And remember the motto of Records in the Attic:

"If it sounds good, it is good!" – Duke Ellington

CONDUCTOR LISTINGS

PISTON: Symphony No. 2. w/ Vienna Symphony Orchestra. [ Sourced from one of those weird but wonderful American Music Recording Society discs in unbelievably good condition, there’s no comparison, of course, between the one-take-after-30-minutes’-rehearsal playing of the VSO and Tilson-Thomas’s sleek Boston Symphony version, the interpretation of choice, but the sadly neglected Black conductor Dean Dixon was fiercely committed to accessible modern compositions and by sheer force of will he shapes a muscular, energized reading from an ensemble that probably hadn’t seen a note of Piston’s music until this recording session. It’s a major American symphony; it’s worthy of multiple interpretations, and this IS a worthy one, despite the slap-dash conditions under which it was recorded.]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5. Minneapolis S.O. [Mono; early Mercury; has one bad glitch at very beginning, but otherwise in good shape. A brawny, in-your-face interpretation, pretty much what you’d expect from Dorati at this stage of his Minneapolis stint. Subtle & poetic is ain’t, but it clips right along and I dig those hot, leathery Minneapolis timpani.]

Enesco: Romanian Rhapsody No. 2. USSR Radio Symphony, live, 1948 [See notes below]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4. USSR Radio Symphony Orch, live, 1949. [Most accounts of Romanian composer Enesco’s life contain observations to the effect that, if he had wanted to become a superstar conductor, he easily could have done. He was charismatic, yet easy going. As a successful composer, he had nothing to prove ego-wise on the podium; he conducted when and where he felt like doing it and was in no way dependent on the income for continued prosperity. Moreover, he was a natural-born musician and his orchestral colleagues found him charming yet utterly professional. He often cut short his rehearsals by saying: "Look, you know this music; I know this music. Why do we need to fuss about the details? When the concert comes, we’ll glance at each other and know what to do. So why don’t we all take the afternoon off and get some rest…or some beer, as the case may be. Anybody who’s thirsty, follow me – I’m buying!" Or words to that effect. Anyhow, orchestras loved working with him and his handful of commercial recordings AS a conductor (nobody was skeptical about his gifts as a soloist) are treasured by those lucky enough to have found one. I feel mighty lucky to have found this Russian disc – quite professionally re-mastered and annotated, and have treasured it for almost 20 years. I’ve also blown the minds of several conducting mavens who gasped in astonishment when they heard Enesco slather the first few bars of this warhorse with more and edgier rubato than most modern conductors have the courage and imagination to apply to the whole symphony. It’s just WILD! Nobody could get away with this today, and more’s the pity. Enesco sucks this score down like an oyster-with-champagne and let’s the interpretation rip with utter spontaneity. It’s as though the Tchaik Fourth were being performed by a band of Gypsies and it’s flat-out wonderful!! Just listen to how much raw, quivering emotion he wrings from the andante or the seemingly magical way he gets the strings, in the third movement, to play with the timbre and phrasing of a giant guitar!! This is Old-Time Religion conducting, folks. If you’ve never been exposed to Enesco’s cultural gestalt, you might just think: "Jeez, this is wayward and impulsive and demented, and it violates the score all over the place!"

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7. w/ Berlin Philharmonic Orch.

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8. " " " " [Source for these is a deluxe boxed edition from Odeon/Electrola, issued c. 1963, reproducing these classic readings by means of an experimental process called "Breitklang" (of which this is the first, last and only example I’ve seen). It wasn’t a "pseudo-stereo" boondoggle, like that crass, coarse-sounding distortion of Toscanini’s Pines of Rome issued by RCA at about the same time; it was a sober, serious, science-for-its-own-sake attempt by Telefunken engineers to breathe some "air" into the gritty, congested climaxes of the extant master tapes. You actually have to listen hard to be aware of its effects, in fact, for they’re often subtle and never call attention to themselves. Instead of glaringly spot-lighting violins-on-the-left/ basses-on-the-right, Breitklang used frequency roll-off, panning, and perhaps a little millisecond of delay here and there to give some illusion of three-dimensionality to the tuttis. The brass definitely has a stronger sense of location, and the surrounding instruments a wider front-to-back soundstage; the bass line (always such a fundamental element of Furtwangler’s interpretive art) is a bit more focused and distinct, the "harmonic planes" (I’m making up these terms as I write because I don’t know how the audio techies described the effects they wanted and the means they used to get them) seem to have some ambient fresh air between them. That’s about it, really; it’s not heavy or crass or blatant. I find the effect very pleasant and not at all artificial-sounding. One the negative side, these manipulations don’t do anything to diminish the worn-out-stylus edginess and annoying trace-distortion inherent in the original tapes whenever the volume goes above mezzo-forte (and, well, you know, this IS Bruckner!). So, ultimately, the improvements rendered by Breitklang are slight enough that you have to meet them half-way in order to like them. A clean, well-focused, honest monaural job beats a half-assed stereo take any time; alas, I don’t know that these mid-Fifties Bruckner performances exist in "honest, well-focused mono sound" – all the iterations I’ve bought or listener to through the years are cursed with that same fuzzy-needle distortion problem. But in the softer and medium-soft portions of the music – the sublime Adagio of the Eighth, for instance – Breitklang definitely does add an attractive illusion of spread and spaciousness. So that’s my main reason for listing this ancient Odeon experiment. My other reason is that these are titanic Bruckner interpretations and sublime paradigms of Furtwangler’s artistry. Each symphony fits on one CD.]

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake excerpts. St. Louis Symphony Orch. [Lively; some nice interpretive moments; but this is obviously not a virtuoso orchestra, however hard Golschmann tries.]

HAGEN, Hans: [I know next-to-nothing about this guy, other than his connection with an entity called "The Austrian Symphony Orchestra". Whatever. These are excellent, very Viennese readings, although technically the ensemble is a notch beneath the Vienna Symphony, which of course is several notches beneath the Vienna Philharmonic. I guess the Austrians keep all of this straight…]

Brahms: Hungarian Dances No’s 1, w/ Austrian Symphony Orch. [17: 35]

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. w/ Austrian Symphony Orch. [10:20]

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15. w/ Friederich Gulda, piano; RIAS Symphony Orch. live, 1957. [Surprised? Hindemith actually did quite a bit of guest-conducting, and not always of his own music. I’ve read (and heard, from one retired viola player) that the composer was actually quite a gifted conductor; one of his "calling card" pieces was – wait for it! – Bruckner’s Seventh! I have heard, but unfortunately do not own, a tape of him leading that titanic work with, I think, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and it was a stately, deeply communicative reading. Bloody odd, if you ask me… But here we have further corroboration, in the form of this 1957 broadcast. The sound isn’t terrific – a bit recessed and woolly – but Gulda’s phrasing is stately, even aristocratic and Hindemith’s handling of the orchestral part is elegant and assured. Withal, a fascinatingly patrician reading that should fascinate anyone who likes the piece, Hindemith, and/or Gulda. No timing given on Source, but the broad tempi would bring the concerto in at four or five minutes longer than most other versions. One small flaw: a brief tape drop-out near end of the first movement; that’s in the Source, folks; nothing I can do about it – you only miss a few bars, however. What an intriguing oddity! Where else could you find this very obscure recording but here in The Attic?]

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4, "Romantic". w/ Bamberg Symphony Orch. [50:50]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5. w/ Hamburg State Philharmonic.

