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LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THE ATTIC!

(New Listings for March 20, 2006)

This month’s New Listings include a large and fabulous number of new entries into the Oliver Daniel Archive, including a dozen unique acetates of live Stokowski performances.

Many are derived from the program "Twentieth Century Concert Hall", which Oliver produced from 1953-1957. All contain wonderful readings of works Stokie never recorded commercially and in some cases never conducted again. I am putting together a CD of the best of them, and take pleasure in offering it to you for a special price of $12.00. The tentative contents are as follows:

New Release:

"A Salute to ‘20^th-Century Concert Hall’"

Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question;

" " : Largo Cantabile for Strings

Henry Brant: Signs and Alarms

Halsey Stevens: Sinfonia

Peggy Glanville-Hicks: Postcards from Morocco

Bartok: Romanian Dances

Foerster (contemporary of Bach): Air in the form of a Sarabande

Ralph Vaughan-Williams: 5 Variants of "Dives & Lazarus"

The acetate recordings were made in the control booth, via straight-line feed from the broadcast mikes, in concerts that aired in 1954 and 1957. Aside from the unsurprising tics and swishes of the medium, much less than you’d expect, really, from discs that have been sitting around for half-a-century, the sound is surprisingly vivid: detailed, spacious, and with a wide, undistorted dynamic range. I’m leaving in the announcers’ comments, just for atmosphere.

All the performances are revelatory, but pride of place goes to the Ives selections (you’ll never hear a creepier, more evocative reading of The Unanswered Question!), the Bartok (sizzling) and the Vaughan-Williams (soaring and bardic).

The orchestra throughout is the "CBS Radio Symphony", which was composed of some of New York’s finest freelance musicians.

I cannot imagine that anyone interested in American music would not find this disc to be a treasure-trove!

To order, just send check, cash or money order to the usual address:

Records in the Attic

PO Box 1352

Greensboro, N.C., 27401

Now, on to the New Listings!

BARBIROLLI: [Sir John’s 1974-75 Brahms cycle w/ the Vienna Philharmonic attracted surprisingly little attention in the U.S., and as was its custom then and now, EMI/Angel didn’t leave the box set in circulation long enough for word-of-mouth to spread its reputation. In the 30-odd years since, however, the set has become somewhat legendary – and it has remained very elusive, although by the time you read this, Testament may well have resurrected it for their usual outrageous premium prices (in which case, as I promised to do, I will withdraw it from these listings until it goes back into the corporate closet again, which should take all of 90 days). This is simply one of the great integral Brahms cycles of all time – "Glorious" Sir John knew and loved this music deeply; his rare appearances with the Vienna Phil revealed potent chemistry between the small, fussy-mannered Englishman and the reserved, patrician ensemble. Not one of these readings is a dud; the combination of spacious tempi, broad rhetorical inflections, rich orchestral tone, and the sort of ravishing sonics EMI’s engineers routinely obtained during their Vienna sessions in those days, all add up to a unique Brahmsian gestalt: suave, autumnal in coloring, unabashedly Romantic in approach, and filled with moments of exquisite tenderness as well as massive, Heaven-storming power (Try the climax of I/1 – I can think of maybe three or four other conductors who equal what Sir John achieves here; such nobility, such majestic strength!). If anyone still doubts that – on his best nights, at any rate – Barbirolli was one of the true podium titans, this will settle the argument for good; only a conductor of the greatest natural musicianship and charismatic presence could have achieved what he consistently does with the Brahms orchestral canon, at least with this orchestra at this time. Here are the contents and timings: ]

Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80. w/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. [11:23]

Symphony No. 1, Op. 68. w/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. [44:45]

Symphony No. 2, Op. 73. " " " " [44:49]

Symphony No. 3, Op. 90. " " " " [35:53]

Symphony No. 4, Op. 98. [47:17]

Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56-a. " " " [18:23]

Delius: Songs of Sunset. w/ Royal Philharmonic & BBC Chorus [Date, venue, names, etc, not given on Source tape – if it is live, the audience is miraculously quiet.]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 8. w/ BBC Symphony Orch., studio recording 1932.[Sir Adrian’s earliest Beethoven recording, when he was credited as "Dr. Adrian Boult". It’s a sober, fairly intense reading, rather in the Weingartner mode but with a bit more drive & energy – also an occasional touch of light portamento!. The sound is quite good for its time.]

Humperdinck: Overture to "Hansel & Gretel". w/ BBC Symphony Orch., rec. 7/25/1932.

Wagner: "Tristan & Isolde", Prelude to Act One. w/ BBC Symphony Orch., rec. July, 1932.

Von Weber: Overture to "Der Freischutz". w/ BBC Symphony Orch., studio,, Oct. 1932.

Franck: Symphony in D Minor. w/ NBC Symphony Orchestra. [Dating from 1954, this was an experimental early stereo session arranged by RCA, which released only the mono version domestically. My Source is a very clean U.K. edition and the sound, except for a residual amount of tape hiss, is exemplary – Carnegie Hall at its warm, glowing best. The reading is also stellar, fiercely dramatic and powerful, with lush full sonorities. Imagine a cross between Toscanini and Stokowski, each at his best!]

CASALS, Pablo: [Yes, we all know he was a great cellist, but he was also a fantastic conductor, and examples of his podium work are all too rare. This Beethoven 8^th was recorded live at the Marlboro Festival in 1961 (when Casals was 90!) and is a smashing performance in every respect – earthy, packed with energy, and superbly played by the 50-piece resident orchestra, whose personnel reads like a who’s-who in American music. I mean, Jeez, the first horn is Myron Bloom! The violin section included Michael Tree, Arnold Steinhardt, and Jaime Laredo! Lynn Harrell in the cellos… it’s too much!]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 8. w/ Marlboro Festival Orchestra, live, 1961

Ward: Symphony No. 1. w/ American Recording Society Orchestra

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2. w/ Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orch. [43:33]

Beethoven: Overture to "Egmont", Op. 84. w/ Berlin Philharmonic, live, 1947.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5, Op. 67. w/ Berlin Philharmonic Orch. [The date was probably May 20, 1947. The occasion was the return to public life of Germany’s greatest conductor, the white-hot intensity of this reading is something special. Hearing it for the first time either make a True Believer out of you or will screw up your head with confusion. Either way, you’ll be a better person for the experience. Good broadcast-quality sound for the time.]

Copland: Dance Symphony. w/ Chicago Symphony Orch. [See comments under "Repertoire"]

Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra. w/ Chicago Symphony Orch. [Sensational work-out of Mortie’s most popular orchestral composition – all his recordings with the CSO, which encompass a really broad range of styles & periods, were great-sounding and splendidly conducted. I can also testify – from a "telephone friendship" that lasted from 1995 until his death – that Morton Gould was a gentleman of integrity, wisdom, and great good humor. Had he lived a while longer, we would have met; he’d invited me to visit his Long Island home, just as soon as I was finished with the Mitropoulos biography, but stuff happened, you know how it is, and by the time it became feasible for me to go, he died, quite unexpectedly. What a grand guy he was!]

Ives: Variations on America, orchestrated by Wm. Schumann. w/ Chicago Symphony. [hands down, this is the rowdiest, most exciting version ever wuz!]

Ives: Symphony No. 1. w/ Chicago Symphony Orch. [See comments under "Ives", in the "Repertoire" section.]

Mahler: Symphony No. 4. w/ Margaret Price, sop.’ London Philharmonic Orch. [T: 59:48] ] [There’s an interesting story about how a small, scruffy, mostly-import label like Monitor Records (best known for its sturdy, long-lived issuance of otherwise unobtainable repertoire from the USSR) managed to end up issuing a London Philharmonic record with a popular Big Name conductor for the first and only time in the label’s existence…too bad I’ve forgotten it everything I once knew about it!. Anyway, Monitor went out of business at least 20 years ago; so far as I know, this Horenstein rarity’s never been picked up and reissued in the U.S. It was not easy to find when it was "in print", and virtually impossible to locate today – Monitor always suffered from awful distribution problems and the only place you could reliably find most of their titles was in Manhattan (where I bought this one and where their one-room "corporate headquarters" was located). If you admire Horenstein, I assure you he’s in excellent form here, delivering a loving yet invigoratingly urgent reading – he doesn’t dawdle in III (but the climax there is rock-solid and very imposing) nor does he lard on treacley rhetorical effects to hammer into your noggin the notion that this is "naïve" or "innocent" music. Mahler’s own compositional genius takes care of that, thank you, and Horenstein just faithfully lets the composer have his say without italicizing every major emotional hairpin-curve in the score. (My other favorite Mahler 4 is Mengelberg’s which couldn’t be more different!] The sonics in the Monitor edition are good early stereo with just a hint of improperly equalized auditorium ambience coloring some of the quieter passages. I may as well be resigned to the prospect of Testament – the greedy buggers! – remastering this sooner or later and sticking you twenty bucks for it. Until then, I’ll burn you a really clean dub of it for considerably less and will throw in another Horenstein performance – you select one from the his listings, long as it doesn’t go on for more than a half-hour – at no additional charge. You pick 80 minutes’ worth of music; it costs you $13.50, no more, per filled-up CD; that includes postage & handling – most of you know the drill, but I need to repeat it every now and then for the newbies.]

Mozart: Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter" . w/ Berlin Philharmonic, live, 1957. [Von K. at his best – a fine, bravura reading.]

KEILBERTH, Joseph: [The Beethoven readings are Sourced from a London/Richmond box set that was available in the U.S. for maybe six months in the early Sixties – all the Nine conducted by Keilberth and Kleiber. It was a very solid, German-Mainstream Beethoven cycle (and in the Kleiber performances something more than that). The Kleiber readings have been refurbished digitally and issued a few times since then, the Keilberth versions have not. They’re good; he was an under-rated conductor whom I first learned about from a blazing, brass-heavy Bruckner Ninth on then-imported Telefunken "budget" pressings, which sometimes – like the early Decca LPs – used a stiff, inflexible vinyl compound that made the records turn gray after a while. My CDs don’t turn gray, and while none of these is superlative enough to merit a Top Ten endorsement, they’re all sturdy, hearty, virile readings; you could do a lot worse (like those smarmy, super-slick, fancy-pants Abbado recordings)

Beethoven: Coriolanus Overture, Op. 68. w/ Hamburg Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven: Symphony No. 1. w/ Bamberg Symphony Orch,

Beethoven: Symphony No. 2. w/ Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4. w/ Hamburg State Philharmonic.

" : Symphony No. 8. w/ Hamburg State Philharmonic

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral". w/ London Philharmonic Orchestra. {Lean and straightforward, but quite warm and appealing for all that. Good mono sound.]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, "Eroica". w/ Vienna Philharmonic Orch. [A classic version; taut, fleet, deeply felt, in the Toscanini vein only with much riper tone and broader, more inflected tempi]

" : Symphony No. 7. w/ Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9. w/ Vienna Philharmonic Orch; Singverein Chorus

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4. w/ Paris Conservatory Orchestra

Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op. w/ Boston Symphony Orch., studio version.

" : Symphony No. 5, Op. . " " " " " " [Waxed during the late Forties, these readings – last available c. 1958 on rather indifferently processed "Camden" re-prints, reveal that RCA had somehow "lost" the sound of Symphony Hall – maybe because of the Musicians’ Union strike, which locked Victor out of new recording activity with all three of its best-selling orchestras (NY, Philadelphia & Boston), or maybe the engineers who accomplished such wondrous work in the Thirties had retired/died/gone off to war without passing their secrets along. The 5^th especially suffers from an overlay of cavernous heaviness that blunts Koussie’s attack and tuttis, blurring much inner detail as well as making the Boston Symphony, for God’s sake, lose its "sonic trademarks". Whatever, these were dubbed from Camdens in relatively decent condition and at least suggest how exciting, refined, and beautifully intense this conductor’s Beethoven could be.—the opening attack of the Eroica’s 4^th movement, for example, has a slashing, imperious velocity that hits you like a lightning bolt. Koussie was especially great in the Ninth, which he turned into sonic napalm, but you’ll have to search for one of the live versions floating around in the collectors’ network if you want to hear the magic, because RCA’s one formal recording (done in the Music Shed at Tanglewood, is, by comparison to the live home-recorded readings, an almost total disaster – poor, distant sound (the timpani are barely audible!!) and a self-conscious, tepid effort on the conductor’s part made it one of the least interesting versions in the early LP catalogues (there’s one used-media "expert" in town who’s had a gatefold-album copy, in great condition, sitting in the same place for fifteen years, marked at $75.00! He will never, ever, sell that turkey. Of course, if the Boston Symphony trustees would simply open up their archives, you could hear not only one of the most stupendous dress rehearsal performances ever captured on tape, but some 1500 other wonderful live performances preserved on decent-sounding air-check acetates. Hey, Bean Boys! If you allowed the vault to be exploited by one conscientious label or another (Naxos can be trusted), the sagging, Old Dowager image of the BSO would suddenly acquire the patina of Glory. Until those autocratic swine come to their senses, interested listeners must make do with the scandalously thin inventory of old "studio" accounts, and the ones listed here at least contain enough moments of throat-catching majesty. They’ll at least give the new-comer a suggestion of how great a conductor Koussie could be in core-repertoire, and that’s "better than nothing", right? Whaddaya mean, "Who cares?" Skippy, take that Philistine into the alley out back and beat him senseless! Ah, yes, that’s more like it! (Fade out, to the dull rhythmic thud of repeated truncheon blows… and the muffled pleas of their target.)]

Gliere: Russian Sailor’s Dance from The" Red Poppy. w/ Minneapolis Symphony, studio recording 1941. [Right up there with Stokowski & Scherchen " as one of the most exciting versions ever waxed. Dynamite intensity.

Malipiero: Symphony No. 7 (Della canzoni). w/ NYPSO, live, date unk. [I’ve already commented on this interesting but not wholly successful work in the big database catalogue "Repertoire, 20^th Centrury". If you don’t like it after hearing Dimitri’s fervent reading, you probably aren’t going to join the Malipiero Fan Club.]

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1, "Classical". w/ Minneapolis Symphony Orch, 1942.[Try to remember that, in 1942, this was still "new" music; audiences had no common feeling for how itr should go. Like Koussevitzsky, Dimitri tended to emphasize the snazzy, jazz-influenced, snottiness of the piece. His tempi are scorching and his accents percussive e & abrasive. None of this nuttiness about "homage to Mozart" that’s come down to us now. This is hot-blooded young Sergei, showing off for the Conservatory faculty, flipping the finger at proper Russian musical life, and generally being a genius/brat full of piss & vinegar. I adore the performance for those reasons, although neither the recorded sound per se, nor the Minneapolis Sym’s tonal qualities are anything to cheer about. Get down, get funky!]

