brahms's First Symphony (38 to 15), Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto (36 to 15).

Other new records:

John Blow: Venus and Adonis (Margaret Ritchie, Gordon Clinton; orchestra and chorus conducted by Anthony Lewis : L'Oiseau-Lyre). A late 17th century opera, complete with basso continuo, cupids, and Venus' own recipe for happy love:

I seldom vex a lover's ears With business or with jealous fears. I give him freely all delights With pleasant days and easy nights.

The music, for all its antique airs, is graceful, evocative and full of variety.

Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Paganini (Charles Rosen, pianist; London). One of the 19th century's biggest display pieces, requiring "steel fingers" and a "lion's heart." Pianist Rosen has the fingers but undersells his heart: his variations are clean, fiery and absolutely unsentimental.

Gianni Poggi: Operatic Recital (London). A young (32) lyric tenor from La Scala shows a golden voice and a fine feeling for Italian-opera tradition in these seven selections from Il Trovatore, Manon Lescaut, Andrea Chenier, etc. Tenor Poggi is due for U.S. appearances next year.

Mattiwilda Dobbs: Song Recital (Angel). The young (29) Atlanta Negro who has been cheering two continents with her remarkable operatic coloratura shows that she is equally adept in pastoral art songs.

Mozart: Motets (Soloists, chorus and orchestra directed by Felix Raugel; L'Anthologic Sonore; Haydn Society). Seven religious choruses--six jubilant, one melancholy--in Mozart's flowing counterpoint. Not up to highest recording standards, but a unique item. From Volume VII of the anthology's "Living History of Western Music from the 9th to the 19th Century."

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 6 (Helen Schnabel; Vienna Orchestra conducted by F. Charles Adler; SPA). Beethoven arranged this number himself at the behest of a publisher who offered him hard cash. It is a piano version of his famed Violin Concerto, its singing solo part reinforced by octaves, its cadenzas (including a ground-breaking passage for piano and timpani) especially written for the occasion. Not as silly as it might seem.

Koussevitzky Plays the Double Bass (Victor). Out of the wayward past (1929) comes the echo of Conductor Koussevitzky's first love, the bull fiddle. In these six pieces (three of them his own compositions), the instrument sounds like a husky cello, dark and sentimental, and it moves like a fat man on a dance floor, bulky but often surprisingly graceful.

Four Sonatas for Piano (Zadel Skolovsky; Columbia). A talented pianist enthusiastically takes on four distinctive 20th century styles: Scriabin's still-misty modernity (Sonata No. 4); Alban Berg's early and rather turbid atonality (Sonata, Op. 1) ; Bartok's lean, athletic, but vividly coherent paganism (Sonata); and Hindemith's smooth-flowing manner that says little at great length (Sonata No. 2). The performances are clean and sure.

Poulenc: Nocturnes (Grant Johannesen, pianist; Concert Hall). Some sweet-sour (but mostly sweet) vaporizing by Cosmopolitan Composer Poulenc. Lightweight and pleasant, expertly played.

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