Strauss: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op.8. Ulf Hoelscher, violin; Dresden Staatskapelle Orch.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4, Op. 60. w/ Bavarian State Orchestra; live, 1982 [No timing given; for once, this is a C.K. performance that lives up to the hype. His recorded legacy is ridiculously small, for which he had no one to blame but himself. Von Karajan once quipped: "I think he takes on a conducting engagement only when his freezer is empty…"]

Brahms: Symphony No. 1. w/ Cologne Radio Symphony Orch., live, 11/17/1955

Dvorak: Symphony No. 9, "New World". w/ Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. [Source is an "Encore" commercial cassette, marketed only in Canada, this label offered off-the-air performances by interesting combinations of conductors and ensembles (like the hair-raising Markevich Sibelius 7^th I have listed elsewhere) at dirt-=cheap prices. Some fine stuff; wish I had the whole catalogue. But the cassettes themselves were very cheaply made and tended to get loose-as-a-goose after a few playings. Hence, early on both sides you’ll here a wee bit of wow and flutter, which soon goes away. Kletzki is at his considerable best here, though, delivering a virile, massively contoured reading and obviously relishing the pungent timbres of the CPO. There are simply too many fine Dvorak Ninths to rate them, but this clearly belongs in a top half of the lot. Sonics are a little raw, but I kind of like that in this music.]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4, Op. w/ Moscow Philharmonic Orch. [While this brutal, acerbic work, with it’s tooth-ache dissonant scream of an ending, will never be as popular as the Fifth, it’s as brilliant a piece as anything S. ever composed. No wonder Stalin’s music-thugs were pissed-off – there’s so much repressed violence seething inside this score it’s practically an act of treason! It just sounds seditious from the first sardonic statement of a theme to the death-rattle at the very end. There are still comparatively few recordings of the Fourth, but each is a winner, starting with the opulently played Ormandy; my favorite among recent versions is Slatkin’s, but this Kondrashin interpretation might have them all beat where it counts the most. No other conductor gets the sheer murderous cruelty of the climax nailed down like he does. The Source – a French Hamonia Mundi stereo pressing – features naked, glaring sonics, and the volume overloads a few times when the bass drum starts whomping on your head like a knout. That just adds to the potency of the scoring. Fearsome, terrifying music! ]

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Suite. w/ Philharmonia Orchestra [20:42]

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite. w/ Philharmonia Orch. [21:15] [One doesn’t automatically think of Krips as a Stravinsky conductor; one rarely thinks of him at all these days, and that’s unfortunate because he was one of the most respected of European conductors during the post-war years; both his experience and his repertoire were wide and deep; orchestras admired him; his Beethoven cycle for Everest was, and remains to this day, one of the best (with the London Symphony); his appearances in New York, Amsterdam, and Berlin were always well attended and reviewed…and he’s fallen totally of the radar. I think it’s because the man simply didn’t photograph well. In most album photos, he resembled one of those pop-eyed rubber squeegee frogs, and as we all know, conductors are supposed to look exotic and compelling (like Stokowski) or virile and dynamic (Bernstein, Mehta, Muti)…poor Krips looked like the geeky-looking kid with coek bottle glasses who always got viciously teased in gym class… But he was a damn fine conductor, especially of Mozart – he always drew a lovely singing line from orchestras in that composer’s works – and here’s proof that he could turn in a first-class "Firebird" alongside the Strauss stuff which was more what people expected. The Strauss sequence is radiant and the Stravinsky is all-around top notch, even if it lacks the stinging whiplash power other conductors brought to the "Infernal Dance", it still rises to a climax of considerable majesty, with all the colors painted in fine-grained transparency.]

Ravel: Bolero. Boston Symphony (studio) [Svelte, slinky, ejaculatory at the end – all is well in Franco-Russian Boston; mercifully brisk tempi, but never too fast for the subtle inflections Koussie lavishes on the music. If "subtle" applies to this warhorse any more…]

" : Mother Goose Suite. Boston Symphony (studio recording) [Quite simply the most ravishingly beautiful performance of this haunting score ever committed to disc. Infinite shades of melancholy and aching nostalgia, all rendered with the lightest, most "floating" touch. The BSO winds are just fantastic, and you could fashion saints’ halos out of the soft-gold sheen on the strings. The sound, circa 1940, is very good.]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5. w/ Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. [Fiery, taut, typical of his style]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9. w/ Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam; To van der Sluys, soprano; Suze Luger, contralto; Louis van Tulder, tenor; Willem Ravelli, bass; Toonkunst Chorus; Live, May 2,1940 [67:40] [There’s no middle ground about this particular Mengelberg/Beethoven interpretation – collectors either adore it or despise it. And even some of us who adore most of it, are still rendered speechless by the Flying Dutchman’s decadent, possibly deranged, monstrously bloated, defiantly whimsical retard in the final couple of bars – a "fingerprint" quirk that disfigured every Mengelberg account of the Ninth. Talk about "painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa!" Otherwise, although there are enough rhetorical gear-shifts to make Toscanini reach for a barf bag, this is a potent if rather shallow example of Mengelberg as his best and worst simultaneously. He seems determined to wring every last drop of theatrical drama from the score, leaving the deeper aspects of the music to fend for themselves. In that narrow sense, it works – you’ll seldom hear a Ninth bursting with so much swagger, thrust, and shameless melodrama (trumpets like welding torches, timpani like cannon fire, strings like a horde of weeping sopranos, speed-ups and slow-downs like a Ferrari negotiating hair-pin curves in a cross-country rally; the Concertgebouw stays with him every crazy minute – they were used to all this stuff by now – and much of it is undeniably thrilling, but it is also a bit like reading a dirty novel with all the raunchiest passages underlined in purple ink… You have been warned. On the other hand, the last 10 minutes of movement IV make for one helluvva classical party record! Note: the original recording was taken down on large glass transcriptions discs by Radio Nederland, for re-broadcast as well as archival purposes – I’m not sure how that process worked, and the Dutch seem to have been the only engineers using it, but mostly the sound is sharp and honest-of-timbre, with wide dynamic range and remarkably little distortion in the big climaxes; there’s one grisly moment (mike overload? Too much gain-riding? A physical defect in the disc?) at the start of the first movement, but the distortion gradually ebbs away in about of minute and the rest of the recording is quite satisfying, given its age. As for the coincident fact that on May 7, exactly one week later, Hitler launched his crushing offensive against the Netherlands, that possibility would have been on everyone’s mind and may have something to do with the rawness and intensity of Mengelberg’s interpretive stance. BTW, I once asked Felix de Nobel, esteemed founder and conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, if Mengelberg really was a Nazi sympathizer. He snorted derisively: "What he was, was a scapegoat! As an autocrat by temperament and profession, as all conductors must be, he wasn’t exactly a sentimental liberal, but I don’t think he had any political convictions at all! In that regard, he was as naïve as a ten-year-old child. Did he let the Nazis use him? Yes, but he never realized that – to him it was just business-as-usual. But the public demanded that somebody be sacrificed for how unprepared the Dutch armed forces were at the time of the invasion, and Mengelberg’s head was served up to the mob. He never conducted again – anywhere. Just lived in quiet exile in Switzerland, very lonely and sad, mostly bewildered by the way Amsterdam had turned on him, and died in 1951, almost unmourned. To think how many recordings he could have made during the last five years of his life… A tragic loss, really it was."]

Bloch: Schelomo. w/ Leonard Rose; NYPSO, c. 1953. [More than half-a-century has passed, and this version is still one of the most fiercely impassioned ever recorded. I heard Rose play this piece twice live, and neither time did he come close to matching the intensity Dimitri elicited from him in this studio recording.]

De FALLA: Dances from "3-Cornered Hat". w/ NYPSO; studio version; 1957 [Intense; heavy rubato!]

" " : Nights in the Gardens of Spain. w/ Casadseus/ NYPSO; studio version [Sultry]

Saint-Saens: Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 33. [Makes this rather bourgeois composition sound half-way exciting! Still the version to beat, after fifty-odd years.]