Sicilianos, George: Symphony No. 1. w/ NYPSO, live, 1948. [The critics lambasted this for being "eclectic" and it is, but in a good way. Dimitri tried to present a cross-section of all the interesting cross-currents, so that posterity could make informed choices as to whose music made the cut and whose went into a pooper. He lavished as much work and care on this middling-good (but ever-so-promising) young composer as he would have on a Schoenberg premier. Word has it that poor George was so devastated by the pissy, gratuitously snide reviews that he ceased composing altogether, more or less vanishing.]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6. w/ Boston Symphony Orchestra

Ives: Symphony No. 1. w/ Philadelphia Orchestra spate yesterday

" : Three Places in New England. w/ Philadelphia Orchestra

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben. w/ Philadelphia Orch. [Here’s another of those periodic re-discoveries I make as I catalogue my collection & sometimes am motivated to clean up and re-listen to the oldest "collectors’ items" I possess, just because it’s been so long since…. This came to me by way of an obscure Camden reissue & I probably never played it again after I located the Camden of Mengelberg’s incomparable 1928 NY Philharmonic version. But I cleaned, replayed and dubbed this last night, and folks, I gotta tell you: this is one of the finest records Eugene Ormandy ever waxed. It’s damn near as gripping as the Mengelberg, and the sonics, for their time, are just mind-boggling: rich, sweeping, full of power and heft (that brass section!!!), and Ormandy is on absolutely his best podium behavior, giving a very convincing impersonation of a great conductor. Aside from one brief patch of wear on Side A, my copy is a damn sight cleaner and more listenable than I would have thought possible. A wonderful "Heldenleben"!]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 7. w/ Philadelphia Orchestra. [See comments under "Repertoire"]

Beethoven: "Fidelio" Overture No. 1, Op. 138. w/ Vienna State Opera Orch.

" " " No. 2, Op. 72-A. w/ Vienna State Opera Orch.

Pfitzner: Symphony No. 1, Op. 39. w/ Orchestra of the German Opera, recorded in 1942 [See comments under ‘Repertoire"]

Bartok: Romanian Dances. w/ CBS Symphony, live, 1954

Brant, Henry: Signs and Alarms. w/ CBS Symphony, live, 1953.

Creston: Toccata for Orchestra. w/ "His" Symphony Orchestra, live, 9/25/1958. [12:28]

Debussy: Clair de Lune (Orch. by L.S.). w/ "His Symphony Orchestra", rec. c. 1950.

Debussy: Nocturnes. w/ "His Symphony Orchestra"; Robert Shaw Chorale. [This 1950 LP re-make is, predictably, rather different from his sumptuous but slightly dim-sounding Philadelphia original – using a smallish orchestra (65-75 players in all), abetted by superb mike placement & reverb panels, and wide-apart spacing of the orchestral choirs, LS created the illusion of a full ensemble. Yet he also shaped what might be called a "chamber music" interpretation, with especially balances between winds and strings. A sense of vastness permeates the finished product, every strand of the score is surgically clear, not smudgey "impressionistic" haze anywhere. Tempos are just right, too, with no soupy milking of the melodic curves, no whopping retards or accelerandos. RCA gave him state-of-the-art sound here, and even reviewers who were allergic to his lush, scented-bath concept of Debussy had to admit that the sound was sensationally good. I wish the disc surfaces were too, but it’s very rare to find a copy of this LP in pristine condition. At least the defects on this copy are minimal and mostly light-enough-sounding for you to tune them out and concentrate on the voluptuous playing. The choral part gets more heavily pulled-around than the orchestral sections, but the net effect is for the final movement to be much more "climactic" than it usually sounds. Altogether a very special reading. The shorter works get a similarly deluxe treatment, but Stokie made so many recordings of the "Afternoon of a Faun" that it’s impossible to pick a "best" version. To judge from the number of times he recorded/performed that tone poem, it might well have been his all-time favorite piece.]

Debussy: Prelude…Faun. w/ "His Symphony Orchestra", rec. c. 1950

Foerster (18^h Cent., contemporary of Bach): Air in the Form of a Sarabande. w/ CBS Symphony, live, 1954

Glanville-Hicks: Postcards from Morocco. w/ William Hess, tenor; CBS Symphony, live, 1953. [See comments under "Oliver Daniel Archive"]

Helps, Robert: Adagio for Orchestra. w/ Symphony of the Air, live, 1956 (?)

Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain. w/ "His" Symphony Orchestra, live, 9/25/ 1958. [18:48] [Either the second or third performance of this modern masterpiece, which Stokie commissioned for the Houston Symphony. Note two things: this is NOT the same performance as the one issued in 2005 by Cala, and, 2) there are several annoying patches of sonic hash in the 2^nd and 3^rd movements, which unfortunately derive from the original acetates. Nothing I can do about that problem, but it doesn’t ruin the reading, which is one of blazing intensity.]

Ives: Largo Cantabile for Strings. w/ CBS Symphony, live, 1954\

" : The Unanswered Question. w/ CBS Symphony, live, 1953. [The spookiest, most atmospheric reading I ever heard; those bustling little woodwind curlicues, about half-way through the piece, are played straight into the mike and make an effect like a sudden eruption of fireworks over Sheeps’ Meadow. Outstanding.]

Ives: Washington’s Birthday. w/ CBS Symphony Orch., live,1955.

Riegger: New Dance. w/ "His" Symphony Orchestra, liver, 9/25/ 1959 [5:35] [Stokie loved this exciting tour-de-force & programmed it at least six times. It’s a classic example of tough-fibered American Romanticism, with irresistible rhythmic swing and virtuoso orchestration. If you’ve never sampled Riegger’s music, this is an ideal place to start; conductor’s please note: it’s a PERFECT "token" contemporary work for a conservative audience – not too long, not demanding on their technical knowledge, not fiendishly difficult for a reasonably competent ensemble to play, and almost a guaranteed "Bravo" trigger.]

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade. w/ Philadelphia Orchestra, live, 1967. [I forget how many versions of this piece Stokie recorded. The lushest & most satisfying is the Phase-Four version, now on Chandos; the leanest and most restrained is the Philharmonia version from the Fifties – this live one falls in between and suffers slightly in comparison due to the endemic dryness of broadcast sound from the Academy of Music. Nevertheless, it its electricity and sweep and a ferociously energized last movement, it’s a fine interpretation.]

Salas, Juan Orriega: Festive Overture. w/ "His" Symphony Orchestra, live, 9/25/1958 [9:15]

Schoenberg: Song of the Wood Dove from "Gurrelieder". Martha Lipton, mezzo.; NYPO,

Stevens, Halsey: Adagio for Orchestra. w/ Symphony of the Air, live, 1956 (?)

Vaughan-Williams: Five Variants of "Dives & Lazarus". w/ CBS Symphony Orchestra, live, 1954 [Odd that he didn’t record this exquisite work commercially, but his English blood surfaces here and he leads a deeply felt, richly-colored reading, both sweeping and elegiac. Wonderful.].

Hindemith: "Pittsburgh" Symphony. w/ South German Radio Orchestra. [See comments under "Repertoire"]

Mennin: Concertanto for Orchestra. w/ American Recording Society Orchestra. [Much better sound and performance that usual on this esteemed but always cash-strapped ancient label; very sharp reading, actually; the piece is powerful and sinewy; lasts 16 min.]

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 7. w/ South German Radio Symphony [Outstanding! Swarowsky has a handle on this elusive, valedictory work & finds beneath its flippant, even casual surface, he finds poetic nuances galore. If he’d only had a better orchestra to work with, this would be my preferred interpretation.]

Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33. w/ Leonard Rose, cello; NY Philharmonic Orch. [This and the two Weber overtures listed below comprised the contents of a "members only" limited edition LP published by the Columbia Record Club around 1959-60; it was never in general circulation (although it’s not especially rare). Szell/Rose prove to be the perfect pair for Tchaikovsky’s homage to Mozart, which emerges here in a reading of poise & elegance. The Weber overtures, too, are spot-on; when he conducted the Philharmonic, Szell tended to give more expansive readings than he did at home in Cleveland, and the music gains much from his relative relaxation.]

Von Weber: Overture to "Die Freischutz". w/ NY Philhjarmonic, c. 1959

" " : Overture to "Oberon". w/ NY Philharmonic Orch.

Mozart: Divertimento No. 15, K. 287, for Strings & Two Horns. Members of the NBC Symphony. [I don’t like his Mozart; never have, never will, but for them what does, here is some, and not too awfully dry & zitty as most of his Mozart recordings. And the playing IS inhumanly alert (terror and adrenaline will do that to you).

Strauss: Arabella: The Great Scenes. [See comments under "Opera & Choral"]

WATANABE, Akeo: [At last! The fabled Japan Philharmonic Sibelius cycle, dubbed from near-mint copies! When Epic released this handsome box set, in the summer of 1961, I blew a whole week’s allowance on it. It was my first Sibelius in STEREO, plus it had the allure of the bizarre – A JAPANESE CONDUCTOR! Remember, back in those days, there was something faintly outlandish about the very idea. Pre-Ozawa (let’s give him credit for something) there just weren’t any such alien critters on western podiums. Nowadays, every other orchestra in the world has some kind of oriental attached. I adored the set; simply adored it. Aside from the wonder of hearing my then- and still-favorite composer’s major works in stereo, I thought this ‘quaint little jap’ had a damned good handle on the music. His tempi in the Third,. For example, showed that he’d paid lots of attention to the pioneering old Kajanus recording – almost every other modern conductor took the second movement insensitively fast. Two years later, when I was living in Finland, I found out that the Watanabe/ Sibelius connection wasn’t so strange after all – Akeo was (I hope he’s still with us, but that was a long time ago…) married to a lady from the sort-of aristocratic Swedish-Finnish class and had conducted the two Helsinki orchestras many times. I attended one concert; can’t remember what the program was, but I do remember that the Finnish Radio Symphony – which was pretty scruffy in 1964 – played exceptionally well for Watanabe. After the concert, I trundled backstage and managed to introduce myself, explaining how revelatory I’d found his integral symphonies set. etc., etc. He was very cordial and actually indulged me in a brief conversation – I gathered he was not used to being importuned by American Sibelius-nuts, especially in Helsinki. Whilst milling around backstage I chatted with some of the orchestra players whom I knew, from previous concerts, could speak English. Oh, yes, they confirmed; the ensemble had great respect for Maestro Watanabe. "We taught him a lot about how to conduct Sibelius!" quipped a clarinetist; I’m still not sure if she was joking or not.

My own box set was too bunged up to list in this catalogue – it had been "rode hard and put up wet" on college-dorm turntables (clunky but indestructible old Garrards with quarters taped to the tone arm) and most of the sides were pitted from ancient cigarette-ash spillage. Four months ago, however, I acquired a second-hand "promo" set from a radio station rummage sale. Appeared unplayed! But as I set about dubbing those LPs, I had a moment’s hesitation. I hadn’t played a side of Watanabe’s Sibelius in twenty years. Would it hold up?

Mostly it did indeed. The least successful item is the First Symphony, where the Japanese ensemble sounds shabby and cramped and provincial, with ragged strings, uninteresting winds, dull brass, and flaccid timpani. Watanabe also sounds temperamentally unsuited for this most romantic and un-buttoned of all the Seven. Moreover, Epic’s recording really sucks, at least one of these two sides does: gritty, ill-focused, and sort of veiled in terms of impact – bad bad things in this particular work. It got better – both sonics and playing – as the piece went on, so I ended up giving it maybe a C-minus.

All; the other symphonies, I’m happy to report, pretty much lived up to my recollection: 2 has a truly stirring finale; 3 features much-improved winds and that languorous, exquisitely broad tempo in the middle movement; 4 is really fine – stern and lonely-sounding; 5 almost makes the top tier of interpretations, and both 6 & 7 are distinguished by Watanabe’s knowing emphasis on inner voices and dark harmonic underpinning – the Tokyo strings are still not world-class (as they certainly are now!), but the requisite warmth and atmosphere are there in full measure, abetted by sound that is at least adequate, compared to the rough-and-tumble sonics on the first disc. OK, then, here are the listings, for anyone Out There who also has a nostalgic yen, or just plain curiosity, about this now-legendary Sibelius cycle (and I know there are such people, because every now and then I’ll read a new issue of Fanfare or ARG and some critic will refer to the "impossibly rare Watanabe set". Rare no more! Yours for a pittance!]

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1, Op. 39. [37:34]

" " " 2, Op. 43. [41:08]

" " " 3, Op. 52 [30:45] All w/ Japan Philharmonic Orchestra

" " " 4, Op. 63 [34:39]

" " " 5, Op. 82 [30:02]

" " " 6, Op. 104 [26;58]

" " " 7, Op. 105 [20:48]

New additions to

THE OLIVER DANIEL / DONALD J. OTT "ARCHIVE OF RECORDED AMERICAN MUSIC"

[If you missed my previous explanation of who Oliver was, how important his activities were to American music during the Fifties & Sixties, you can find a full background essay (which you can not only view, but also print out in hard copy format) by clicking on the hot-link of the web site. Suffice it to say that these are incredibly rare and valuable recordings; in some cases, they are the ONLY recordings; in a few cases, my Source copy is a control-room acetate Oliver made for his own collection…in other words, the ONLY KNOWN COPY IN THE WORLD. This web site is, in fact, the only authorized retail outlet for this material anywhere on the globe. In the months to come, I’ll be listing more than 1000 additional goodies, so we’ve only scratched the surface up to this point. Every disc is in good or better condition. Amazing and important documents! Read on!!]

Concerto for Cello & Orchestra. Stephen Kates, cello; Jorge Mester; Louisville Orchestra

Die Natalie, Op. 37. Jorge Mester; Louisville Orchestra. [Barber’s ingenious re-working of eight familiar Christmas Carols really ought to be one of his most popular orchestral works, but it hardly ever gets played. What kind of mass stupor could induce such indifference? I haven’t a clue, but just because "everybody else" is too witless to know a good piece of accessible music when they hear it doesn’t mean we have to follow them into the Land of the Philistines. Look, it’s just as pretty and soothing and quietly joyous as you’d expect, so do yourself a service and listen to it (at least!) and be that much further along in understanding that the majority of 20^th-Century music is every bit as rewarding as most of the stuff composed in the Nineteenth! If you come away from your listening experiences based on this web site with such a belief, then I will die a happier man. Truly.]

Tangents. Grant Johannesen, piano. [18:15] [Despite the colorless "modern music" title this suite of keyboard trifles turns out to be a delight.]

Signs and Alarms. Stokowski; CBS Symphony, live 1953. [A frenetic, percussive, thoroughly annoying piece of music – about the least appealing thing I’ve ever heard from this composer. That said, Stokie performs it brilliantly.]

CAGE, John, with NEUHAUS, Max: Fontana Mix. [As some of you probably know, Fontana Mix is one of Cage’s most famous/notorious ‘indeterminancy" pieces. Here’s the gimmick: you have a sheet of transparent sheets with dots on them and opaque sheets with lines on them. Mix ‘em up on top of each other and use them – in a manner left up to the performer – to dictate placement of four adjustable resistors, which generate random feedback, and control the amount of amplification. The four feedback "channels" set up vibrations in contact microphones placed on percussion instruments set up in front of four loudspeakers. The chap running the "happening" adjusts the input gradually, the vibrations move the mikes across the instruments, feedback loops are generated, and although the "score" remains the same until the operator chooses to change it, the sounds generated shift and rise and fall in volume. Got that? OK! So what does it sound like? Think forty minutes of listening to carrier-wave noise from a poorly tuned radio. I suppose there are audible differences between these four takes, but I can’t hear them – or maybe I just find the whole thing so laughable I don’t want to make the effort. Whatever.

