LPs: Pick of the Pack

By William Bender

Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 93 and 94 (New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conductor; Columbia, $5.98). The familiar Surprise, preceded by its stately, less frequently played older sister (by a month: both are from 1792, part of the series of twelve so-called "Salomon" symphonies written by Haydn during his sojourns in London at the behest of Impresario Johann Peter Salomon). Bernstein is at his best in this music, bringing to it the same strength, drama, wit and control he invariably applies to the last symphonies of Mozart.

Chausson: Poem of Love and the Sea; Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne (Soprano Victoria de los Angeles; Lamoureux Concerts Orchestra, Jean-Pierre Jacquillat conductor; Angel, $5.98). A vocal record to cherish, with De los Angeles, now 49, as ear-ravishing as ever. By the standard of the classic Madeline Grey Auvergne recording (1930), this version is a shade operatic, but in its own opulent way nonetheless irresistible. The Chausson, delicately contrasting the ephemera of love with the eternity of the sea, is a pre-Impressionistic gem, hauntingly burnished by De los Angeles, rapturously accompanied by Conductor Jacquillat.

Purcell: Ceremonial Music (Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge; the English Chamber Orchestra, George Guest conductor; Argo, $5.95). Ranging from the Te Deum and Jubilate, written for St. Cecilia's Day in 1694, to the funeral music for the burial of Queen Mary a year later, this is some of Purcell's--and England's--most eloquent music. The performances, authentically scored to include a consort of sackbuts (precursors of the trombone), display taste as well as a flair for the composer's bold, often harsh harmonic writing.

Brahms: Complete String Quartets, Op. 51, Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 67 (The Cleveland Quartet; RCA, 2 LPs, $6.98). Brahms at his melodic, instrumental and unpretentious best in a notable debut recording by a four-year-old group that was formed at Marlboro, Vt., and now is quartet-in-residence at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Clevelanders (all in their early 30s) play with a rich, ruddy tone and a youthful surge that makes Brahms' difficult string writing (all those double stops, for example) seem as natural as a song.

Palestrina: The Song of Songs (Prague Madrigal Choir; Miroslav Venhoda conductor; Vanguard/ Bach Guild, $2.98). The great Renaissance polyphonist, best known for soaring church works like the Pope Marcellus Mass, here took his text, somewhat uncharacteristically, from Solomon's highly sensuous biblical verses: "A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts." The result: one of Palestrina's two or three loveliest works, sung movingly by the Czech performers.

Schubert: Piano Sonata in A. Op. Posth. (Alfred Brendel; Philips, $6.98). A steadfastly rich, varied piece of music, less rambling than the dour P:minor and the ethereal--and best-known--B Flat, all of which Schubert wrote in the last months of his life. Surprisingly from the suave, precise Brendel, the performance could now and then use a more expressive turn of phrase; but it is still the performance to have, at least until somebody gets around to reissuing the nonpareil Schnabel version.

Seeger: String Quartet; Perle: String Quartet No. 5; Babbitt: String Quartet No. 2 (The Composers Quartet; Nonesuch, $2.98). Ruth Crawford Seeger, the stepmother of Folk Singer Pete Seeger, was an innovative composer who moved on an equal footing with such American avant-gardists of the 1920s and early 1930s as Henry Cowell and Carl Ruggles, and her husband Charles Seeger, a composer and folk-oriented musicologist. Her Quartet has a touchingly original flavor that belies its formidable structural technique--notably a quasi-serialistic organization of rhythm that prophesied things to come in post-World War II composing. This incisively performed disk also includes diverse, provocative essays in twelve-tone music by two of the U.S.'s leading academics, Milton Babbitt of Princeton and George Perle of New York's Queens College.

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