DEBUSSY: La Mer. w/ Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, live 10/12/1939. [More vital & dramatic than his later studio recording; good sound for its age.]

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op. 48. w/ Leningrad Philharmonic Orch., live, 3/17/1949 [29:19]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony NO. 4, Op. 16. w/ Leningrad Philharmonic Orch. /live 4/8/1957 [40:21]

Dutilleux: Symphony No. 2 ("le Doubles"). w/ Lamoureux Orchestra [28:43]

Roussel: Suite No. 3, Op. 33. w/ Lamoureux Orchestra [14:17]

DVORAK: Symphony No. 1, C minor, Op. 3, "The Bells of Zlonice". w/ Prague Symphony.

" : Symphony No. 4, D Minor, Op. 13. w/ Prague Symphony Orch.

"The Heart of the Symphony". w/ RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. Okay, that’s a fair question: who the hell is Charles O’Connell and why am I listing him between Koussevitzky and Wallenstein? He was the head producer for RCA Red Seal records during the glory days of Stokowski, Koussevitzky and Toscanini. He was brilliant at the job and in 1946 or thereabouts, he published a juicy, revelatory memoir entitled The Other Side of the Record, long out of print but very much worth seeking if you’re into record-history and conductors. Having hung out with many of the great conductors for so many years, O’Connell "got the bug" and produced this "Introduction to the Classics" album mainly so he could get a chance to wave a baton in front of a real orchestra instead of the mirror we conductors manqué usually prefer. What resulted were 4-5 minute snippets from the Unfinished, the New World, the Beethoven 5^th, etc. How did Charles do on the podium? Not bad, really; not much technique was required and if he screwed the pooch anywhere, the orchestra bailed him out on automatic pilot – he was, after all, the guy who signed their paychecks. Source is a very, very rare Camden in surprisingly good shape. I include this oddity simply because O’connell’s book is still a cult classic among record collectors and some of you might share my curiosity about his one and only recording. I’ve kept my eyes peeled for a copy for 40 years and, bingo, one turned up at the Goodwill store last month!]

Barber: Toccata Festivo, w/ Biggs & Philadelphia Orch. [13:48] [Tremendous; thrilling!]

Poulenc: Cto. For Organ, Strings & Timpani. w/ Biggs; Philadelphia Orch. [19:40]

PAITA, Carlos [? - ?]: [For many of us conductor-philes, Paita was the Great White Hope. He had it all: Promethean fire, Furtwangler’s sense of big symphonic architecture (and how to creatively nudge it through discreet and often brilliant use of rubato), Stokowski’s ear for lush sonorities, Mitropoulos’s and Bernstein’s ferocious energy – and he was damned sexy to watch. He made 8-9 records for London in the late Sixites; he appeared just once, TBOMK, in the United States and was an embarrassing flop (for reasons I’ve yet to determine); he was reportedly testy and difficult to work with; he couldn’t land a directorship with any orchestra worthy of his gifts; he lost his recording contract; he moved to Switzerland and established a "vanity" label called Lodia Records, and for 5-6 years he issued one stunning interpretation after another, with an outfit cryptically identified as "The Philharmonic Symphony" (probably one or another of the London ensembles) and then he vanished. Drowned, according to one Internet report, although I haven’t been able to learn when or where. Sometimes you can still find Lodia’s remaindered or in second-hand stores. Grab ‘em if you do. I think I have all of them, and it’s a sadly short stack. He’s been virtually forgotten. There’s one lonely kindred spirit in France who maintains a web site memorial, but since I can’t read French I haven’t gotten in touch. No broadcast tapes have ever surfaced; his live appearances apparently were even fewer than Carlos Kleiber’s ( about whose stage-shyness Herbert von Karajan, not known for his sparkling wit, once quipped: "I think he takes an engagement when his freezer’s empty."). So here’s a verbal toast to Carlos P., the fiery Argentine who almost made it to legendary status, and then – poof! C’est la vie. I’m rationing out his listings, too, because there aren’t many and all but one of them is wonderful. I won’t tell you which one I think is a lemon; you might feel just the opposite about it…when I list it. This Beethoven 7^th is terrific; it’s got passion, energy, depth, richly-colored lyricism when called for, and superlative orchestral execution throughout. Did I mention the engineering is sensational? The fourth movement will make your hair stand on end.]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, "Eroica". w/ Scottish Ntl. Orchestra. [49:22]

Beethoven: Symphony No. 7. w/ The Philharmonic Symphony (sic)

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7. w/ SW German Radio Symphony, Baden-Baden. [63:02]

Martinu: Symphony No. 5. w/ USSR State Symphony Orch. Live, May 17, 1985 [33:16]

" : Symphony No. 6 ("Fantasies Symphoniques"). w/ USSR State Symphony Orch., live, May 17, 1985. [28:21]

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4. w/ Viktoria Postnikova, piano; Chicago Symphony Orch, live, 1991

Rimsky-Korsakov: Legend of the Invisible City if Kiteszh – Suite from. w/ Chicago Symphony Orch., live, 1991

Shostakovich: Hamlet Suite, Op. 32. w/ Moscow Philharmonic Orch.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1, Op. 15. w/ Chicago Symphony Orch; live, 1991

Schubert: Symphony No. 4. w/ Vienna Symphony Orch. [30:25] [First-rate, echt-Viennese interpretation from a conductor more influential than recorded (Sacher commissioned so many works for his Zurich Chamber Orchestra that he almost equaled Koussevitzky in that regard: But he chose seldom to travel far from home, and TOBMK, never guest-conducted in the U.S.]

GOEB, Roger: Symphony No. 3. w/ His Symphony Orchestra. [Stokie’s comments: "Goeb’s music is one of the many expressions today of the independence of American Culture…The independence of American Music in particular is the result of a long, gradual…freeing from European influence. It began with William Billings…who said ‘all the hard, dry rules will not enable any person to form an Aire without Genius…Nature must inspire the thought.’ Today the most talented American composers are expressing through tone and rhythm our conception of the life of feeling and action in America. Goeb is one of the most outstanding of these. His 3^rd Symphony is in three parts. Its music is a complex interweaving of dynamic rhythm and vigorous melodic lines. The first part is moderately fast, with alert dance rhythms and powerful accents. Its second theme, an extremely flexible melody, is first heard on the oboe. The second part is slower, in a nostalgic, fantastic, exotic mood. The third part is vivacious…as if improvised. Its first theme is announced by the trumpet, followed by developments of all the themes, as if different groups of revelers were answering each other. The texture of the music is earthy, lusty, with complex counter-rhythms. Frankly, this highly developed and deeply original symphony will not be understood by one hearing (sic). A detailed intellectual analysis of its themes and structure might confuse the listener. Only repeated listening, with an open mind and heart, will reveal its musical message…and its depth of feeling."

RACHMANINOFF: Prelude in C-sharp Minor. w/ Czech Philharmonic Orch. [4:42]

SCHUBERT: Moment Musical No. 3, F minor. " " " " "[2:08]

DVORAK: Carnival Overture, Op. 92. w/ Vienna State Opera Orch. [Dashing version.]