On this semi-commercial disc, from the long-defunct "mass art" label (clever, no?), you can listen to, or sample, performances recorded on the following dates and in the following venues: Madrid, Nov. 27, 1965 [10:37]…New York, Dec. 1, 1966 [11:05]…Chicago, April 13, 1965 [9:47]…New York again, June 4, 1965 [10:02] – Bon appetite! And if you can listen to all four at one time, you’re a braver soul than I! You may find it consciousness-expanding; I found it about as musical and appealing as a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I understand that, in person, these sounds were ear-splittingly loud; Neuhaus suggests, in his program notes, that you cut your home amplifier up to twice the normal listening volume. I wouldn’t if I were you… My dog began howling five minutes into the disc; I began howling eight minutes into it.]

Sonata for Solo Clarinet. Richard Rehfeldt, clarinet. [4:27] [Dating from 1933, this is prime early John Cage, with some at-the-time really far-out aleatoric effects ("no pitch is to be repeated until a certain number of other pitches has been played. Phrasing and dynamics throughout are left up to the performer." In this case, Mr. Rehfeldt demonstrates why he was a stalwart of the post-war avant-garde scene; he delivers the goods in a smooth, assured manner, completely comfortable with the Cage-ian aesthetic and lavishing the same care on this nine-minute work as most clarinetists would on a piece by Schubert. Essential for Cage collectors/ devotees. The engineer and producer was famed Philip F. Dering, who issued this & a dozen other solo clarinet pieces as an anthology, on his own label: Advance Records. This is REAL music and rather sunny, optimistic music at that.]

Piano Sonata (1945). Beveridge Webster, piano.

" " " . Charles Rosen, piano. [21:22] [Interesting contrasts here; Webster plays this tough, knotty music with a shade more sort-of Impressionist color, while Rosen chisels it out in a manner almost Classical. Both are superb pianists; the fact that this sonata "works" equally well under two such diverse approaches sort of confirms its stature, although, like most of Carter’s earlier works, it hasn’t really caught on with the general public.]

Pocahontas – Suite from the Ballet. Jacques Monod; Zurich Radio Symphony.Orch. [21:24] [Well, you wouldn’t expect the Zurich outfit to handle this early and pleasantly accessible ballet score with the greatest aplomb, and they don’t – however, it’s enlightening to hear them struggle to render it like some kind of Futuristic experiment by MacDowell that went horribly wrong and left him with his head permanently stuck up his…well, you know. Something has to explain why America’s first internationally known composer was so emotionally constipated except when he was writing Wild Redskin music…wait, we were talking about Elliott Carter, weren’t we? How’d I get off on Ed MacDowell? I never get in a "MacDowell Mood"; I don’t often get in a Carter Mood, either, but I’m always glad, in retrospect, that I did. The man has such fierce integrity, compared to mountebanks like John Cage and Left-Bank Marxist buffoons like Stockhausen. Sure, you have to struggle to "get" Carter (well, not in Pocahontas you don’t!), but there are substantial rewards for doing so. Don’t be a sissy – listen to one Elliott Carter piece every six months. It’ll do ya good; purge your innards; melt the wax out of yr ears; and when you’ve done that, you can slide some Rachmaninoff into the CD player and feel virtuous about it.

"In the Beginning…" Composer conducting the New England Conservatory Chorus

" " " …" Gloria Surian, sop.; William Erlendson; San Jose State U. Chorus

Piano Variations. Grant Johannesen, piano. [11:48]

Twelve Poems by Emily Dickenson. Adele Addison, sop.; Composer on Piano.

COWELL: Symphony No. 14. Howard Hanson; Eastman Philharmonia. [Heavily influenced by Arabic/Moorish ethnic music, this is one of Cowell’s more exotic symphonies and has never been commercially recorded. Source is a 12-inch acetate disc made during live performance at the Eastman School; no date to be found, but the "early LP" type sound & format suggests 1952-1955. Not high fidelity sound, by any means, but clear, well-balanced and serviceable, The engineer was the fabled Richard Murlyn. Like so many of Cowell’s far-flung orchestral works, it’s strange but compelling, with an intricate & exciting percussion part and some eerie harmonics in the strings and winds – suggestive of something ritualistic perhaps. I timed it at roughly 18 minutes. Cowell fans – of whom there must be several dozen – should snap this up fast! The performance, BTW, is smashing.]

Tocatta for Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski; ‘His’ Symphony Orchestra; live, 9/25/1958. [5:35] [See comments under "Conductors" [12:28]

Epigraph. Swarowsky; American Recording society Orchestra

Two Nocturnes. Grant Johannesen, piano. [6:06]

Composition for Clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet.

Fantasia for String Trio. Homer Schmitt, violin; John Garvey, viola; Robert Swenson, cello; live, U. of Illinois Music Festival, 1957.

Chapters from Ecclesiastes. Barbara Wallace, soprano; Betty Lou Austin, contralto; Daniel Pinkham; Cambridge Festival Strings, King’s Chapel Choir, Boston. [10:30]

Concerto Romantico. Trampler, viola; Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra

Postcards from Morocco. William Hess, tenor; Stokowski; CBS Radio Symphony. Live, 1953 [Think "Escales" with an American accent – wonderfully colorful & exotic!]

Sunday Sing Symphony. Max Schoenherr; American Recording Society Orchestra. [Snobs turned up their noses at Green’s unabashedly nostalgic, Norman-Rockwell evocation of an earlier, simpler, time – indeed, his by line became synonymous with Reactionary fuddy-duddy to such an extent that his other music never had a chance and he faded into obscurity in record time. Honest to God, folks, this piece is no more simple-minded than Virgil Thomson’s re-workings of hymn tunes or Charles Ive’s, for that matter. Green’s goal here were modest and wholly sincere, and he achieved them – wherein lies his aesthetic crime? Doesn’t matter, of course; "Right’s got nothin’ to do with it!" as Clint Eastwood snarled in "Unforgiven", just before he guns down the bartender in cold blood. However, these things are cyclic, and if a spiffy new recording came along (are you listening, Naxos? Or Brilliant? Its sales might be a pleasant surprise, because we’re more open-eared today and the audience is hungry for something new and more accessible. Marin Alsop could do this piece very well, I suspect. Anyway, here its only recording, couple with some Dello Joio and Mennin’s Concerto for Orchestra. What a nice assortment! As for the "American Recording Society Oech, persistent rumors ID that band as the Vienna Symphony, and I’ve read that a typical rehearsal/taping session involved, per composition, one hour of rehearsal and usually no more than two takes of any given passage, which accounts for the cautiousness the players exhibit. On the other hand, ARS never claimed their records were "the ultimate in hi-fi" or anything like that, only that they were the token representation until a bigger, better ensemble came along, and the label did yeoman service to the cause of American music at a time when such advocacy was critical.]

Piano Concerto. Leo Smit, pianio; Walter Hendl; ARS Symphony Orchestra

American Ballads. Grant Johannesen, piano [10:10]

Adagio for Orchestra. Stokowski; Symphony of the Air, live, 1961. [8:01]

Mysterious Mountain. Stokowski; "His" Symphony Orchestra; live, 9/25/1958. [18:48] [See comments under "Conductors"]

To The God Who Lives in Fire (For Male Chorus & Percussion). Robert Shaw; Percussion Ensemble and Male Chorus of Illinois University, live, 1957. [Short, six minutes, but potent incantation on … well, you know Hovhaness; on some kind of Tibetan ritual or Vedic Hymn or some-damn-Himalayan-thing. It’s very Rite-of-Spring-ish, builds to a whopping climax, and belies the composer’s customary benign qualities – music to sacrifice virgins by. The performance, recorded at the 1957 Illinois U. Festival, finds even genteel Robert Shaw in a barbaric mood; a better reading is hard to imagine.]

Largo Cantabile for Strings. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 2/7/1954

The Unanswered Question. " " " " " , 1953

Washington’s Birthday. " " " " " , 1954

Concerto for Winds, Op. 123. The Berkshire Wind Ensemble.

Choral Triptych. Daniel Pinkham; King’s Chapel Choir, Boston, & Cambridge Festival Strings. [12:53]

Round Dance & Polka. Camerata; New Symphony Orchestra of London.

The Bell-Tower (Opera in One Act). John Garvey, conductor; Soloists, chorus, & orchestra of the 1957 U. of Illinois Festival. [Commissioned for this event, The Bell Tower is based on a short story by Herman Melville of the same name. Krenek wrote the libretto, too. It’s a rather heavy-handed allegory set in the treacherous but opulent never-never land that was 19^th-Century Americans’ notion of Renaissance Italy, complete with alchemists, dwarves, villainous aristocrats, suborned innocents, senseless tragedy – you know, all the qualities of life that made 15^th-Century Italy such a fun place to be. The student vocalists are startlingly good in roles that cannot have come easily to them. The music is thinly but effectively scored for chamber-sized orchestra, and is firmly rooted in Krenek’s post-Minneapolis style, sort-of atonal-but-not-quite, the overall sound is fairly accessible, mostly falling somewhere between Sprechstimme declamation and Wozzeck-like free-wheeling harmonies, touching base fleetingly at recognizable centers of tonal gravity so the effect isn’t too severe for the kind of audience Krenek knew would be in attendance. Recognizable quasi-themes float in and out of focus, and the instrumental accompaniment is always appropriate to the text. The piece grew on me and after three listenings, I concluded that it was indeed well-suited for its venue – decidedly modernist music but not hermetic or aggravatingly noisy. Delicacy of color is, in fact, one of its strongest qualities. For what it’s worth, if the volume of applause is anything to judge by, the opening night audience was more than just politely enthusiastic. As quickly as it emerged, though, The Bell-Tower sank out of sight again, and I cannot recall reading about any subsequent performances, although given its suitability for student talent, there must have been some. But then, come to think of it, I can’t remember more than a handful of performances of ANY Krenek operas, with the predictable exception of Johnny Spielt Auf (or, as my friend William Walker likes to call it, "Johnny Chucks Up"…). This composer’s long overdue for a reassessment and if you’re curious about his works, here’s a splendid place to start, especially since there has never been a commercial recording of this opera. The sonics are a bit coarse – live recording in a college auditorium, etc. – but perfectly serviceable mono with just a few patches of light surface grunge. Total time is about 61 minutes, leaving ample space on your CD for either the Irving Fine or the Gunther Schuller chamber works listed here from the same 1957 event, and both of those pieces are major additions to their respective composer’s catalogues.].

Monologue for Clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet. [4:27]

A Set for Clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet. [8:45]

Pumpkin Eaters Little Fugue. Camerata; New Symphony of London. [The music is as delightful as the title! Perfect piece for a pops concert or as a palate-cleanser between Serious Stuff on a regular concert program. Source here is an ancient London LP, and the one-name conductor leads a reading of near-explosive energy, captured in warm, well-balanced sound. I didn’t even know London ever had an "American Music Series (of which this is Vol. One), but if the other albums are as lively and well-chosen as this one, I hope to locate them and list their contents. This ten-minute bit of japery is really quite brilliantly scored!]

Workout for Small Orchestra. Camerata; New Symphony of London. [See remarks above. If anything, this piece is even jauntier and more delightful than the Pumpkin Eaters.]

Concerto for Piano & Wind Octette (sic). Grant Johannesen, piano; Surinach; Wind Ensemble

Concertanto for Orchestra. Swarowsky; American Recording Society orchestra

In the Valley of the Moon. Camerata; New Symphony Orch. of London. [A clean-lined, easy to like lullaby, commissioned by Camerata and therefore a bit TOO simple perhaps. No, No, that’s unkind, Trotter – although I generally regard one-name-only artists as being affected assholes, Camerata does give warm sympathetic readings of everything listed here under his baton. And I’m sure composer McBride didn’t care if the commission came from a uni-moniker or a guy with more names than the crown prince of Monaco.]

Air & Scherzo for Flute, Strings & Harp. Camerata; same observation from me.

Sleepy Hollow Suite. Camerata; New Symphony Orch. of London. [Pretty much what you’d expect…]

The Return of Odysseus (for baritone solo, narrator, chorus & orchestra). Robert Shaw, conductor; Bruce Foote, baritone; Preston Tuttle, narrator/Soothsayer; vocal & instrumental ensembles of the U. of Illinois; live, 1957. A native of Nebraska, Mr. Phillips enjoyed a long and distinguished career, both in Academia and outside of its battlements, winning a Koussevitzky Fellowship and a Guggenheim, and teaching at Eastman, and at the U. of Colorado as well as the U. of Illinois. This cantata-like work reminds me, and why not, of Carl Orff, and is a straightforward, non-gimmicky retelling of the Homeric story; it held my attention without providing any truly memorable passages (which Orff usually does, even in a work as long-winded and monotonous as Antigone). A conventional-sized orchestra is called for, with augmented percussion battery (natch!) including piano obbligato. Much general clangor and choral declamation, resounding statements about the Gods and Man’s Fate, etc., you know how it’ll go from the start, but it goes there agreeably enough – in a well-staged live performance, it might have considerably more impact than it does here; that said, guest conductor Shaw has the student chorus polished to a keen edge and the orchestra under control and it all goes well. It won’t leave you panting to hear more of Phillips’ music (but see below, where you do get a second exposure to his work), but it won’t make you yawn either. A worthy exercise in solid craftsmanship, then, if not a particularly inspired or exciting take on the familiar story and themes. Time: roughly 48 minutes.]

Three Pieces, for Flute, Clarinet & bassoon. The Berkshire Woodwind Ensemble

Aria & Toccata, for Viola & String Orchestra. Walter Trampler, viola; Carlos Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra

New Dance. Stokowski; "His" Symphony Orchestra; live, 9/25/1959. [5:35] [Hot as a three-dollar pistol…]

Symphony No. 4. Robert Shaw; Boston Symphony Orchestra, live [No date indicated, but this is another one-off Richard Murlyn "control room" acetates, so my guess would be late 1957 or early 1958. Shaw elicits a sharply-etched, rhythmically intense reading from the BSO, whose dark lustrous sonority flatters the music immensely. Good mono sound except for a mysterious 60-cycle hum deep under the orchestral sound, and you don’t notice that except right at the very start. Gratifyingly, the coughs & program-rattling intrudes very little. There’s never been a formal studio recording of this symphony, either, so let’s rejoice in the knowledge that two non-commercial versions have survived.]

Symphony No. 4. Bernard Goodman; U. of Illinois Symphony Orchestra. [Why am I listing two versions of this work? Pure happenstance. Maestro Shaw learned it from this premier in 1957, and included it on his program when he guest-conducted the Boston Symphony some months later. Hands-down, of course, the BSO plays rings around the Midwestern students, but their work here is nothing to sneer at – it is challenging music and they come to grips with palpable enthusiasm. I happen to think it’s also one hell of a good "American"-sounding symphony; like many of Riegger’s works, it deserves a better fate than its current near-total obscurity: it’s accessible, lyrical, dramatic, discursive, and a bit eccentric – it may be the sort of thing Ives would have written if he had ever come down off his ivory cloud long enough to give a damn what audiences thought about his egregiously over-complicated and shamelessly derivative music. But he didn’t, so he’s a much harder "sell" than Riegger; he’s also, in my humble opinion, staggeringly over-rated, but we’ll save that tirade for another time. Timing runs about 40 minutes, so there’s room for another Illinois festival work on your CD – a fact which might make this performance more appealing than the one from Boston, despite the slicker, much more polished playing showcased in the latter recording. So here’s a perfect example of what this web site can do for the cause: two very different, but equally worthy, interpretations of a major American symphony, at a bargain price, and in the half-century since it was composed, there hasn’t been one commercial recording! If you’re a fan of that whole wide-open prairie aesthetic, if you like Roy Harris and Copland in his Populist vein, for instance, I think it’s reasonable to assume you’ll find this symphony a source of much pleasure.]

Sonata for Woodwinds. The Berkshire Wind Ensemble.

Two Psalms & A Prayer. Daniel Pinkham; Cambridge Festivasl Strings & King’s College Chapel Choir. [8:15]

Festive Overture. Stokowski; "His" Symphony Orchestra, live, 9/25/1958. [9:15] [Irresistably exciting & colorful!]

Matrix for clarinetist. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet [10:11]

Song of the Wood Dove from "Gurrelieder". Martha Lipton, mezzo; Stokowski; NYPO, rec. 11/28/1949. [12:28]

String Quartet No. 1. The Walden String Quartet; live, from the 1957 U. of Illinois Festival. [

Piano Sonata No. 2. Beveridge Webster, piano. 13:08]

String Quartet No. 2. The New Music Quartet (Broadus Earle & Matthew Raimondi, violins; Walter Trampler, viola; David Soyer, Cello)

SONGS BY AMERICAN COMPOSERS: [This phenomenal three-disc collection was issued 45 years ago and has appeared on at least two labels, the last time on Desto in the early Seventies. There’s been nothing like it before or since: fifty-odd songs by 30 or so composers, divided into tenor, soprano, etc. For singers, it is an invaluable resource; for connoisseurs of the vocal art, it is a feast. In lieu of any better idea, I’m simply listing the titles as they are listed on the program folder, with "Songs for Soprano Voice" coming first. In each category, the soloist and accompanist are the same, so I haven’t bothered re-typing that information each time. Observe that these are not obscure singers, beginning with our first rather formidable lady…]

Suite for Woodwinds. The Berkshire Wind Ensemble.

Symphony No. 1. Dean Dixon; ARS Symphony Orchestra

WEBER, Ben (1916 -- ): Rapsodie Concertante, Op. 47. Walter Trampler; Carlos Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra. [Weber’s fertile imagination & natural bent as a composer inclined him to romantic utterance; social/academic pressures compelled him to write in the 12-tone idiom. He came close to reconciling this oil-and-water mix (particularly in his William Blake Songs, recorded by Stokowski – and listed in the "Repertoire Catalogue" here – but by choosing to fight that battle Weber probably alienated the very audience that might have been drawn to his music in concert. Too bad, really, because this and the Blake songs were his only orchestral works to be recorded. If you can at least tolerate serialism, you’ll probably find a lot to admire in this score, which Surinach conducts with his usual zest and Trampler plays sensationally well.]

Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet [8:00]

The Prayer of Jonah. Daniel Pinkham; King’s Chapel Choir, Cambridge; Cambridge Festival Strings. [10:40] [As you may have noticed when browsing the main data base catalogues, I actively loath and despise Wuorinen’s haughtily obscurantist music, along with the neo-Babbittian codswallop he always appends to "explain" it to the un-enlightened masses. Hey, Charles, can you dig it: this is MUSIC! You don’t, or SHOULDN’T, need to "explain" it to anybody, and if you HAVE to "explain" it for anybody but your theory professors to understand it, then is DOESN’T WORK as music! Still, you have to hand it to the little dweeb – he’s the only unrepentant 12-tonist still foisting this hoax on the public, and the sum-bitch gets big fat grants out the wazoo every year. Too bad I can’t figure out how to perpetrate a similar scam with words. What was that, Skippy? "It’s already been done?" Oh, yes, you’re right! I forgot about Finnegan’s Wake! (Well, anyway, I’ve TRIED to forget about it…)

However, let no one label me a Closed-Ear. Here is what Mr. Wuorinen says about this atypical score, so at least you can satisfy curiosity on some level or another:

"The terms of the commission…caused me to effect certain simplifications to my customary style…for example, the series on which the work is constructed abounds in tonal references, and the rhythmic milieu [[ ‘RHYTHMIC MILIEU ??? Christ on a pogo stick!]] of the piece avoids complex polyrhythmic situations, there being none more complex than two-against-three and its derivatives…"

Right, Chuck – you tell ‘em!

. I’ll take a stab at translating that, for the benefit of all us lowly plebes who might someday find ourselves trapped, all unbeknownst, in a "polyrhythmic situation": "The Philistines who commissioned this piece wouldn’t give me my money until I promised to write something not utterly repellant and alienating to 99% of the attendees; the compromise was agonizing! But the phone bill needed paying…"

And I suppose it’s for that shameful reason that I find this choral work, for all its distancing austerity, not a great deal harder to absorb than Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. I won’t be returning to it often (if ever), but at least it didn’t strike me as the aural equivalent of dog vomit.

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REPERTOIRE

Soundtrack music from "David Copperfieldt". [Sir Malcolm’s career as a film-music composer serves as a marvelous pendant to his glorious achievements as a composer of "serious" concert works – and most of it is so damned good, the suites he arranged could easily compliment any concert program; conductors shouldn’t reserve them for "pops" occasions. And in the U.S., even pops concerts have become trivialized – Note to all pops conductors in my readership (you know who you are!): just study the programming Fiedler and Kunzel have done and use them as your role models. Anyway, this is splendidly "Dickensian" music and a perfect joy to the ear; bittersweet passages of Elgarian sweep alternate with scintillating musical character sketches. The composer, as always, proves to be a first-rate conductor (all his years playing IN professional orchestras gave him a fine instinct for coaxing committed playing FROM them), but I can’t tell you which ensemble it is – my Source is a cassette mailed to be from the U.K. by a fellow Arnold fan, now deceased, and he didn’t label the tape. Sound per se, however, is full and rich.]

Suite Barrocca, Op. 23. Composer; Swedish Radio Sym. Orchestra.

Suite Pastorale, Op. 34. Composer; Swedish Radio Orchestra. [Although his music still hasn’t caught on outside of Scandinavia, ignorance of it merely deprives you of some exquisitely melodic, colorful, life-affirming compositions. He was not, probably, a "major" composer, but Atterberg seemed incapable of writing anything ugly or meretricious. These performances have a beguiling sweetness and commitment, although the SRSO was by no means a world-class outfit when they were recorded, in the mid-Fifties. Give yourself a treat – try him. But start with one of the symphonies, as they have more spine, power, and depth than his casual music, delightful though it is.]

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Lorin Hollander, piano. [4:16]

BABBITT, Milton: [Why do I insist on flogging this dead hor…err, this chubby bald-headed old fart? Well, he asked for it by writing such hermetic cyborgian music and then having the chutzpah to demand he be taken seriously as a "composer"; and we asked for it by allowing him to get away with it – showering grant money and perks on a guy who persisted in writing music that nobody ever liked (how can you "like" a quadratic equation?) and thumbing his snoot at composers (such as Hovhaness) who wrote music that large numbers of people adored!) Besides, ol’ Milt’s been pulling off this scam for so long, and doing it so well, that it’s hard not to have a sneaky admiration for him. He’s one-step-beyond that "Punkt-Kontra-Punkt" self-parody stage, sort of like the Dark Side version of John Cage (whose scam was just as successful; he managed to enjoy the status and fame of a great composer without even composing! Pay his fee, and he’d show up and talk about "silence"…or not talk about it, as the whim-of-the-moment carried him. I saw him deliver what was billed as being part of the SECA "concert/lecture" series, about 15 years ago, and he actually did that without ever playing a note or saying a word; he just stood behind the podium, wearing this whimsical little smile, while some intern in the control booth played a tape of Cage being interviewed by a clueless and boringly inept student journalist. And for this he was paid ten grand plus expenses! Where do I sign?)

Back to Babbitt. Here are two fairly early…um…"compositions" wherein some first-rate musicians lend their credibility to the hoax. It’s perfectly dreadful rubbish, of course, but takes itself so seriously that all music-lovers should hear a dose of it now and then, just to be reminded of how bad things really got in the Sixties! Two or three times, the musical discourse threatens, just for an instant, to morph into a recognizable cadence or even a suggestion of melody, but – not to worry!! – The Babbs always knows when to pull back into algebraic abstraction before that happens; he’s just toying with us.]

Composition for Four Instruments, 1948. John Wummer, flute; Stanley Drucker, clarinet; Peter Marsh, violin; Donald McCall, cello [13:30]

Composition for Viola & Piano (1950). Walter Trampler, viola; Alvin Bauman, piano. [11:16]

Romanian Dances. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 1954

BAVICCHI, John (1922 - ) [A Boston-born composer with an interesting, very cosmopolitan style; these two brief works are the first by him I’ve heard and they didn’t outstay their welcome. Made me very curious to hear some of his orchestral music, too.]

Trio No. 4, Op. 33. David Glazer, clarinet; Matthew Raimondi, violin; Assunta Dell’Aquito, harp. [12:06]

Short Sonata for Violin & Harpsichord, Op. 39. Robert Brink, violin; Daniel Pinkham, harpsichord. [6:55]

Overture to a Picaresque Comedy. Igor Buketoff; Royal Philharmonic Orch. [9:50] [Alongside Bax-the-Celtic-Poet, there was Bax-the-urbane-sophisticate, and this is a prime example of that side of the composer’s genius. Witty, dazzlingly orchestrated, a perfect curtain-raiser; almost certainly never performed in America, and, again, one wonders why. Buketoff was (is?) a fine conductor, who made some excellent discs of contemporary music for RCA (back in the halcyon days when RCA WAS "RCA" instead of a mediocre arm of BMG; he also made one of the more spectacular versions of the "1812 Overture"! Where is he now? Why hasn’t this record been reissued (Bax, Berkely, Bennett)? Only God and the Shaded Dog know, my friends…]

Coriolanus Overture, Op. 68. Keilberth; Hamburg State Philharmonic Orch.

Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138. Scherchen; Vienna State Opera Orchestra.

Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72-A. Scherchen; Vienna State Opera Orchestra.

Overture to Egmont, Op. 84. Furtwangler; Berlin Philharmonic Orch., live, 1947. [See comments below.]

Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58. Rubenstein; Leinsdorf; Boston Symphony Orch.

Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor". Rudolf Firkushny; Uri Segal; New Philharmonia Orch. [36:07] [Fully competitive, thanks to Firkushny’s lavish keyboard colors & dramatic flair, Segal’s solid accompaniment, and lush Phase Four sonics.]

Sonata No. D minor, ("Tempest"). Lorin Hollander, piano. [26;10]

Songs – Scottish, Irish & English, Opp. 226, 224, & 225. Robert White, tenor; Yo-Yo Ma; Ani Kavafian & Samuel Sanders, accompanying. [See comment under "Vocalists & Operas"]

Symphony No. 1. Keilberth; Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Symphony No. 2 Keilberth; Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Symphony No. 3, "Eroica". Kleiber; Vienna Philharmonic Orch.

Symphony No. 4. Keilberth; Hamburg State Philharmonic Orch.

Symphony No. 5. Furtwangler; Berlin Philharmonic Orch., live, 1947. [OK, amigos, this is The One To Have If You’re Having Only one – Furtwangler versions of the Fifth, that is. This was his first public concert in Berlin after two-and-a-half-years of idleness and frustration, while the Occupation authorities weighed mountains of testimony about whether or not Furtwangler colluded with the Nazis (the movie Taking Sides got a surprising amount of this ordeal right; do see it if you can). Now he was cleared, and a huge wave of pent-up adulation swept him and the orchestra on to heights of inspiration seldom equaled even by this great conductor. This is a Fifth for the ages; hewn from marble, with titanic climaxes, captured for radio broadcast in good, mostly undistorted mono sound. It’s the perfect example to use when someone asks you "what all the fuss was about" regarding Furtwangler’s Beethoven interpretations. A first-time listener is either going to be knocked off his feet by this or appalled by its waywardness and subjectivity. Frankly, the level of intensity is too much for me unless I’m in just the right mood – there’s no need for every performance to be an eschatological death-match…]

Symphony No. 6. Kleiber; London Philharmonic Orchestra. [Sleek, athletic, graceful – Toscanini but with more elegance and flow.]

Symphony No. 7. Kleiber; Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.

Symphony No. 8. Keiberth; Hamburg State Philharmonic Orch.

Symphony No. 8. Casals; Marlboro Festival Orchestra, live, 1961. [See comments under "Conductors"]

Symphony No. 8. Boult; BBC Symphony Orch., 1932. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Symphony No. 9, Op. 125. Kleiber; Vienna Philharmonic Orch.; Singverein Chorus; Hilda Gueden, sop.; Siglinde Wagner, cont.; Anton Dermota, tenor; Ludwig Weber, bass. [A wonderful performance, in a classical, Weingartner-ish manner. It avoids emotional extremes a little too much for my taste, but I still find it eminently listenable & rewarding. Very good warm mono sound, although the timpani lack the last degree of needed presence.]

Symphony No. 1. Buketoff; Royal Philharmonic. [22:32] [One-step-beyond-Walton! A bustling, tough-minded score that manages to be thoroughly accessible without compromising the modernity of its idiom. There were orchestral works of this quality being written in the Sixties; they were just drowned out by the trendier, louder voices shrieking for attention while audiences covered their ears and turned away in droves from the concert hall, a pernicious syndrome whose effects are still hurting the cause of live music. Anyway, this is a splendid symphony, given a dazzling performance by a conductor who Knew The Secret.]

Divertimento in B-flat. Igor Buketoff; Royal Philharmonic Orch. [18:37]

Piano Quintet No. 2. Howard Karp, piano; Pro Arte String Quartet

Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80. Sir John Barbirolli; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. [11:23]. [See comments under "Conductors’]

Intermezzo B-flat minor, Op. 117/ No. 12. Lorin Hollander, piano [5:17]

Piano Concerto No. 1. Firkushny; Steinberg; Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 2. Edward Kilenyi, piano; w/ Jonel Perlea; RIAS Symphony, Berlin.

Symphony No. 1. Munch; Boston Symphony Orchestra. [A strong, manly reading.]

Symphony No. 1, Op. 68. Barbirolli; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. [44:45]

Symphony No. 2, Op. 73. " " " " [44:49]

Symphony No. 3, Op. 90. " " " " [35:53]

Symphony No. 4, Op. 98. [47:17]

Tragic Overture, Op. 81. Barbirolli; Vienna Philharmonic Orch. [13:05]

Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56-a. " " " [18:23] [For comment on all of these magnificent readings, see under "Conductors"]

Signs and Alarms. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 1953

Profundium Praeludium, for Double Bass & String Orchestra. Composer; Gary Karr, bass; Chamber Orchestra of McGill University. [23:23] [A major addition to the still-minuscule repertoire of concert works for double-bass. Needless to say, Mr. Karr makes his ungainly instrument produce as astonishing array of tone colors and expressive nuances. You’re unlikely ever to find this work issued by a major label, which is a shame, but this Radio Canada issue isn’t likely to be surpassed, either; not in our lifetimes, anyway.]

Fontana Mix [See comment under "Oliver Daniel Archive"]

Sonata for clarinet. " " " " "

"Pocahontas", Ballet in One Act. Jacques Monod; Zurich Radio Symphony Orchestra

Piano Sonata. Charles Rosen, piano. [If you’re ever going to like the piano sonata, Rosen wull be the man to open it for you – he’s that fune a player

Sinfonia India. Kenneth Klein; Orquestra Sinfonica Nactional de Mexico. [12:30]. [Starting with the composer’s own interpretation on an early Everest LP, c. 1959, this hyper-kenetic & brilliantly scored work has gained deserved popularity. Frankly, I’ve never heard a bad recording of it, and the very talented Maestro Klein (who seems for the moment to have vanished), brings plenty of energy to this idiomatic reading – helped by glorious sonics (the gut-punch of the low percussion!). What a piece this is!]