MAHLER: Symphony No. 9. w/ New York Philharmonic Orch, live 1982. [Maybe he wasn’t all that great, I’d started thinking; after all, his repertoire was as narrow as Toscanini’s… And that’s how quickly we conducting mavins had started to forget how exciting Klaus Tennstedt was when he first began guest-conducting in America. Mahler & Bruckner, Bruckner and Mahler – electrifying live concerts in Chicago, Cleveland, Boston – at last! A real podium titan! After soul-numbing seasons of mediocrities like Levine and inscrutable ciphers like Ozawa – both of whom created their own little ripples of excitement when they first started making records – here, from an obscure post in East Germany, was The Real Thing. But after the first wave of publicity, he faded from the U.S. concert circuit; if you didn’t live in London, you didn’t hear much about him; and, let’s face it, his commercial records, from the start, just didn’t have the same spark. In fact, some of them were dull and earthbound (I remember a limp, completely disappointing "Rhenish" on Angel – it might sound better now!) – and then, all too soon, rumors that years of alcoholism had ruined the poor man’s liver; cancelled engagements; failing powers; poor health…and then he died. Now that some of his live work is coming out on CD, Tennstedt’s reputation is once again on the rise, as we learn that his working repertoire wasn’t all THAT narrow and those generally sucky studio performances weren’t a patch on the excitement and commitment of his best work before an audience. So when I went to dub a master of this 23-year-old off-the-radio tape, I wasn’t expecting all that much. Yet from the first ghostly bars to the cosmic nihilism of the ending, this was sheer recreative sorcery. Fifteen bars into the last movement, I started to weep. Not even Bernstein got closer to the black, bloody marrow of this music than Tennstedt did on this night in 1982. The Philharmonic musicians play their hearts out for him, just pour themselves into every measure. His tempi are controversially deliberate in many places, frenzied in others, but the majestic throbbing arc of the final movement seems to grab Time itself by the throat. By any measure you care to apply, this is sublime conducting; a harrowing traversal of this towering death-haunted score. Essential for any Mahler collection.]

BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 1. w/ Ania Dorfmann; NBCSO, 8/9/1945 [31:09]

" : Egmont Overture, Op. 84. w/ Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Live, 7/7/1946

" : Leonore Overture No. 1, .w/ BBC Symphony Orch, live,

BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3 . NBCSO, live, 11/4/1939 [13:09]

" : Symphony No. 1, Op. 21. w/ Lucerne Festival Orch/. live, 7/7/1946 [22:39]

CHERUBINI: "Anacreon" Overture. w/ "Elite" Orchestra of Lucerne, live, 8/27/1938. [9:50]. [It’s astounding that this pre-war snippet exists at all, so we shouldn’t complain that it’s obviously home-cut from a none-too-steady shortwave broadcast and contains not only atmospheric-hash but patches of un-Godly transmission line hum, too. Bottom line, though, it’s an incredibly dramatic, slashing performance of an overture one used to encounter fairly often, but that seems to have fallen out of fashion. Odd.]

STRAUSS: Ein Heldenleben. NBCSO, live, 1940. [42:25] [Simply put, this white-hot version ranks up there with Mengelberg’s and Beecham’s and Kempe’s. Toscanini didn’t perform this work but twice in all his American years, but he gives it everything he’s got. It’s NOT too fast, too lightweight, too scrawny-toned, too zitty – like most of his Beethoven was from the NBC years; instead it’s grand, sweeping, full-throated, and exciting as all get-out.]

STRAUSS: Tod und Verklarung, Op. 24; dress rehearsal, 1946; [24:54] [All-rightee, then, Skippy, here’s the living proof that Tosco could, in fact, rave and scream like a thwarted six-year-old when he heard some minor thing that displeased him – frankly, the performance, what we’re allowed to hear of it in between tantrums, sounds fantastic, but then I don’t have Toscanini’s golden ear. The old man’s obviously in a foul mood from the first downbeat and his first detonation isn’t long in coming. He screeches invective in tortured English and roustabout Italian, all jumbled together, in a voice that rakes your ears like a rusty razor blade. He stamps his feet, he smashes the music stand, at one point he hurls the baton. And that’s just for starters. Eventually he storms off the stage, is coaxed back by some unseen manager-type, tries to resume the rehearsal, then five minutes later hears a sharp instead of a flat, buried inside the quadruple winds, and off he goes again, like Vesuvius in full eruption. It’s the best-sounding and most extended tantrum recording I’ve ever heard – the NBC engineers always had a spare cutting turntable cued up in case one of these tirades happened; the old man never knew; especially choice episodes circulated widely amongst New York musicians. They’re howlingly funny on one hand, and downright terrifying on the other. No conductor could get away with this kind of tyranny today, of course, and apologists for The Maestro always said "He only does that because he’s so dedicated to the purity of his musical vision" blah blah blah. Horsefeathers. He did it because he was a spoiled, crabby, autocratic old grouch who derived a sadistic pleasure from being ABLE to treat his musicians like Hottentots. Stokowski was also a stickler for clarity and detail, but his weapons were soft-spoken sarcasm coupled with an icy blue-eyed stare that could penetrate armor plate (I know; I saw it happen many times; but in four years of attending his rehearsals I never heard him raise his voice, curse, or call his musicians "pigs", "clowns" and "fools" the way Toscanini does here.) A treasure of a document, this. Whenever I’ve played it for a contemporary conductor, his jaw drops open in horror – one outburst like this, just ONE, and the Musicians Union would have the prep ridden out of town on a rail.]

WEBER: "Oberon" Overture. w/ NBCSO, live, 1954. [9:29]

WALLENSTEIN, Alfred: [There’s persistent theory that so many cellists evolve into conductors because of where they sit in the orchestra – to put it bluntly, close enough to get drenched when the sweat flies off the maestro. The Conducting Virus gradually infects them…sooner or later they take up the baton, with wildly varying degrees of success. Rostropovich, of course, has made an illustrious second career on the podium (against many detractors at first, but not so many now – his range may be limited, but within that range, he can manifest volcanic energy and charisma; dig his new London Symphony "live" Shostakovich Fifth – for sheer brute power and transcended anguish, it roars to the top of a huge list!). Alfred Wallenstein was Toscanini’s first-chair cellist for about a decade, with the NBC Symphony, before he struck out on a conducting career. The verdict is not yet in; many of his commercial recordings were for "off-the-wall" small labels that most record collectors ignored during their brief life-spans (Now, of course, we gobble them up whenever we encounter them!). The discs he made for major labels were more numerous than I had suspected until I started paying more attention to his discography; it’s still hard to get a "fix" on him, though, because those releases came in small irregular batches and then he would sign a contract with a new label, for another 3-4 discs, and then repeat the process. Until I discovered the (mostly quite good) Liszt Dante Symphony listed here, I never knew he recorded for Decca! Aside from overly shrill sonics, this proved to be an insightful and powerful reading of a very elusive work. Makes me wonder what other good Wallenstein performances might be floating around in the Limbo of Lost Labels… Anyway, if you like this shaggy-dog composition, you’ll find Wallenstein’s interpretation well worth hearing.]

LISZT: The Dante Symphony. w/ Los Angeles Philharmonic & Chorus

Bloch: Evocations Suite. w/ NY Philharmonic, Feb. 8, 1941. [15:40] [This may be the only recording ever wuz of this early, not-especially-Jewish-sounding suite and it’s a very convincing performance. Walter gradually stopped programming such off-the-wall pieces by the time he was making his "definitive" studio recordings with the "Columbia Symphony" and listeners who came to know his art exclusively through those versions mistakenly got the impression that he never conducted anything but Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart; his working repertoire during the Thirties & Forties, though, was quite extensive (one of the hottest La Mers in my collection is from Walter and the NYPSO, c. 1944). Here, he gives an impassioned performance of a not-quite-top-drawer work by Bloch (who composed a whole lot more than Schelomo!), one which no other significant conductor seems to have taken up. If you’re a Bloch fan, this is the only game in town. If you’re not, you should be.)

Hindemith: Sinfonia Serena. w/ NYPSO, live, 2/15/48. [29:17] [One of Hindemith’s most laid-back and likeable scores, given a superlative reading. Off-the-air sound is pretty good, for its time]

Vaughan-Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. w/ NYPSO, live, 2/8/41. [15:40] [Here’s another work one would not associate with Bruno Walter, but he’s "into it" and the performance is strong. Of course, almost any decent string section under any decent conductor will turn in a good reading of this sublime score – it can hardly fail to make at least some effect. After 42 years’ familiarity with it, this piece can still tear at my heart like a can opener. As close to Heaven as anything can take us, with the possible exception of the adagio from Bruckner’s 8^th.]