24 Preludes for Orchestra. Clark Bruck; Orchestre Philharmonique d’ORTF. [15:51]

Dance Symphony. Morton Gould; Chicago Symphony Orch. [19:09][Why this work is so seldom performed is a mystery; it’s one of Copland’s strongest orchestral offerings; the style is not forbiddingly "modernist", although it’s unmistakably 20-th-Century; Gould conducts the living tar out of it and the CSO musicians, who adored playing under him, are just sensational.]

In the Beginning… Erlendsohn; San Jose State College Chorus

Adoramus Te, Chrstie… William Erlendson; San Jose State U. Chorus

Six Hungarian Dances. Vilmos Tatrai; Budapest Chamber Orchestra. [These two works let you hear exactly where Bartok & Kodaly came from – gypsy rhythms and swirling czardas; toe-tappers, in fabulously idiomatic readings]

"Love for the Fatherland". Vilmos Tatrai; Budapest Chamber Orchestra.

Children’s Corner Suite (Orch. by Caplet). Felix Slatkin; Concert Arts Orchestra [Felix was Leonard’s dad, and a mighty fine conductor in his own right; his contract with Capitol Records limited him to "light" music, but like Fiedler and Kostelanetz, he understood that ‘light" music is not necessarily "trivial" music. He captures the elusive mood of these two Debussy orchestrations just perfectly (this and the Petite Suite listed below) ; each is an unalloyed joy. The "Concert Arts" orchestra, by the way, was made up of moon-lighting musicians from the L.A. Philharmonic and from the huge pool of talent orbiting around the Hollywood studios – the personnel may have changed somewhat from gig to gig, but the level of playing was always high, no matter who was conducting them

Clair de Lune (orchestrated by L.S.). Stokowski; "His Symphony Orchestra", rec. circa 1950.

Danses Sacree et Profane. Marcel Grandjany, harp; w/ Hollywood String Quartet. [See comment under "Solo Virtuosi" below.]

Nocturnes. Stokowski; "His Symphony Orch."; Robert Shaw Chorale. [See comments under "Conductors"]

Petite Suite. Felix Slatkin; Concert Arts Orchestra.

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Stokowski; "His Symphony Orchestra", recorded c. 1950

Epigraph. Swarowsky; ARS Orchestra

Songs of Sunset. Sir Thomas Beecham; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra & BBC Chorus. [Names of soloists, date & venue not given on Source; no matter – I doubt I’ll ever hear this faded Edwardian valentine of a piece performed more fervently or with richer atmosphere. Hail, Sir Thomas! Time is about half-an-hour; it just seems longer…]

Composition for clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet. [6;150

Scherzo Capriccioso, op. 66. Wolfgang Sawallisch; Philharmonic Orchestra.

Symphony no. 8, Op. 86. " ‘ " ‘ [Back in 1957, when this was still known as the Fourth Symphony, Walter Legge engaged Sawallisch to record one of the few versions in the catalogue. It turned out to be one of his best recordings, and it’s worth acquiring for the orchestra’s sound alone (it’s rumored this was one of Dennis Brain’s last orchestral recordings as first horn – whoever it is, he plays like an angel). Too bad Wolfgang rarely lived up to his own early best standard. I still adore this recording, though.]

Sonata for Bassoon & Piano. Sol Schoenbach, bassoon; Joseph Levinne, piano

Dances from "The Three-Cornered Hat". Albert Wolff; Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. [9:59]

Sonata No. One. Heifitz, violin; Lillian Steuber, piano. [14:47]

Chapters from Ecclesiastes. [See comment under "Oliver Daniel Archive")

Air in the form of a Sarabande. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch, live 1954

Symphony in D Minor. Guido Cantelli; NBC Symphony Orchestra. [See comments under "Conductors"; experimental stereo from 1954!]

Line Studies. Walter Trampler, viola; Julius Baker, flute; David Glazer, clarinet; Erwin Price, trombone

Sones de Mariachi. Klein; Orchestre Sinfonica de Mexico. [8:26] [A real barn-burner! Deranged mariacis dancing under an Aztec moon! Again, Klein delivers the goods.]

Ascendit Deus. William Erlendson; San Jose State U. Chorus

Postcards from Morocco. William Hess, tenor; Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 1953

Ballade in F major, Op. 78. Odissey Dimitriadi; USSR Large Radio & TV Orchestra. [8:49] [Why am I listing a clutch of mostly obscure Glazunov compositions (chips off the man’s very cluttered work-bench, but none without at least a few moments of charm & atmosphere)? Well…why not?]

The Forest, Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 19. Zsolt Deaky; Nuremberg Symphony Orch. [19:15]

Romantic Intermezzo, Op. 69. Dimitriadi; USSR Large Radio & TV Orch. [9:57]

Serenade for Orch., No. 1, in A Major, Op. 7. Dimitriadi; USSR Large Radio & TV Orch. [4:49]

Slavonic Festival, Op. 26. Dimitriadi; USSR Large Radio & TV Orch. [13:26]

Orchestral Suite ("Mittelalter" in the German program notes), Op. 79. Zsolt Deaky; Nuremberg Symphony Orch.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F minor, Op. 92. John Ogdon, piano; Paavo Berglund; Bournemouth Symphony Orch. [If the melodic material were just a bit more distinguished, I’ll bet this would have entered the working repertoire; it’s very agreeable music, even so, and Ogdon does everything any virtuoso could to make it exciting. He can’t do much to make it memorable, however, and so one finishes it with only a pleasant, vague impression of what one has heard. But that’s enough to induce me to play it once every year or two; if you’re a Glazunov fan, you’ll not find a better reading than this one.]

Sinfonia Concertante for String Quartet & String Orchestra. Brott; Chamber Orchestra of McGill University. [11:00]

Russian Sailor’s Dance from "The Red Poppy" Ballet. Mitropoulos; Minneapolis Symphony, 1940 [See comments under "Conductors"]

Dances from "A Life for the Tsar". Aldo Ceccato; Bamberg Symphony Orch.

"Prince Kholmsky", Suite of music from. Aldo Ceccato; Bamberg Symphony Orch. [Bright, zestful readings of music that should be better-known.]

Suite from the Ballets. Fritz Mahler; Hartford Symphony Orch.

Spirituals for Orchestra. Composer; Chicago Symphony. [20:38] [Definitive version of Gould’s most popular orchestral score; dynamite sonics and playing.]

The Children’s Hour Suite. Grandjany, harp. [Grandjany’s efforts to expand the concert-harp’s repertoire left several substantial works that other harpists have adopted – he had real talent as a composer, in other words, and was not just writing show-off trivialities for his own benefit. Both of these works, though of short duration (8-10 minutes tops) are absorbing and pleasingly melodic. Naturally, he performs them with superb aplomb.]

Sunday Sing Symphony. Max Schoenherr; ARS Orchestra.

Ballet Suite from "Cephale er Procis". Fritz Mahler; Hartford Symphony Orch.

Piano Concerto. Leo Smit, piano; Walter Hendl; ARS Orchestra

Suite from the Ballet "Don Lindo de Almeria". Klein; Orchestre Sinfonica de Mexico. [19:45] [The only recording so far of this exuberant and colorful score. If you liked, um, Ginastera’s Panambay music, you should like this equally as much.]

Adagio for Orchestra. Stokowski; Symphony of the Air, live, 1956 [8:01]

The "Pittsburgh" Symphony. Swarowsky; Suddeutsches Philharmonie. [Date, venue and everything else except conductor/orchestra names are missing from my Source cassette. When did the composer receive a commission to write a symphony ABOUT – or dedicated to or some-damn-thing – the city of Pittsburgh? Wish I could tell you, but my Source tape has no information, and according to the colleague in Canada who loaned it to me for dubbing, neither did HIS copy! He told me that HIS copy was sent from a guy in Germany, and even HE used a Source that was totally blank except for the title and conductor’s name. Readers, I implore you: when and how did Paul Hindemith become inspired to write this rather substantial piece??? Well, whatever, Swarowsky & the second-rate South German Radio Symphony turn in a first-rate performance of music that should satisfy any listener who already knows and likes the Symphony in E Flat. The get-down, get-funky ending will knock your sox off!]

Mysterious Mountain. Stokowski; "His" Symphony Orchestra; live, 1959. [No, this isn’t the same performance as the one issued recently on Chandos; see comment under "Conductors"]

To the God Who Lives in Fire… Robert Shaw; Men’s Chorus & Percussion Ensemble, U. of Illinois Festival, 1957. [See description in the "Oliver Daniel Archive" section.]

Overture to "Hansel & Gretel". Boult; BBC Symphony, rec. 1932. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Largo Cantabile for Strings. Stokowski; CBS Symphony, live, 1953

Symphony No. 1. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra [36:41]

Three Places in New England. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra. [Y’know, the accepted wisdom on the First Symphony is that Ives ended up writing a very clever rip-off of Dvorak and that the world of Music is infinitely better off because Ives realized this and took a huge left turn shortly after finishing the First, thereby becoming one of the great American rebels and a creator of uniquely visionary music.

The Unanswered Question. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 1953

Variations on "America", Orchestration by Wm. Schumann. Gould; Chicago Symphony Orchestra. [11:00]

Washington’s Birthday. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch., live, 1954

JONES, Daniel 1912 -- ): [A Welsh composer whose popularity grows every year, albeit slowly, he has written almost twenty symphonies, and if the others are half as entertaining and compelling as these, you’d have to regard him as a major composer. His style is that of tightly-argued neo-classicism, while his basic material is decidedly romantic in feeling. His command of structure is outstanding: these are tightly-argued works filled with unexpected moments of timbral richness and expressive power. The orchestration gleams with dark luster, the instrumental effects are simply gorgeous. Treat yourself to a sample today, and I’m convinced you’ll react as I did: "Wow! Where has this stuff been all my life?"

Jones: Symphony No. 8. Performers, venue and date unknown.

Requiem, for Those Who Fell in the Great Patriotic War. Composer conducting; Moscow State Philharmonic & Chorus; Valentina Levko, con.; Vladimir Valatis, bar. Approximate timing: 65:00. [Kabalevsky might or might not have been a great musical talent, at least in the beginning. He chose – most men would say wisely – to pursue a politically safe career, writing dozens of Party Line odes, festive overtures, and celebratory choruses for such memorable performing bodies as (I’m not making this up) the "Chorus of the Central House for Railwaymen’s Children", and the few works of his that percolated into Western orchestras’ repertoire (the Maskerade Suite in particular) revealed, at the very least, an acute ear for orchestral color, an exuberant rhythmic vitality, and a gift for second-rate melodies that were either "catchy" or "irritating’, depending on your mood when you heard them played. But by 1961, with the pressures of Stalinist conformity gradually easing, Kabelevsky seems to have had second thoughts about his life and works; it was his gloomy, politically suspect colleague Shostakovich who was getting all the respect of critics and audiences outside the USSR, while he was still known only as a purveyor of facile musical entertainment. When he decided to compose this requiem – a purely secular and politically sanitary one, of course – he obviously was making a bid for more respect, perhaps even immortality: a Big Statement; an ambitious work of High Seriousness that would prove, once and for all, that the scope of his gifts was larger and more worthy than anyone had suspected.

Reqiuem, For Those Who Died in the War Against Fascism. Composer conducting; Valentina Levko, contralto; Vladimir Valaitus, baritone; Orchestra & Chorus of the Moscow State Philharmonic. [time approximately 63:00]

Good Night! Composer; "Soloists Orchestra of the State Philharmonic" & Chorus. [2:30]

School Years. " " " " " " [3:25]

Songs of Morning, Spring, and Peace, Op. 57. – ditto -- [9:15]

Spring – Symphonic Poem, Op. 65. --- ditto --- [8:58]

Overture Pathetique, Op. 64. – ditto -- [3:20]

The Unit of Young Pioneers. --- ditto --- [1.08]

Choral Triptych. [See comments under "Oliver Daniel Archive"]:

Sonata No. One. Heifitz, violin; Lillian Steuber, piano. [14:50]

Concerto for Orchestra. Heinz Bongartz; Dresden Philharmonic Orch. [Bongartz was one of the better conductors in the old Urania stable of East German maestri – for an example of one of the worst, see "Prokofiev" below! – and he turns in a fine, animated reading of this colorful and scandalously under-performed score. Good sound, although the "stereo" claimed on the album is minimal and may be pseudo.]

Monologue for clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet [4:27]

String Quartet No. 2. Pro Arte Quartet. [22:55]

LIDHOLM, Ingvar (1912 -- ) [He’s long been considered one of the unrepentant wild men of post war Scandinavian music, so I – who had never heard a note of his music until two days ago – put this record on with some trepidation. I was not in the mood for either vacuous fireworks a la Xenakis or for attenuated navel-gazing, a la Scelsi. Well…this stuff kinda got to me. I mean, it’s not huggy-bear friendly, but it’s not hostile either – Lidholm’s not reluctant to unfold the occasional Big Gesture, nor is he gun-shy about letting big-hearted emotions coalesce out of his Modernist sensibilities (I loved the challenging, slashing string attacks about half-way through the Music for String Orchestra.. While the Zeitgeist of the late Twentieth Century is never far from the surface, this isn’t music of despair or nihilism. Overall, I was surprised and impressed – this is the work of a mature, skilled composer who has something to say and technical chops to burn while he says it. Okay, that last sentence gathered a bit of wool (early warning sign of Keyboard Fatigue), so let’s leave it at this: I liked this music a lot. Unless you’re simply allergic to anything written after 1945, chances are you’ll be glad to make this composer’s acquaintance.]

Greetings from an Old World. Composer; Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

La Campanella. Jean-Marie Barre, piano. [4:30]

" : Feux Follets. " " " " [3:44]

" : Harmonies du Soir. " " " " [7:45]

" : Petrarch Sonnet No. 125. " " " [6:17]

" : Sonata in B flat. " " " [32:26]

Les Preludes. Gunnar Stern; London Philharmonic Orch. [This and the two Smetana selections are from an ancient no-name LP, made in the dawn of commercial stereo. I presume "Gunnar Stern" was a real live conductor and not a nom-de-disque for someone better known, because he exhibits real personality and temperament. Too much so, many will think, as they listen to him self-consciously try to out-Mengelberg the Flying Dutchman on his own interpretive turf, with taffy-pull tempi and exaggerated luftpaussen all over the place. But, hey, Liszt can take it! In fact, any conductor who plays "Les Quaaludes" straight probably isn’t worth your time, right? Whoever Gunnar Stern was or is, he was a perversely interesting rascal, and the blasty, in-your-face sonics should be booked as accessories to over-indulgence-with-a-baton. Trash, sure, but rousing trash.]