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 4, Op. 47. w/ London Philharmonic Orch.

" : Symphony No. 7, Op. 131. w/ London Symphony Orch. [Weller’s Prokofiev cycle was only briefly available in the U.S., though it remained a stable in the UK for ten years; not in print since the mid-Eighties, TBOMK, so grab your favorite Prokofiev symphonies now, before Testament brings ‘em back into print for an outrageous $19 a disc and I have to delete mine for a while. Weller rarely if ever conducted here and fame came to him rather late; while no one conductor gets ALL of these symphonies "right" – any more than any one maestro gets all the Beethoven nine "right" – Weller ‘s batting average is consistently high and he’s graced with sumptuous sound.]

COMPOSER LISTINGS

"Shurh", A Symphonic Mugam. "Niyazi" (no first name given); Azerbaijan Radio Symphony Orchestra. [Sourced from a 10-inch Melodiya I bought in Leningrad – no notes, no first name given for the conductor! – this splashy, folk-music-colored tone poem confirms Amirov as a second-rate Khatchaturian clone. If you liked Stokowski’s "Mugam" on Everest, with the Houston Symphony, here’s more of the same. Nothing blindingly original, of course, but still great fun. A "mugam", incidentally, is a popular ballad/dance form in this region. Evidently, Amirov wrote a slew of these pieces, but I’ve only heard two.]

"The Nine Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven for Promenade Orchestra and Ice Cream Vendor’s Bell". Corneliu Dubravianu (SP???); Netherlands Radio Symphony Orch. Live, 1982. [As those of you who’ve followed the various installments of this database know, I have, well, a whole shit-load of Dutch "avant-garde" music from the Sixties & Seventies. Lord love ‘em, the Dutch subsidize their composers, and even let them smoke grass without throwing them into the slammer, and so a lot of otherwise very talented young composers cranked out reams and reams of pretentious and egregiously unpleasant codswallop during those decades. Andreisson has always been the maverick, however, kind of thumbing his nose at the whole silly phenomenon even while feeding off the Dutch government’s teat as greedily as any of his colleagues. His streak of Dadaist fur-lined teacup humor often found expression in extended "gag pieces" like this one, which is truly very funny and wondrously clever; worthy of PDQ Bach at his most besotted. It doesn’t last TOO long, either, and manages to work in hilariously out-of-context quotations from about fifteen Beethoven works, the entire demented exercise punctuated by this maddening ching-a-ching-a-ching hand-bell in the percussion section, which eventually drills into your brain-meat like a tiny silver spike. I wish somebody around here (the Triad region of North Carolina) would have the gall to program this spoof on a real concert, but that raises the question: how big a percentage of the typical audience would even GET the musical in-jokes? In twenty-seven years of covering the local arts scene I’ve watched a steady erosion of sensibilities and open-mindedness, not to mention elementary knowledge that previous generations absorbed from the surrounding gestalt by osmosis; this year’s Greensboro Symphony program, for instance, is so reactionary it makes a Toscanini season look stunningly progressive by comparison. I guess that’s what the tired businessmen who support the orchestra want to hear, and no recent conductor’s had the balls to challenge them. Anyway, this piece is a hoot and a half!]

Ballet Mechanique Robert Craft; Los Angeles Contemporary Music Ensemble. [ Source is a wonderful old Urania collection entitled Percussion!, which also had cool pieces by Hovhaness, Chavez, and Vincent LoPresti. My friends and I thought we were hip as all get-out to be grooving on this stuff at age 14 (and I supposed we were) and I was surprised – when I vacuum-cleaned this LP for dubbing – to find out how good a condition it was in and how well both performances and recorded sound have held up. I suspect this was Robert Craft’s first record (before he learned how to use Igor Stravinsky as his ventriloquist’s dummy – I always thought Craft looked like, I dunno, a shoe salesman or a high school algebra teacher or something – anything but a conductor!), and Paul Price had been doing yeoman’s work on behalf of contemporary music for a long while before this record was taped. You miss something from not having it in stereo, but not as much as you’d think. The Ballet Mechanique had long ago lost its power to shock – it just sounded "quaint". But the airplane engine still sounds terrific, even in mono.]

Toccata Festiva, Op. 36. E. Power Biggs; Ormandy; Philadelphia Orch. [13:46] [Smashing!]

Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. [See "Stokowski" under "Conductors"]

Concerto in D major for 2 Horns & Orch. [SEE "Stagliano" under "Virtuosi & Chamber Ensembles"]

Leonore Overture No. 3. Toscanini; NBCSO, live, 11/4/1939]

Piano Concerto No. 1, w/ Ania Dorfmann, piano; Tosacanini; NBC S. O., 11/4/1939. [13:09]

Sonata for Piano No. 23, F Minor, Op. 57, "Appassionata". Lazar Berman, piano. [20:21][This was, I think, Berman’s first recording outside of the USSR, on the long-defunct and very odd Saga label. It’s a very strong, virile presentation of this masterpiece, as you might expect from an ursine figure like Berman, but I don’t hear anything transcendently great, here – just very good high-octane Russian-school pianism. Berman made better records, later. All the same, for fans of his work this is a must-own.]

Sonata No. 17, D Minor, Op. 31/ No. 2, "Tempest". Sviatislav Richter, piano; live, 11/7/1980, @ the Salle Pleyel, Paris. [25:59]

Sonata No. 23, Op. 57 "Appasionata". Ikuyo Kamiya. [Get this one for the sound, not the performance, although the latter ain’t bad. Source is a massive slab of virgin vinyl from Japanese Victor, direct cut recording, at 45 rpm. It’s the most awesome reproduction of a Boesendorfer Imperial Grand you’ve ever heard – incredibly rich and powerful, an enormous cascade of glorious piano tone, and if Ms. Kamiya’s performance isn’t note-perfect and she sometimes sounds dangerously close to spinning out of control, just think what kind of cajones it took to record this piece without the safety net of tape edits! Each movement was played through start to finish without a break, several takes, the best were chosen for this disc, which apparently was pressed in a very limited edition. I only managed to scarf one up because of my connections as the classical buyer for Peaches No. 37, during the brief halcyon period when those stores really did try to stock everything and before the whole bubble burst into a zillion pieces because the L.A. studs who ran the chain kept snorting the profits up their noses and buying exotic muscle cars. It doesn’t take an accounting whiz to figure out that you cannot go around the country opening million-dollar stores on bogus credit ratings forever – sooner or later, the labels had to be paid, and they weren’t. So the product stopped coming in and in the space of six months, Peaches went from a retail skyrocket to a debt-encumbered turd in the toilet. But not before I got my hot little hands on this stunningly beautiful disc. And, hey, digital is digital, so it sounds just as great on a CD copy as it does on the Source.]

Symphony No. 4. Carlos Kleiber; Bavarian State Symphony Orch., live, 1982. [Lives up to the hype.]

Symphony No. 5. Leibowitz; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Symphony No. 5. "Hans Wolf" and the "Viennese Symphony Orch" [One of those "Mystery Orchestra" items on an utterly obscure label, "Paris" records. I’ve never seen another specimen of this label ("Tested by Hi Fi Laboratory" claims the cover, proudly. Beneath the scratches – lots of ‘em, but not too grossly distracting if you’re a tolerant listener – you can hear a half-way good reading in warm but oddly focused sound, almost certainly a broadcasting studio; attacks and cut-offs are sometimes ragged, but there’s plenty of energy to the playing. I’ve decided to list it, along with the Schubert "Unfinished" below, because you just never know who the performers on these bogusly-attributed recordings might really be! If anyone reading this has a clue, let me know. The copyright date is 1954; otherwise there’s no information about the recording anywhere on label or in the generic program notes. I know this isn’t licensed or stolen from the Concert Hall roster; it doesn’t sound a thing like the work of Goehr, Swoboda, or Swarowsky, but all I can tell you confidently that is damn sure isn’t by someone whose real name is "Hans Wolf"!]

Symphony No. 5. Keilberth/ Habourg State Symphony Orch.

Symphony No. 7. Carlos Paita [See remarks under "Conductors"]

BENDA, Jiri (1722-1795): [With their bubbly, bright-spirited exuberance, the composer’s obvious relish for playing around with contrasts and surprise effects, these small-scaled orchestral works definitely prefigure the symphonies of Haydn. Great music to play when you’re bustling around the house, doing chores. These performances by the Prague Chamber Ensemble had ample gusto, and the recorded sound is very fine. An unalloyed delight.]

Symphony in F Major. Libor Hlavacek; Prague Chamber Ens. [7:45]

Symphony in G Major. " " ; " " [8:27]

Symphony in C Major. " " ; " " [7:07]

Symphony in E-Flat " " " " [12:25]

Symphony in G Major " " " " [8:26]

Toccata Festiva, Op. 36. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orch. [13:48]

"Schelomo", Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello & Orch. w/ Leonard Rose & Mitropoulos; NYPSO.

Six Hungarian Dances (No’s 1,3-6, 10 ). Hans Hagen; Vienna Symphony Orch. [17:35 ]

Symphony No. 1. Klemperer; Cologne Radio S.O., live, 11/17/55

Symphony "No. 0" in D minor (Nowak ed.) See "Conductors" under "Asahima"

Symphony No. 4, "Romantic". Hollreiser; Bamberg Symphony Orch. [50:50]

Symphony No. 6 (Original version) – See Conductors Listings under "Asahina"

Symphony No. 7. Furtwangler; Berlin Philharmonic [See "Conductors" for more details]

Symphony No. 7. Rosbaud; SW Deutsche Rundfunk Orch, Baden-Baden. [63:02]

Symphony No. 8. Furtwangler; Berlin Philharmonic Orch. [In "Breitklang" see "Conductors"] "

Symphony No. 9. Abendroth; Leipzig R.S.O. [See "Conductors" under "Abendroth"]

Pavan for the Steak of Salisbury. [See "Stokowski" under "Conductors"]

Amores. Composer; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble [ ]

Double Music (w/ Lou Harrison). Paul Price; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble [ ]

Psalm "In Convertendo Dominus". Pierre Cochereau; Lamoureux Orch; Notre Dame Choir

Rigaudon. E. Power Biggs; Brass & Percussion Ensemble [2:35]

Rhapsodies for Orchestra. William Smith; Philadelphia Orchestra, live, 1981

Double Concerto for Haprsichord & Piano w/ Two Chamber Orchestras. Gustav Meier conductor; Ralph Kikrpatrick, harpsichord; Charles Rosen, piano.+

Toccata for Percussion. Paul Price; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble. [Still a jolt!]

Etude in C Minor, Op. 10/ no. 12. Richter; live @ the Salle Pleyel, Paris; 11/7/1980 [3:06]

Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4. [See "Stokowski" under "Conductors"]

Prelude No. 16 in D flat major. Richter; live @ Salle Pleyel, Paris, 11/7/1980. [8:01]

Paraphrase to "Jerusalem & the Daughters of Zion." Composer, organ; Lamoureaux Orch.; Notre Dame Choir. [Cochereaux is only the 6^th or 7^th musician to hold the post of Organist at Notre Dame – rather the pinnacle of his profession. His recordings span a huge rang of repertoire & his musicianship is – one must resort to an over-worked adjective here – awesome. The selections listed here with his name in the performers’ roster are taken from the celebration of Notre Dame’s 800^th anniversary and all, including this one, are suitably splendiferous. Too bad the event wasn’t taped in SACD format! Not that I can afford a system, yet, but someday…]

Pieces de Violes – Suite No. 1 in E Minor. Desmond Dupre & Dennis Nesbitt, viola da gamba; Thurston Dart, harpsichord. [One of the earliest LPs from the great L’Oiseau-Lyre label; very authentic – Couperin’s own accent markinsg are strictly observed – but filled with warmth and emotion.]

DEBUSSY: [See "Toscanini" under "Conductors"]

Danse (Orch. Ravel) Toscanini; NBCSO, live, 1940

Te Deum. Pierre Cochereau, organ; Lamoureux Orch. & Notre Dame Choir

The "Utah" Symphony. Makal; Milwaukee Symphony Orch. [About 30 minutes] [Take one cup of John Adams, mix with 3 ounces of Aaron Copland, a tablespoon of Roy Harris, and a dash of John Williams; stir briskly for half-an-hour; pour over audience’s ears. See them clap! And why not? Although it’s relatively spineless, this paean to the beauty of Utah’s landscape is so audience-friendly it does everything but wag its tail. The melodies are agreeable, the orchestration splashy and cinematic, and to judge from the applause the crowd lapped it up. I just wish Mr. Duffy had either disguised or left out the ubiquitous "theme based on an Indian legend about Goo-ga-too-ga, the Spirit of Camp-Fires-Coaxed-from-Wet-Kindling" – it’s SO, you know, Wounded-Knee!]

Piece Heroique. E. Power Biggs, organ; Brass & Percussion Ensemble [7:48]

Symphony No. 2, ("Le Doubles"). Munch; Lamoureux Orchestra [28:43] [Commissioned by the Boston Symphony for its 75^th anniversary (1954), this slightly enigmatic but dramatic work is one of the finest post-war symphonies to come from Europe. Dutilleux isn’t a tune-smith, but he’s no serialist, either; his work is highly original, provocative – in the deeper, more intellectual sense of that work, not the fur-lined-teacup exhibitionism of many "avant-garde" contemporaries. The last movement, with its eerie, sustained diminuendo ending, is masterful and worth the price of admission alone. This happens to be the last recording Charles Much made before his death; he also conducted the world premier in Boston. I think the word "definitive" applies to his interpretation. Excellent sound, too.]

String Quartet in F, Op. 96. ["American"]. REZNICEK, Emil (1860-1945): [An interesting book could be written about the "One-Hit Wonders" of classical music! He was an exact contemporary of Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Mahler; he was very well acquainted with the musical cross-currents of his time; he was accepted as a colleague, albeit somewhat diffidently by the more gregarious "poetic" (translation: hard-drinking followed by a few cubes of absinthe) souls such as Hugo Wolf, but he was essentially rather shy and did not press either his company of his music upon others. Consequently, he was able to arrange first performances of his major compositions more easily than second or third ones! With introversion came self-criticism, and Reznicek was forever tinkering with published scores and trying vainly to have last-minute revisions pasted over pages that were already in the galleys. He was tortured by having to those people printed scores, which he knew to be riddles with minute typos and other nicky-nacky details. His one great success, the opera Dona Diana, was just that – his one great success. But he also composer four sympohonies, a better-than-fair violin concerto, several large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, and a wide assortment of shorter pieces in many genres. This first symphony is a major discovery, written while under the spell of Mahler’s "Titan" symphony, which Reznicek had heard only recently before he started composing. It’s a huge, sprawling, often grandiose work, especially in the second movement, subtitled (with tongue-in-cheek or not? You decide!) "Funeral March for a Dead Actor"! Against a dark, brooding background, the brass conjure up skittering lightning bolts…we hear scurrying terrified-animals in the skirls of the woodwinds…rising tempest winds lash the strings…a barely controlled feeling of impending violence wells up through the overall orchestral fabric until, irresistibly, a seismic eruption tears-open the sound and roiling half-mocking, half-serious fanfares come boiling and seething into the air high above (along with a cloud of toxic bloated metaphors and swollen semiles!). Gordon Wright, a tall, barrel-chested, ursine fellow from Alaska (where he conducts a state-wide chamber orchestra – is also American chairman of the Reznicek Society and worked with the composer’s widow in preparation for this recordings. His zeal communicates well (despite the serious decline evident in the ensemble playing of the Philharmonia Hungarica), imparting to the performance as a whole an almost feverish intensity. If you’ve responded emotionally to similar "in memoriam" works by Suk, Rott, Korngold, et. al, I think you’ll be equally blown-away by Reznicek’s towering essay. There’s one small skip on Side One, otherwise the Source LP is in spanking good condition. In sum: here’s yet another late-Romantic blockbuster which hasn’t been given it’s chance to find an audience.]