Symphony No. 4. Horenstein; London Philharmonic Orch.; Margaret Price, soprano. [See comments under "Conductors"]

Sykmphony No. 7, "Della Canzoni". Mitropoulos; Minneapolis Symphony Orch., rec. 1940. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Huapango! Klein; Orchestre Sinfonica de Mexico. [8:47] [If you can sit still while this is playing, you’d better check your pulse…]

Set for clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet [8:45]

MASCAGNI: [I’ve always thought it was a shame that composers as gifted as Verdi, Puccini, and Mascagni didn’t try their hands seriously at symphonic music (well, Wagner too, for that matter, although he was diddling-around with the notion at the time of his death) but then, he was also contemplating an opera about the life of Jesus, so maybe it’s just as well…) – all were masters of the Big Moment and of colorful orchestration in general. These three relatively short examples of Mascagni at his crowd-pleasing best were attached to the old Angel set of "Cav", as filler for an otherwise empty fourth side, and two of them I’d never heard before last week. I’ve no idea what sort of convoluted nonsense went into the plot of "La Maschere", but the overture makes a splendidly colorful stand-alone piece by itself. Ditto the "Hymn to the Sun" from the otherwise forgotten "Iris" – what a grandiose, spectacular wallow that is! As for the intermezzo from William Ratcliff, well, that one clings to the thinnest edge of the active repertoire, And it’s been an old friend ever since I discovered it on an Angel compilation conducted by the worthy Alceo Galliera – a deeply Romantic, melancholy, brooding sort of character-sketch-for-orchestra. Maestro Santini whips up a terrific sense of theatricality in all three works, and the Rome Opera chorus is truly thrilling in the climax to the Hymn. Minor music? Possibly, in the larger scheme of things; but major discoveries to me, and maybe to you, too. Highly recommended, in any case.]

"La Maschere", Overture. Gabriele Santini; Orch. & Chorus of the Rome Opera House.

Intermezzo & "Hymn to the Sun" from "Iris". Gabriele Santini; Orchestra & Chorus of the Rome Opera.

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, Op. 9. Karen Keys, piano; Guy Fraser Harrison; Oklahoma City Symphony. [25:00] [Fair-to-middling specimen of modernist/romantic noodling. Has its moments. Scruffy but determined performance.]

Symphony No. 4. Horenstein; Margaret Price, sop.;London Philharmonic Orch. [51:43] [See comments under "Conductors"]

Concerto for piano 7 wind Octet. Grant Johannesen, piano; carlos surinach; Wind octet

Concertato for Orchestra. Swarowsky; ARS Orchestra.

Divertimento No. 15, B-flat, K. 287, For Strings & Two Horns, K. 287. Toscanini; NBC Symphony, studio version, c. 1951. [Source is a 10-incher w/ some light scratches, I’ve seen much worse. I usually detest Toscanini’s Mozart, but this I like for some reason.]

Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter". Von Karajan; Berlin Philharmonic, live, 1957.

Violin Concerto. Christian Ferras, violin; Bruck; Orchestre Philharmonique d’ORTF. [28:25]

Monade for Strings. Brott; Chamber Orch of McGill University. [9:40] [Very skillfully written exercise in sonority – of the most grinding, set-your-teeth-on-edge variety, this may appeal to many listeners, simply as a finely-crafted expression of angst. The notes tell us composer pepin was emerging from unspecified personal crises when he wrote it. I hope he got things out of his system, but I found this music to be the aural equivalent of sandpaper rubbing on my timpanic membranes.]

Concerto for Violin & String Quartet. Karl Ove-Mannberg & the Fresk Quartet. [’32:50] [The depth, variety, and richness of Petterson’s compositions for strings is really quite extraordinary. While I don’t (YET) like this oddball concerto as well as I do the duo-violin sonatas listed below…well, it’s hard to think of anything by him other than those sonatas that’s really easy to like. I have a feeling this work will grow on me (I only acquired the LP a month ago), and it does have extended passages that grab you right on first hearing. Herr Mannberg, evidently something of a Petterson specialist, and the Fresk Quartet make the most eloquent possible case for this curious composition and the sonics are fabulous, as was often the case on Swedish Caprice releases from the Seventies.]

Sonata for 2 Violins No. 1. Josef Bruenberg & Karl-Ove Mannberg, violins. [13:17]

Sonata for 2 Violins No. 2. " " " " " " [6:14]

Sonata for 2 Violins No. 4. " " " " " " [5:44]

Sonata for 2 Violins No. 5. " " " " " " [11:05]

Sonata for 2 Violins No. 6 " " " " " " [ 12:02} {Notes on the Source are only in Swedish, so we’ll just have to guess why Petterson – known primarily for his long, grindingly serious symphonies, about which one critic quipped "remind me of Mahler, only without the laughs"—obviously has A Thing for this odd combo, as he composed about a dozen of these sonatas. The moods and techniques are all over the place, but these are not as severe and unapproachable as Petterson’s symphonies (to say nothing of his writhing, Number-Nine-Migraine of a fiddle concerto!) and often kick up their heels in a manner unusually sprightly for this composer. Mainly, though, the mood is sardonic – evincing a much deeper spiritual kinship with Shostakovich than I had suspected. This is really interesting and often compelling music, and I cannot imagine any other soloists making a better case for it than these two keenly gifted Swedes.]

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 39. Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt; Orchestra of the German Opera; recorded in 1942. [Serious as a heart attack, but touchingly old-fashioned, the work has undeniable moments of "gloomy charm", shall we say – a term that ought to translate well into German, come to think of it. I’m not aware of any subsequent commercial recording of it, although there have been several live performances circulating in the "tape underground" for decades. The sound on this Nazi-era studio version is really quite acceptable and Schmidt-Isserstedt conducts it like he truly believes in it, which is the key to making Pfitzner even slightly palatable to modern tastes. It’s grown on me over the years. If you enjoy exploring the by-ways of post-late-Romanticism, you’ll find this a fascinating, if rather sad, specimen. Poor old soul – had he been born thirty years earlier, he might have given Brahms a run for his money. And he’s at least more consistently interesting than Max ("Chuckles") Reger, the musical equivalent of general anesthesia.]

Scythian Suite, Op. 20. Rolf Kleinert; Symphony Orchestra of Radio Berlin (East. That is…). [I have a soft spot for those old Urania LPs derived from East German broadcast tapes – cruddy as the sound was, and wildly variable as the performances were, they gave me my first exposure to such favorites as Felix Draeske’s potent Sinfonia Tragica and, believe it or not, Dvorak’s Fifth, then labeled his "Third", but we won’t get into that). But there were some dreadful clunkers, none more so than this. Look: the very title of the piece tells you it’s about barbarians, right? So what does Kleinert give us? A dainty, mincing, scared-of-its-own-shadow reading that is virtually a parody of the score! So bad, it almost qualifies as a "Classical Party Record" (in fact, it’s bad enough to earn this entry a berth in the Mundo Bizarro section! You’ve been warned; on the other hand, there’s a ghastly fascination in hearing a supposedly professional conductor give a reading so bone-headedly utterly wrong.]

Symphony No. 1, "Classical". Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 1948. {See comments under "Mitropoulos"]

Symphony No. 7. Swarowsky; South German Radio Symphony Orchestra. [A very soulful and deeply felt interpretation and – except for very muted tape hiss -- the sound per se is quite good.]

Suite of Ballet Music, Arr. by Mottl. Fritz Mahler; Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

Bolero. Libor Pesek; Czech Philharmonic Orch. [14:42] [All three of these Pesek/Ravel performances are a joy to the ear – elegant, graceful, recorded in spacious airy sound (God, those piquant Czech woodwinds!), and if the conductor had just let go a tad more, added some of Munch’s earthy, roll-in-the-hay explicitness, these would be top-drawer choices. And if you’re looking for interpretations that eschew any hint of vulgarity, in which the sensuality is somewhat aloof and patrician, you may find these highly attractive. Well, they are – but personally, I prefer to feel a little grit in the bed sheets, if you know what I mean. Beautiful, very beautiful, but for my tastes just a bit antiseptic as well.)

Daphnis & Chloe, Suite No. 1. Pesek; Czech Philharmonic Orch. [12:34]

" " " " No. 2. " " " " [17:08]

Introduction & Allegro. Marcel Grandjany, harp; w/ Hollywood String Quartet. [See comment under "Solo Virtuosi" below.]

Symphony No. 4. Robert Shaw; Boston Symphony Orch., live, 1957

Barcarolle. Marcel Grandjany, harp. [See comment under "Solo Virtuosi" below]

Two Psalms & a Proverb. [See comment under "Oliver Daniel Archive"]

Hungarian Round Dance. Vilmos Tatrai; Budapest Chamber Orchestra.

Three Short Hungarian Pieces. Tatrai; Budapest Chamber Orchestra

Matrix for clarinetist. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet [10:11]

Song of the Wood Dove from Gurrelieder. Stokowski; NYPO; live, 11/28/1949

String Quartet No. 2. New Music Quartet.

Symphony No. 1. Mitropoulos; NYPSO, 1948. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Symphony No. 2. Dorati; Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orch. [42:33]

Overture to "The Bartered Bride". Gunnar Stern; London Philharmonic Orch.

Die Moldau. " " " " " [See comments under "Liszt" above!]

Sinfonia. Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch, live, 1953

Symphonic Dances. George Barati; London Philharmonic Orchestra. [18:00] [Good stuff; colorful, by yet another under-performed American composer.]

Ein Heldenleben. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra, c. 1944 [See my ecstatic comments under "Conductors"]

Symphony No. 4. Erich Kleiber; Paris Conservatory Orchestra

" " 6. Munch; Boston Symphony Orch.

Symphony No. 7. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra. [37:23] [OK, it’s not REALLY his "Seventh", it’s a pastiche cobbled together from bits of the 3^rd Piano Concerto & the Andante for Piano & Orchestra & some miscellaneous scraps of material that were just lying about when the composer died of cholera (or offed himself in a fit of despair, take your pick). I forget the name of the Russian musicologist who performed this resurrection act, but as far as I’m concerned he could have spared himself the trouble. My idea of a Tchaikovsky 7^th would be something tighter and more "modern" sounding that the Pathetique, but still something identifiably personal and intense. What we have here is a lot of very pleasant, loosely stitched-together thematic material, given academic development and predictable climaxes, none of them very stirring. That said, it must be admitted that Ormandy and his lads make a grand, plush wallow out of thin material and there are some Good Toons scattered about. If you like Tchaikovsky in his sunny, casual mode, you may find this score a real discovery, but if you’re looking for more blood-and-thunder, it ain’t here. Source copy is compromised by a lot of annoying little surface scratches, nothing truly horrendous, just…annoying. You may be able to tune it out after a few minutes; I wasn’t. Columbia expected this record to be a gold-plated blockbuster, but it barely broke even; it’s never been re-issued, either, so that adds something to the value. It’s a worthy curiosity, at least, and we bring you a LOT of those, don’t we?]

Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33. w/ Leonard Rose; George Szell; NY Philharmonic Orch. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Prelude to "La Princesse Lointaine", Op. 4. Zsolt Deaky; Nuremburg Symphony Orch. [Stated flatly, this is one of the lushest & most beautiful Russian pieces composed since Tchaikovsky – a ten-minute tone poem whose chief melody is like a warm, sweet embrace. I adore this work, and find it astounding that no major American conductor seems ever to have performed it – it would have been perfect for Koussevitszky! Deaky is no Koussie, and the Nuremburg orchestra is sturdy & determined rather than tonally resplendent, but I know of no more recent or more opulent recording, so this is it; that being the case, it ain’t bad. I’ve turned at least a dozen people on to this music over the years and half of them got misty-eyed the first time they heard it!]

Five Variants of "Dives & Lazarus". Stokowski; CBS Symphony Orch, live, 1953. [See comments under "Strokowski"]

Ave Maria No. 20. William Erlendson; San Jose State U. Chorus [What a gushing torrent of music poured from the pen of this great Brazilian master! How little of it is known, heard, performed, appreciated in this country! V-L composed 26 (!) settings of the Ave Maria, each based on a different set of Biblical references (this one happens to be from Luke I; 28; 42] and reveals the composer’s usual sensitivity to tone, nuance, and melody. Performance: excellent – the San Jose choir made several fascinating collections for the Golden Crest label, starting in the late Fifties (which is when my Source was issued) and the performance is very fine. Note: it’s also filler on a disc featuring Aaron Copland’s "In the Beginning…", which is listed in the Oliver Daniel Archive section.)]

Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 11/ No. 1. I Musici.

" " " E minor, Op. 11/ No. 2. I Musici

" " " A Major, Op. 11/ No. 3. I Musici

"Tristan & Isolde", Prelude Act One. Boult; BBC Symphony Orch., rec. 1932. [See comment under "Conductors"] [Surprisingly lush and full-blooded version.]

Symphony No. 1. Dean Dixon; ARS Orchestra

Invitation to the Dance. Albert Wolff; Paris Conservatoire Orchestre [9:49]

Overture to "Die Freischutz". Szell; NY Philharmonic Orch. [See comment under Conductors"]

Overture to "Die Freischutz". Boult; BBC Symphony, rec. 1932. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Overture to "Oberon". Szell; NY Philharmonic Orch, circa 1959

Three pieces fore clarinet. Phillip Rehfeldt, clarinet.

The Prayer of Jonah. [See comment under "Oliver Daniel Archive.’]

Concert Duo for Violin & Piano. Composer, piano; Matthew Raimondi, violin. [19:28]

SOLO VIRTUOSI & CHAMBER ENSEMBLES

Gaburo, Kenneth: Line Studies. w/ Walter Trampler, viola; David Glazer, clarinet; Erwin Price, trombone

BARRE, Jean-Marie (piano): [I’d heard vaguely of Ms. Barre’s artistry, how hardcore connoisseurs of great pianism considered her to be something special and lamented that she’d made so few recordings. Now I understand why, after chancing upon her Liszt recital – a B-flat Sonata utterly free of bombast but rich with poetic feeling and nuance, the exquisitely bell-like sonority she conjures in the rolling arpeggios of la Campanella;. the Mediterranean warmth that radiates from Harmonies du Soir… This is world-class Liszt playing; I hope I chance upon her performing some Debussy! Although the sound per se on the Source is quite fine, it suffers from one small jump and several annoying pops on Side One. I tried correcting the flaws by hand, but could not. Most of the disc is in good condition, however, and the minor damage on one side ought not to prevent Liszt-o-philes from hearing this magnificent recital.]

LISZT: La Campanella. Jean-Marie Barre, piano. [4:30]

" : Feux Follets. " " " " [3:44]

" : Harmonies du Soir. " " " " [7:45]

" : Petrarch Sonnet No. 125. " " " [6:17]

" : Sonata in B flat. " " " [32:26]

Babbitt: Composition for Four Instruments. [See comments under "Composers] w/ John Wummer, flute; Peter Marsh, violin; Donald McCall, cello. [13:30] [See comments under "Composers.]

Nigge, Serge: Violin Concerto. w/ Clark Bruck; Orchestre Philharmonique d’ORTF. [28:25]

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor". w/ Uri Segal; New Philharmonia Orch. [36:07] [Fully competitive, thanks to Firkusny’s lavish keyboard colors & dramatic flair, Segal’s solid accompaniment, and lush Phase Four sonics.]

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1. w/ Steinberg; Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Gaburo: Line Studies. w/ Julius Baker, flute; Walter Trampler, viola; Erwin Price, trombone

GRANDJANY, Marcel (harp): [He was to the harp what Marcel Tabuteau was to the oboe: the pinnacle of a particularly "French" style of playing – suave, elegant, full of feeling yet eschewing empty display-for-its-own-sake. These versions of the Ravel & Debussy pieces, seductive enough in any format, benefit greatly from the discreet yet full-bodied accompaniment of the fabulous Hollywood Quartet. Source copy is a little scruffy, with one or two skips, but the basic sound is very good.]

Debussy: Danses Sacree et Profane. w/ Hollywood String Quartet.

Grandjany: The Children’s Hour Suite. (Grandjany solo)

" : Rhapsodie pour la Harpe. (Grandjany solo)

Ravel: Introduction & Allegro. w/ Hollywood String Quartet

Roger-Ducasse: Barcarolle. (Grandjany solo)

HEIFITZ, Jascha: [During the last twenty years of his live, after he’d eased back on live concerts and sort-of retired to bask in the California sun, Heifitz could, of course, record any damn thing he wanted to. Some of his choices were a little odd. Except for the very ambitious concerto of his fellow Los-Angeleo, Miklos Rosza, Heifitz generally stayed away from "profound" music, choosing instead to record works that eschewed High Seriousness in favor of charm or simple entertainment – the unkind might have used descriptions such as "second-rate" music, but who are we to judge the taste of so great a virtuoso? Anyway, the two sonatas listed below are among the less-commonly findable of Heifitz’s stereo-era recordings. RCA Victor foresaw a minuscule market for such works (and "miniscule" it would have been, too, if not for the magic name of the violinist) and pressed just enough copies and spent just enough on promotion & distribution to fulfill the letter of their contract, no more. I don’t think I’d ever seen a copy of the Ferguson/ Khachaturian LP before two weeks ago, when one turned up in the local Salvation Army shop, in fine condition (its original owner apparently hadn’t played it much, if at all). Both works are pleasant and the Khachaturian – "Karen" is a male, by the way, and the nephew of Aram -- has some nice passages of kinda-dark lyricism, but not one measure of either work presented the slightest "challenge" to Heifitz, who tosses them off with breezy insouciance. Which might just be the point behind his espousal of such middle-brow stuff: Hey, dude, this is California! Why sweat the "masterpieces" if ya don’t have to?]

Ferguson, Howard (1908 - ? ): Sonata No. One. w/ Lillian Steuber, piano. [14:47]

Katchaturian, Karen (1920 - ?): Sonata No. One. w/ Lillian Steuber, piano. [14:50]

Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. [4:16]

Beethoven: Sonata No. D minor ("Tempest"). [26:10]

Brahms: Intermezzo in B-flat minor, Op. 117/ No. 12 [7:56]

Schumann: Arabeske, Op. 18. [7:56]

Bergsma: Tangents for Piano. [See comments under "Daniel Archive"]

Harris: American Ballads. [See comments under "Daniel Archive"]

McPhee: Concerto for Piano & Wind Octette (sic). [See comment under "Daniel Archive"]

Brott: Profundium Praeludium. Composer; McGill U. Chamber Orchestra [23:23] [See comment under "Composers"]

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2. w/ Jonel Perlea; RIAS Symphony, Berlin.

Bloch: Piano Quintet No. 2. w/ Howard Karp, piano.

Lerdahl: String Quartet No. 2. The Pro Arte String Quartet. [20:28]

Cage: Sonata for Clarinet, solo.

Diamond, Arlene [No relation to David…] Composition for Clarinet.

Martino, Donald: A Set for Clarinet. .

Scavarda, Donald (1928 - ): Matrix for Clarinetist.

Whittenberg, Charles (1927 - ): Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo.

Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33. w/ Szell; NY Philharmonic Orch. [See comment under "Conductors"]

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 50. w/ Leinsdorf; Boston Symphony Orch.

Cascarino, Romeo: Sonata for Bassoon & Piano. w/ Joseph Levine, piano

Etler, Alvin: Sonata for Bassoon & Piano. w/ Joseph Levine, piano.

Haieff, Alexei: Piano Concerto. w/ Walter Hendl; ARS Orchestra

Gaburo: Line Studies. w/ Julius Baker, flute; David Glazer, clarinet; Edwin Price, trombone

Glanville-Hicks: Concerto Romantico. w/ Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra

Richter, Marga: Aria & Toccata for Viola & Chamber Orchestra. w/ Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra

Weber, Ben: Rapsodie Concertante, Op. 47. w/ Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestrta

Carter: Piano Sonata. 22:16]

Copland: Piano Variations. [12:02]

Sessions: Second Piano Sonata [13:08]

Babbitt: Composition for Four Instruments. w/ Stanley Drucker, clarinet; Peter Marsh, violin; Donald McCall [See comments under "Composers".]

OPERA, VOCAL & CHORAL

SCHWARZKOPF, Elizabeth: "A Christmas Album"; Sir Charles Mackerras; Un-named orchestra & Chorus. Contents;

Stille Nacht (Gruber) [3:34]

O Come All ye Faithful (Oakley) [3:07]

O du Frohliche (Trad) [2:10]

Sandmannchen (Trad/, arr. Brahms) [2:49]

In Einem Kuhlen Grunde (Eichendorff / Gluck) [2:36]

Panis Angelicus (Franck) [4:35]

The First Nowell (Trad.) [5:48]

In Dulci Jubilo (Trad.) [2:59]

Weinachten (Humperdinck) [3:07]

Von Himmel Hoch (Trad.) [3:11]

I Saw Three Ships (Trad.) [1:31]

Maria auf dem Berge (Trad.) [1:47]

Ein Frohliche Gesang (Trad.) [3:25]

Beethoven: Scottish, Irish & English songs, Opp. 223, 224, & 225 – extracts from. Accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma; Samuel Sanders; Ani Kavafian. [Here’s the slickest presentation of these delightful songs you’re likely to find.

OPERAS & OPERA EXCERPTS

Lucretia Borgia, Highlights from. w/ Montserrat Caballe; Shirley Verrett; Alfredo Krauss; Ezio Flagello; Jonel Perlea conducting; RCA Italiana Orchestra & Chorus.[41:03]

The Bell Tower. [See comment under "Oliver Daniel Archive"

Cavalleria Rusticana. Gabrielle Santini, conducting; Victoria de los Angeles, sop.; Franco Corelli, tenor; Mario Sereni, baritone; Adriana Lazzarini, contralto; Orchestra & chorus of the Rome Opera; rec. in 1963. [71:23]

The Student Prince. w/ Mario Lanza; orchestra conducted by Paul Baron. [Lanza at his considerable best, before the booze, the pasta, and the broads derailed his career. Poor goombah – may a new generation discover his gifts without being conscious of what happened to him not so long after this, his most popular record, was released,]

Arabella: The Great Scenes. Lovro von Matacic; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; Nicolai Gedda; Philharmonia Orchestra [Generally regarded as one of the jewels of the record catalogue ever since it was taped in the early Sixties; I don’t have the whole opera – and if I did, I probably wouldn’t listen to it more than once in five years – but here are the juiciest parts, in very good mono, with an incomparable cast and a fine conductor. A must for Straussians.]

Rigoletto. Angelo Questa, conductor; Ferruccio Tagliavini, The Duke; Giuseppe Taddei, Rigoletto; Lina Pagliuchi, Gilda; soloists, chorus, orchestra of the Rome Opera House. [I acquired this simply because Cetra imports of this vintage – 1954 – are almost impossible to find in playable condition and this one looks to be exceptionally clean. I say "looks" because I haven’t the slightest interest in listening to it, only in dubbing it for any interested client who’s into Italian opera productions from that period. It’ll take 2 CDs plus a half, I reckon. I’m reasonably sure this is a very rare version; whether or not it’s any good, you’ll have to tell me – maybe I’ll change my mind about dubbing it for myself…]

BLUES & JAZZ

BRAXTON, Anthony: Duets. w/ Muhal Richard Abrams. [I usually have a low tolerance for "noodling" on the saxophone (it just sounds so much more aimless, somehow, than "noodling" on a horn, a flute, or a cello…) and perhaps an even lower tolerance for the sort of shrieking, confrontational avant-garde noodling Braxton used to indulge in so famously. But I’m actually very fond of this particular LP; the man IS a virtuoso, after all, and although the laconic program notes (all 87 words of them) don’t really explain what his concepts & compositional methods are, the music itself is high-quality and very accessible. I’m especially taken by Braxton’s scorching, swaggering, slightly tongue-in-cheek take on Scott Joplin’s "Maple Leaf Rag". Sound: superb. Artistry: lives up to his legend. Appeal to non-fans of edgy late-seventies jazz: stronger than you might imagine.] Total time: [33:46]

"MODERN MUSIC FROM SAN FRANCISCO" – (An anthology album "edited" by famous jazz critic Ralph Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, VERY "West Coast". Features the Ron Crotti Trio, the Vince Guaraldi Quartet, and the Jerry Dodgson Quartet. Very cool. From a rare Fantasy label LP.)

SHURMAN, John: Such Winters of Memory. w/ "I Karin Krog" and "I Pierre Favre" [46:48][No, I don’t know why they have "I" in front of their names….they play every instrument known to man, including various MOOGS; it’s unclassifiable Nordic jazz/chamber/choral. Navel-gazing music, exquisitely recorded, moody, and very lushly evocative of…something or other. I find it irresistible, but I know most jazz purists turn up their noses at Mannfred Eicher’s productions from this period (late 70s). I think this is a lovely album in every respect, but if your paradigm is Thelonius Monk, you may find it saccharine and unbearable.]

TIBBETS, Steve: Safe Journey. w/ Marc Anderson on congas, steel drum & other percussion; Bob Hughes on bass; Steve Cochrane on tabla & Tim Wienhold on…’vase" (??) Time: 52:26] [I don’t know if this is "jazz" or that special fusion blend of chamber music ECM used to specialize in, but man, it sure is sweet, dreamy music.]

FILM & THEATER MUSIC

"David Copperfield" – by Sir Malcolm Arnold. [See comments under "Composers"]

Satan in High Heels – Music by Mendell Lowe. [It was (I’m not making this up) a production of Cosmic Films, starring the saucy Meg Miles, the uni-monikered "Sabrina" and some hunk named Grayson Hall. I have no earthly idea what it was about, but who cares? The album cover is worth the price of admission! [See reproduction] And what of Mendell Lowe’s music? Well, imagine what the soundtrack to "Peter Gunn" might have sounded like if it had been composed by someone with 10 % of Henry Mancini’s talent.]

FOLK MUSIC, CELTIC & RELATED STRAINS

FLAIRCK: "Variations on a Lady". [I’ve no idea who or what or where a "Flairck" is, and this apparently was their only album, but they were a very mellow, flute-centered, sort-of Celtic group with a soothing, understated blend of a sound that I find most agreeable on a rainy spring afternoon when I’m in one of those just-don’t-give-a-shit moods. This is not to say that the entire album is a drooping-violet – they sound quite perky in some cuts – but it’s mostly pleasant, unassertive stuff that doesn’t particularly make you want to swig down pints of lukewarm Guinness and sing off-key ballads about the Black-and-Tans. If I ever stumble across another album by them, I’ll certainly acquire it. Very laid-back, but the overall level of musicianship is impressive; these kids knew what they were doing – the last ten minutes of Side A sound not unlike the more melancholy portions of the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings. And that’s meant as a compliment.]

INDIAN SUMMER: by Pete Seeger and Michael Seeger; also contains brief Suites is used from the films "Horizontal Lines", "The Many Colored Paper" and "The Country Fiddle" [Sorry, but the liner notes are missing from this 1960 Folkways LP so I can’t tell you what the films are about. I can tell you that FLAVOR of this music is mostly Celtic, that it’s both intensely lyrical and tensely dramatic, and that it’s played and recorded just fine. Some cuts aren’t even particularly "folksy", but the overall curve of the music is definitely Celtic/ pastoral /Appalachian. It’s awfully good music, whatever it is

KORNOG – MUSIC OF BRITTAINY [I keep wanting to call them "Corn Dog", but not in a disparaging way; these guys are (were – my Source is 20 years old) a spirited, promising band (managed by an agency here in central North Carolina, which is, after all, where "Thistle & Shamrock" got started), and this debut LP was taken from a live concert at the start of their first North American tour, so they sound "up" to the point just this side of manic. If you’re into the Irish/Gaelic/Celtic/Welsh/Breton Thing, you’ll enjoy them. If not…not.]

SCOT, COLIN: Eponymous album; just his name. [And, yes, that’s "Scot" with ONE "T". English balladeer with a fine, wide-ranging tenor voice, terrific guitar chops, and solid poetic sensibilities on display in his song lyrics. I’ve no idea where, when, or how I acquired this record – maybe somebody recommended it to me. Until I dubbed it for this month’s listing, however, I mist not have played in for a minimum of 20 years – didn’t recognize the bloke, had no idea what he sounded like, etc. I was pleasantly surprised all the way around – little re-discoveries like this have been happening ever since I started doing this "Records in the Attic’ thing two and a half years ago (my God, has it been THAT long?), and it’s really satisfying when they do. Of course, on the negative side, I often find pieces of abominable dreck that I actually paid good money for, and cannot remember any plausible reason why I did. I mean, some of these things are so goddawful that I don’t even list them in the Mundo Bizarro section…]

SONGS OF THE WELSH MINERS. Edwin Jones; The Rhos Male Choir. [I found these two souvenir-of-Wales LPs in the local Salvation Army store; they were in pretty good shape; I’ve yet to meet a Celtic Music record I didn’t like at least to some extent. Bought ‘em both for a buck. Played the above title first; liked it fine, but wasn’t knocked over by it. Put on THIS album next and …. Holy Stonehenge, whatta sound! The virility and strength of those voices, the soaring tenors and bowels-of-the-earth basses! Devout, passionate, the superbly trained male voices singing rugged, simple hymns and patriotic classics…the massed timbres, when the whole choir is going full-out, gave me goosebumps! You don’t need to have a drop of Welsh blood, understand the funny-looking language, or even give a damn about the plight of coal miners about which you’re unlikely to be able to do anything, with the best intentions in the world – this is universal music, elemental as the hills and timeless as the gaunt pinnacles of Tintagel. If the sheer sound of a great choir in full cry gets you off, grab this one; the only other way to get it is to visit Wales, which I’d love to do if anyone Out There cares to purchase two round-trip first-class tickets for me and Mrs. Trotter 2.0. What a serendipitous discovery this proved to be!]