DVORAK:

Carnival Overture, Op. 92. Swoboda; Vienna State Opera Orch.

Quartet in F, Op. 96, "American". The Pascal String Quartet. [From one of those 10-inch Musical Masterworks Society gems. I’m note sure they recorded for anybody else, although they played with finesses & high spirits equal to those of many a more famous outfit. Certainly their reputation was very high at one time (they made the first-ever integral set of the Beethoven Quartets for their sister label, Concert Hall Society, and that recording one the coveted Grand Prix du Disue in 1952. So relax, you’re in good hands with these gentlemen… ]

Symphony No. 9. Stokowski; His Symphony Orchestra [See comments under "Conductors".]

" " . Paul Kletzki; Czech Philharmonic Orch.

Suite from "The River". Conductor & orchestra not identified on Source tape, but the sound is decent stereo and the performance is very dedicated & idiomatic. [37:21] [Originally a much longer ballet score, this "suite" is the closest Ellington came to writing a full-fledged symphony. Usually, hybrid works that try to blend jazz and/or big band elements into a symphonic strait-jacket end up sounding like neither fish nor fowl. But Ellington’s vast innate musicianship carries the day here. As a whole, the piece just sounds like terrific MUSIC, period, and defies all categorizations. It has lyricism, exquisite tone-painting, moments of power and inspiration, and by God it swings! Here’s yet another major orchestral work that would appeal instantly to a wide range of listeners…but who’s programming it? Where’s a new commercial recording? Is the name "Duke EIlington" no longer one to conjure with? If so, our musical culture is in even deeper trouble than I thought. Just remember what he said about "modern music": "Hey. Man, if it sounds good, it is good." It really is as simple as that, folks.]

Romanian Poem, Op. 1. Iosif Conta; Romanian Broadasting Symphony Orch. [What a wild grab-bag this thing is! Impressionistic washes of pure atmosphere alternate with stirring patriotic choruses and mighty declamations from the full orchestra. Stlystically & thematiucally, it sprawls all over the map, but it’s just incredibly fun to wallow in.]

Romainian Rhapsody No. 1. Composer; USSR Symphony , live, 1941 [Sensational.]

" " " . Iosif Conta; Romanian Broadcast Synmphony Orch.

" " " . " " " " " " . [These are the only examples of Conta’s work in my collection; I can tell you nothing about him, but I can vouch that these performances rank with the best and that Conta takes his cue from Enesco’s own recordings, whipping up the tempi and dynamic shadings into a dizzying quasi-improvisatory Gypsy frenzy.]

Violin Sonata No. 3, Op. 25. Rafel Druian, violin; John Simms, piano. [Wow! What a piece! Gypsies with ten-foot bows, dark eyes flashing in campfire light! Awesome challenges for the soloist, which Mr. Druian meets with sensational, drop-dead aplomb. If you love hot, and I mean really HOT, fiddling, check this out. Excellent sound, a few small pops & ticks on Source, you won’t care.]

Concerto for Solo Percussion. Marvin Dahlgren, percussionist. [Astounding virtuosity!]

A Symphony of Overtures. Johanos; Dallas Symphony [15:47] [Interesting concept; I can’t decide whether or not it works for me, but it holds my attention, as most of Erb’s music does.]

Dances from "The 3-Cornered Hat". Mitropoulos; NYPSO, studio version.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Casadesus, piano; Mitropoulos; NYPSO, studio version. [Sultry]

Piccolo Musica di Concerto. Frigyes Szandor; Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra [9:11]

Planctus et Consolationes. Janos Ferencsik; Hungarian State Radio & TV Orch. [15:15]

Trittico Concertato. Szandor; Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. [12:41]

Waiting for the Spring – Cantata on Poems of Gyula Juhasz. Ferencsik; Hungarian State Radio & TV Orch & Chorus. [20:10] [These are all agreeable, well-crafted works, but without many memorable moments that would motivate repeated listenings. Sound & performances are first-rate, though.]

Symphony No. 1. Conductor unidentified; BBC Symphony (presumably). [Virile, ornate, self-assured music from another composer too-little known over here. Very good sound, for an off-the-air taping.]

Ouatre Mouvements Parodiques. Tamaoka/ Yomuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. [Now HERE’S a musical whiz-bang for you! Japanese composer returns home after 1918, stuffed with bizarre Western notions, and the first major orchestral work he turns out from his native soil if a four-movement parody of Stravinsky, de Falla, Bartok (he later crossed out "Bartok" and wrote "Roussel" instead – one would like to know what that was all about, because the parodies wouldn’t have worked very well with audiences unacquainted with the real Stravinsky, Bartok, et. al. To my ears, the parodistic elements are sometimes-clear, sometimes too subtle, which indicates perhaps Fukai’s intent was not side-splitting in-jokes so much as a set of sincere Homage’s… So we end up with an "interesting" that never quite transcends that damning-with-faint-praise label.]

Sonata for Trumpet & Organ. Maurice Andre, trumpet; Hedwig Bigram, organ. [11:38]

Grand Chorus in Dialogue. E. Power Biggs, organ; Brass & Percussion Ensemble. [5:08]

The Bronze Horseman, complete Ballet. Algis Zuraitis; Bolshoi Theater Orchestra [45:24]

Symphony No. 3. [See "Stokowski" under "Conductors’]

Liturgica Domestica, Op. 79. Georgi Robev; Chamber Orchestra of the Bulgarian Radio & the "Svetoslav Obretnov" Chorus; Boris Christoff, bass-baritone; Blagos Spassov, baritone; Todor Grigorov, tenor; Grigor Yanev, tenor; recorded in the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, Sofia Bulgaria, 1979. [Time approximately 95 minutes] [This is a major work – "magnum opus" perhaps – by a neglected but gifted composer. I can only compare it to the Rachmaninoff Vespers – a soaring, exalted cathedral-vault of sound. Christoff may be long past his prime for major operatic roles, but his dark, powerful tone is spine-tingling here; the massed choral responses, too, are thrilling, and the vast acoustic space of the Nevski cathedral bathes their voices in a glorious penumbra of reverberation. The recorded sound, too, is sensational, capturing a suggestion of infinite space but delineating every strand of harmony with radiant clarity. The orchestral part is relatively slight, mostly just supplying a decorative icon-glow of timbre, but the organ is downright Elemental, floor-shaking in its impact. If this kind of Slavic Soul-Music is a turn-on for you, you’ll find this work to be a major discovery. Why it is so little known is a mystery, except that the same thing can be said of hundreds of worthy pieces to be found in these pages. Sublime music, then, performed with intense commitment in the sort of acoustic space the composer must have had in mind. Note: requires two discs, but with about 40 minutes of left-over space, so pick out a bonus track if you like.]

Two Elegiac Melodies. Eric Tuxen; Danish State Radio Symphony.

Concerto in F Major for 2 Horns & Orch. [See "STAGLIANO" under "Virtuosi & Chamber Ens."]

HALFFTER, Cristobal (1930- ): [One of Spain’s greatest composers since de Falla, Halffter espouses are "maximalist" aesthetic that, frankly, few ordinary listeners will respond to with pleasure. Listening to Versus , for instance, is one of those musical experiences that separates the men from the boys. But he is not gimmicky and his seriousness-of-intent is profound. Read on…]

Versus, for Large Orchestra. Composer; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. [29:48] [I’ll go out on a limb and call this a modern masterpiece, never mind that it consists, 90% of the time, of the most shatteringly violent, nihilistic music I’ve ever heard. Angry, tense Juxtapositions abound: section against section, sonority savagely devouring sonority, and running through it all (to use the composer’s phrase "like a red thread") are stately, sad, quotations from a mournful ballad by 15^th Century troubadour Juan de Encina. They come like a breath of cool air inside a suffocating iron mask of (mostly) quadruple forte orchestral violence, underneath which, like the heartbeat of a colossal and malign beast, we hear steady, metrical beats on the tam-tam, a deep, grainy drum, and blows on a woodblock (or what I identify as a woodblock) that sounds like it was fashioned from a child’s coffin. It’s deafening, merciless, downright terrifying music, bereft (except for the de Encina quotations) of "melodies", but with clearly recognizable recurring shapes/masses of knotted, seizure-gripped tones and timbres. It goes on at least seven minutes too long for the point Halffter’s trying to make, and I can’t imagine an entire audience sitting through it without half the patrons fleeing, eventually, for the closest exist, but if you’ve got the gumption to stick with it, it will leave you shaken and deeply affected. One caveat: although there’s no defect visible on the CD’s surface, the sound stutters and drops out four times, briefly, always to return. I think these silences are small pressing defects, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Both the sound and the performance are spectacularly vivid (and deafening), so if you think you can handle it, here it is. Not for sissies.]

Seven Last Words of Christ. Scherchen; Vienna State Opera Orch & Vienna Academy Choir [54:55]

Symphony No. 101, "The Clock". Toscanini; Hague Philharmonic Orch, live, 1938. [Unutterably rare!]

The Four Temperaments. Klara Havilkova, piano; Otakar Thrilik; Bratislava Radio Symphony [29:27] [The closest Hindemith ever came to writing a piano Concerto, this music started life as a ballet score –in which form it must have been fairly dull stuff – and eventually became a not-quite-concerto, in which format it works very well, thank you. One of the composer’s most ingratiating and laid-back works, too. Ms. Havilkova understands it well and doesn’t try to play it like Rachmaninoff, allowing the music to display its modest charms in its own way. Maestro Trilhik has been with the Bratislava Orchestra since Christ was a corporal & he elicits very sensitive playing from them. I saw him conduct once, at the Eastern Music Festival, an ill-conceived Beethoven Ninth, which never really got off the ground; he’s much better here.]

Ludus Tonalis. Kabi Loretei, piano. [53:50] [The composer’s unfortunate choice of a name, plus an ever-growing reputation for gratuitous complexity (spread by piano students required to spend time studying/analyzing/deconstructing/ attempting-to-play it), has made the LudusTonalis synonymous with dry, sterile academicism. Touring virtuosi – even if they know and like the music – wouldn’t be caught dead programming even a short suite of listener-friendly selections from the work. So the first time I played this Estonian pianist’s complete traversal of the hour-long Ludus, I gritted my teeth and expected the worst. Sacre bleu! It turned out to be filled with charming, colorful, thought-provoking, communicative music, not dry-as-dust finger-exercises! Let me state categorically, and expose myself as a Philistine heretic by doing so, that I find the Ludus Tonalis far more appealing than I do Bach’s sanctimoniously iconic Big Snooze, The Art of the Fugue. If that intentionally provocative statement stirs your curiosity, well it’s intended to! Admittedly, she doesn’t have a lot of competition, but Ms. Laretei plays this multi-faceted, often very difficult music, with genuine zest – she’s trying to "sell" it to a wide audience, and she certainly succeeded in selling it to me. Try it; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.]

AAA The Holland Festival AAA

In the early to mid-Sixties, Radio Nederland sent out archival sets of recordings in the form of lavishly produced but strangely fragmented potpourris. Pleasant-voiced announcers deployed six or seven minutes’ worth of interesting contextual/biographical information as an oral framework for four of five minutes’ worth of actual music! The commentaries were always apposite, informative and enticing, but the musical excerpts were unconscionably brief. For example, I would be very interested in hearing how Pierre Boulez conducted Schubert’s Sixth, ‘way back in 1961 (when his conducting career was barely off the ground and he was certainly NOT associated with the likes of Schubert!), but all we were given was a 5:30 snippet of the scherzo!

I see no point in dubbing and separately listing such a fragment. But in the original context, with the announcer’s lead-in and a lot of other stuff surrounding the Boulez shard, the excerpt is much less annoying; within the context of an entire program, it may even make sense. Therefore, I’ve decided to dub each of those Radio Nederland Annual Boxes AS a separate item in the catalogue, start to finish, complete with the announcer’s commentary. And since about two-thirds of the music in each box set is Twentieth-Century in origin, I’m gonna stash these under the 20^th Century heading, as soon as they’re rotated off the New Listings (probably around October 1) Meanwhile, here they are, alphabetically wedged into the New Listings under "H" (du’h…) for "Holland". Clever, nicht wahr?

Browsers who don’t care for "modern music" should be aware that hidden within the Boulezian thickets are a lot of really superb performances of early music, opera, and the chamber repertoire…even if most of them are only tantalizingly brief.

Look, a dollar is a dollar, and if you WANT me to burn individual four-minute tracks from these suckers, I’ll be happy to do so; but wouldn’t it make more sense to order the whole program for a year? Nineteen Sixty One, for example, fits beautifully on two CDS, and I’ll even ship it in a multi-disc container with cool graphics by Ms. Lustig. Whip ‘em out when some record-collecting snob of a friend drops by and gain instant one-upmanship!

(And if you think it’s "fun" typing these contents out, you’re crazy. So justify my suffering by ordering a bunch, one year’s worth at a time! BTW, I’m following the order of the original program notes, so forget about alphabetizing.)

Piano Concerto. Hans Henkemans, piano; Bernard Haitink; Concertgebouw Orch. [12:46] [Actually, that’s the entire concerto, folks!]

Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10. Pierre Boulez; Concertgebouw Orchestra [5:25]

Symphony No. 6 – Scherzo only. Boulez; Concertgebouw Orchestra [5:30]

Bevenuto Cellini, Act One Duet, "O Teresa, vous que j’aime". Antoinette Thiemessen, sop., Nicolai Gedda, tenor; Georrges Pretre; Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. [4:45]

"La Nozze di Figaro", excerpts from last act. Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, sop.’ Hermann Prey; Stefania Malaga, Grazielli Sciotti; Carlo Maria Giulini; Hague Philharmonic Orch & Chorus [7:09]

Simon Boccanegra, Finale Act III. Antoinette Tienessen; Ugo Trama; Angelo Bartoli; Antal Dorati; Orchestra & Chorus, Netherlands Opera Co. [6:30]

Bluebeard’s Castle – Excerpt. Helga Pilarczyk, mezzo.; Mihaly Szekali, bass; Antal Dorati; Concertgebouw Orchestra [5:02]

"La Petite Messe Solenelle" – Sanctus only. Mirella Freni, sop., Oralia Dominguez, mezzo; Angelo Bartoldi; Felix de Nobel, conducting; Netherlands Chamber Choir [4:48]

"Sanctus" from Requiem Mass. Felix de Nobel; Netherlands Chamber Choir [4:48]