FOLK MUSIC – NON-CELTIC

BLUE RIDGE MEMORIES (2 CDs). This is a 2-CD anthology I assembled from assorted re-issues, most from the Sixties, of old-time mountain music, derived from very obscure and hard-to-find 78s, originally issued by small regional labels in Tennessee and North Carolina, 1928-1930 (the days of moon-shiners and Revenooers). This is the Real Thing, complete with some surface noise and distortion (although not nearly as much as you might expect, given the date and provenance of the originals). If you’ve got any interest in real old-time mountain music, as opposed to the hybrid stuff Nashville started churning out for the general public after World War Two, here’s a wonderful assortment: solos, duets, story-tell punctuated with music, and lots of jokes about drunken mountaineers – made politically correct, I suppose, by the fact that the mountaineers are telling ‘em. Special price for this generously-filled set: $17.50. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the contents, as arranged on both CDs:

1. Possum Hunt on Stump Mountain ( Gid Tanner, Clayton McMichen, Riley Puckett, Lowe Stokes, Fate Norris); 2. The Fiddlin’ Bootleggers (The Boys from Wildcat Holler (Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne, C.W. Davis); 3. Pretty Polly (B.F. Shelton, vocals & banjo); 4.The Burial of Wild Bill (Frank Jenkins & the Pilot Mountaineers – Frank Jenkins, fiddle; Oscar Jenkins, banjo; Oscar Jenkins, banjo; Ernest Stoneman, vocals & guitar); 5. The Newmarket Train Wreck (Mr. & Mrs. J.W. Baker, vocals; unnamed accompaniment by banjo, guitar, fiddle & auto-harp); 6. Pearl Bryan (R.D. Burnett, vocals & guitar; Len Rutherford, fiddle); 7. The Sportin’ Cowboy ("Watts & Wilson"); 8. The Fate of Chris Lively & his Wife (Blind Alfred Reed, vocals & fiddle; Orville Reed, guitar); 9. Red Pig (Kyle Wootin, harmonica); 10. From A Georgia Fiddlers’ Convention (Gid Tanner, Clayton McMichen, Riley Puckett, Bob Nichols, Fate Norris & Bert Layne); 11. The Fox Chase (Henry Whitter, harmonica; 12. The Possum-Trot School Exhibition (Stoneman’s Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers); 13. Serenade in the Mountains (Stoneman’s Blude Ridge Corn Shuckers); 14. Otto Wood the Bandit (The Carolina Buddies – Walter Smith, vocals; Odell Smith, fiddle; Norman Woodlieff, guitar); 15. My Mama Always Talked to Me (John Hammond, vocal & Banjo); 16. The Banks of the Ohio (G.B. Grayson, vocals & fiddle; Henry Whitter, guitar); 17. The Broken Wedding (Emry Arthur, vocals & guitar); 18. Louisville Burglar (The Hickory Nuts – personnel not identified); 19. Charley’s Guiteau (Kelly Herrell & The Virginia String Band – Posey Rorer, fiddle; Alfred Stigall, guitar; R.D. Hundley, banjo)

KITARO: "India". [All right, now you know – I actually like this guy’s pretentious sonic wallpaper. It’s the aural equivalent of resting your head against the plump white welcoming thigh of a good woman. No need to justify my quirkiness to you lot! I’ll play whatever I want to, hear me? But seriously, folks, the guy could write a decent melodic line and his engineers always bathed that big fat synthesizer’s tone in luridly splendid sonics. There’s not a damn thing on this album that’s connected to "India", but so what?]

NEWPORT FESTIVAL, 1964. [The cusp of folkie and hippies, the tectonic shift of cultural paradigms, the God-awful buzzing vibrato that made Buffy Saint-Marie as hideous to listen to as she was gorgeous to look at! The last summer of innocence – the last time, for a long time, when Phil Ochs could sing "Draft-Dodger Blues" and the audience would titter naively, because we all knew things could never, ever get so bad that Uncle Sam would re-instate the draft! I mean, we already creamed Tojo and Hitler, didn’t we? That skinny old Gook with the wispy rat’s-tail beard and his penchant for mediocre poetry couldn’t be that tough…could he? The full contents are:

Pete Seeger: Oh Mary, Don’t you Weep; Never Wed an Old Man;

RAVI SHANKAR: "India’s Master Musician" (His First American album) [This is the album that introduced me and many thousands of other listeners to the magic sparkle-and-cascade sound of the sitar – as it can only sound in the hands of a master such as Shankar. The contents are arrayed in four long cuts, giving the quasi-narrative arch of the form sufficient space to "breathe" and Shankar sufficient time to indulge in some breathtaking cadenzas. This album just pre-dated stereo, unfortunately, but the sound is excellent anyhow, contriving ideal balance between the high-flying timbres of the stringed instrument and the earthy punctuation of the great Chitar Gal’s tabla (hand-drums) – some of the finest percussion playing this side of Nirvana. A great, great LP!]

"Songs of the Lincoln & International Brigades". w/ Pete Seegar, Bess Lomax, Butch Hawes, Ernst Busch, Woody Guthrie & chorus. [Wow, is this ever the real thing! These rousing agit-prop man-the-barricades ballads were all penned during the Spanish war, by some of the musicians and activists who volunteered to fight for the Republic. There’s no denying the passion and desperate idealism that comes through in even the most bitter, sardonic songs. Recorded sound varies wildly from cut to cut, as studio conditions in Madrid during Franco’s siege were not ideal. According to the legends surrounding this project, several of the cuts were recorded with a portable cutting device inside a command bunker just behind the Loyalists’ front line (which would account for the creaky, hit or miss quality of the intonation as well as the gritty surface noise. My Source, however, is the classic Stinson Records release, authorized by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, proceeds went to the relief of families whose bread-winners had died or been crippled in the fight against Fascism. Seeger’s voice has never resounded with more passionate intensity; Woody Guthrie’s guitar work blisters like napalm – it’s a spooky, History-made-palpable document and belongs in the library of anyone who cares, however remotely, about that period of history. Hemingway is said to have been present when some of these discs were cut (but then, Hemingway "is said" to have been in a dozen places at once on many occasions, when in reality he was just downstairs at the local Laundromat or swilling drinks in the nearest bar with some hard-bitten correspondent or other. A thrilling, if rather poor-sounding, evocation of a passionate era.]

SPOKEN WORD, DRAMA, COMEDY & POETRY

COMIC STRIP RADIO SHOWS: [I’m listing these again, because somehow they didn’t get transferred into the big, data-base catalogues; hence virtually no one knows I have them, and they’re really kind of neat. Each disc contains two 30-minute episodes of radio show serials based on popular characters from "the funnies’, dating from 1946 – 1948. Lord, it was a simpler, more innocent world back then!]

Terry & the Pirates

Sky King [I can’t believe that this remained in TV syndication, with new episodes and eager sponsors and everything, until `975!!]

[*] Yes, there are two of these maudlin sagas about Mer-folk! Must have been something in the air in those days…]

THE FIRESIGN THEATRE presents "The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra" [I never thought these bozos were half as funny – at least not consistently so – as most of my friends did; their popularity pretty much vaporized after the third album. But this is definitely their best extended riff & many of the gags haven’t dated at all. Source copy is in "B" condition; approximately 52 minutes total length.]

POP & ROCK

CLOUT: "Six of the Best"

THE DICTATORS: "Bloodbrothers". [I caught these guys live one drunken night in the late Seventies and they were a pretty good imitation of a punk band; sort of a pre-packaged Seven-Eleven version of the Ramones but without the…um…ambience. Not bad, musically, really. I think they lasted for two albums & by the time I saw them they were already on the skids, reduced to playing gigs at places like "Friday’s" (on Tate Street, across from the UNC-G auditorium; if you were anywhere near Greensboro in those days, you probably ended up there sooner or later… The beer was cheap and the cheeseburgers big and greasy and cheap and awfully good.]

DUKE & THE DRIVERS: "Cruisin’" [Say what you like, but I have a weak spot for any band that had a bass player named "Rhinestone Muddflapps"…]

KOLOC, Bonnie: "Close Up". [She wrote lyrics for grown-ups: sad, worldly-wise, late-night-cigarette music, delivered with deft understatement that’s much more effective at conveying pain and longing than a more theatrical "stand-by-your-man" style. I guess this lady had a cult following, because I’ve met some other people who had that "Oh, Jeez, you know about her too!" reaction. She should have had a major career, if the three extant LPs are indicative of her day-in, day-out talent. Terrific songs, movingly sung.]

THE MODERN LOVERS: "Live". [I really enjoyed these guys; evidently, nobody else did, because their recording career barely lasted longer than the life-span of the average fruit-fly. Anyway, here’s their "live" album, featuring such cult faves as "Hey there, Little Insect!" and "Egyptian Reggae". I guess the humor went over the heads of the masses, or something…]

special anthologies !!

TANGERINE DREAM: …In the Beginning. [You’ve got to be a mighty hardcore Tangerine Dream fan to want all FIVE of the LPS in this imported box set (it’s a numbered edition, too, and this copy is #0657). These have never been played, to the best of my knowledge, and the titles are "Electronic Meditation". "Zeit", "Alpha Centauri", "Atem", and "Green Desert". (I also have their really spooky soundtrack album to William Friedkin’s "Sorcerer", should you be interested. There’s a lavishly illustrated program booklet in English, and each LP has distinctive far-out graphics on its sleeve. No, I won’t sell you the actual records (I’m not entirely senile yet…), but if you should want the whole boxed edition dubbed, it’ll take up 2.75 blank CDs and cost you $32.50, postage & handling included… a bargain price. Or you can order any two LP’s worth of material burned on to one CD for $14.00. (Hey, these are IMPORTS, man!) Like I said, they’re unplayed, too.

NUGGETS: ORIGINAL ARTYFACTS FROM THE FIRST PSYCHDELIC ERA, 1965-1968: [Now this one really IS special! "NUGGETS" gathers on to four LP sides the very best hit(s) of psychedelic-era bands who somehow never quite broke into the Big Time, but who had either a couple of special hits or a loyal enough following to sustain the dream right through to the end of the Sixties (and in a few cases, beyond; the last dinosaurs vanished not long after John Lennon was gunned down by a colorless little nebbish who reminded everyone of somebody they knew.

THE RONETTES: [First ALBUM, EPONYMOUS; Phil Spector’s own label, c. 1967. What a stroke of luck when someone brought a near-mint copy of this into Collectables last week & happily unloaded it on us for $10!! God knows what it would go for on E-Bay – even the cover is in tip-top condition. If you don’t know who this group was, or who Phil Spector is, or why I’m so foamy-mouthed about getting "a-holt" of a good copy, let me just summarize briefly: this is one of the foundation-stones of Sixties rock-n-roll, one of the coolest, best-sounding, most slickly produced trend-setting albums ever issued in any genre. Just a fabulous record, period. And now that ol’ Phil’s on trial for murder, you can bet your bippy that the collectable value of this sucker’s gonna shoot through the roof. Last time I saw a copy for sale, the sticker was $75.00 and that was 5 years ago. I’m not even gonna bother listing the song titles; the girls could be singing "Three Blind Mice" and it would still be a great record. Like I said, it’s in extraordinary condition, so better order a dub now, before the murder trial starts and the price goes up, the availability goes down; you know how it works…]

GRACE SLICK: "Dreams". [There are 3-4 cuts on this album that hold my attention – when Gracie throws her head back and lets go with one of those keening vocal arabesques that could send shivers down your spine. But most of the record, alas, sounds like the work of a soon-to-be-middle-aged woman who was undergoing heavy-duty rehab and struggling to figure out how she could get through the required Twelve Step attendance without running amok with a machete when just-one-more-person told her to "let go and let God". You know. I mean, you’ve been there too, right?]

STEPPENWOLF: "For Ladies Only." [You either loved ‘em or…or…well. They’re probably still playing in Holiday Inns in the suburbs somewhere, and one does not wish to be unkind.]

Mundo bizarre

Scythian Suite, Op. 20. Rolf Kleinert; Symphony Orchestra of Radio Berlin (East. That is…). [I have a soft spot for those old Urania LPs derived from East German broadcast tapes – cruddy as the sound was, and wildly variable as the performances were, they gave me my first exposure to such personal favorites as Felix Draeske’s potent Sinfonia Tragica and, believe it or not, Dvorak’s Fifth (then labeled his "Third", but we won’t get into that). But there were some dreadful clunkers in their catalogue, too, and none was clunkier than this turkey. Look: the very title of the piece tells you it’s about barbarians, right? So what does Kleinert give us? A dainty, mincing, scared-of-its-own-shadow reading that is virtually a parody of the score! So bad, it almost qualifies as a "Classical Party Record" (in fact, it’s bad enough to earn a berth in the Mundo Bizarro section! You’ve been warned; on the other hand, there’s a ghastly fascination in hearing a supposedly professional conductor give a reading so bone-headedly utterly wrong.]

MORRICONE, Enio [Yes, besides being one of the best & most prolific film-music composers of our time, Morricone writes ‘serious’ music, too. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good as Nino Rota’s – Morricone’s so determined NOT to sound like his spaghetti westerns that his "serious" music sounds like the worst, most tune-less, abrasively audience-dismissive dreck that American academix were cranking out by the cubic quarter-note from about the mid-Fifties to the mid-Seventies, when the Counter Revolution started gathering steam. Of the works listed below, the only one I like is the "Four Pieces for Guitar", which at least incorporates some gestures of accessibility and might well find a place as the Token Contemporary work on many a solo recital. The rest of this music, frankly, has no comfortable points of reference I can grasp, nor any other device to aid the listener who’s trying to get a handle on what Morricone’s up to. My Source LP, of very short duration, contains not one word as to the identity of performers, conductor, or recording venue. But dubs of all the short stand-alone works and you’ll still have room for the "Fistful of Dollar" suite, which puts everything else in the shade.]

Hindemith: Concerto for Horn & Orchestra. Composer; Philharmonia Orchestra. [I suppose, by now and since nothing new has appeared from the BBC’s recently opened vaults, that every scrap of Brain’s extant recorded performances has been issued. Sad that the inventory is so small, but then, nobody expected him to die so young. This, I think, is the only "contemporary" score Brain recorded, but it’s a gem. This, and his Angel recordings of the Mozart & Strauss horn concerti should be in the library of everyone who loves great French horn playing.]

MORRICONE, Enio: "A Fistful of Dollars" – Soundtrack. Composer; RCA Italiano Orchestra [34:38] [Still ranks as one of the greatest Western soundtracks ever composed; I think it also stands alone as a suite surprisingly well.]

TIOMPKIN: "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964). First composer approached to work on this score was, natchurally, Ben Hur himself, Miklos Rosa; who turned it down, having had a belly full of Roman spectacle for as while. Dimiti Tiompkin wasn’t the fellow for either secretive emotions or grand public parades (never mind epic battle scenes), but he surely does try hard here. Dutifully he cranks out generic marchjing-legion stuff. obligatory Persecuted Christians hymns, all the usual numbers, but nothing rises above the level of rather ordinary craftsman ship. Rosza’s treatment of the material would have struck new ground, but as he wrote in his charming autobiographical sketches from Hungary, "I couldn’t very well be the only man in Hollywood capable grinding out yet another Biblical blockbuster…" If you do admire Tiompkins’ work, you’ll need this to acquire a complete collection. Or if you collect "epics" scores, you’ll perhaps find more here than I do. At least it IS a rare record, and we’ll dub it for you both fast and (relatively) cheap.]

STIVELL, Alan: "Celtic Rock". [Awful, deceptive title! Mind you, Stivell DID record some rock-ish numbers, and they’re mighty fetching, too, like everything he does, but this album ain’t got any of ‘em. The contents are a grab-bag of what sound like out-takes left over from earlier albums; it’s VERY Celtic, but as a "rock" album it makes Steeleye Span sound like The Ramones. Just ignore the title; here’s more prime late-Seventies Stivell, with the Master sometimes setting aside his magic harp in favor of the bagpipes, the harmonium, the Irish flute and even the kettle drums. Needless to say, he plays all these instruments superbly, and his husky, light baritone voice has never sounded more alluring. The back-up band is large and potent; the sonics are vivid. Not among my favorite Stivell albums, but, hey, the guy never made a bad one.]

SHEL SILVERSTEIN’S STAG PARTY.

La Bonne Chansonj, Op. 61. Fischer-Diekau; Instrumentralists; Swallisch, Piano

New Listings for July 2005