New Records

Handel's Messiah is a little like an intricately carved altarpiece with countless sliding and interchangeable parts. An inveterate improviser, Handel altered the work's solo parts constantly to suit various singers. In addition, the orchestration varied: at times Handel called only for strings, trumpets and drums, but to these he sometimes added oboes, bassoons and horns. After Handel's death (1759), well-wishers by the dozens set to work "modernizing" the Messiah: Mozart added new parts for violins and violas, used wind instruments in parts previously reserved for the organ or harpsichord; English Composer Ebenezer Prout in 1902 brought out a thickly orchestrated edition retaining most of Mozart's additions (but printing them in small notes). Today some 50 different versions exist, most of them based on either Mozart or Prout. Anxious to spread the Handel sound on stereo, record companies have brought out four new readings of the Messiah by four distinguished conductors--each with his own concept of how the work should be played.

Sir Thomas Beecham recorded the work with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus (Jennifer Vyvyan, Monica Sinclair, Jon Vickers, Giorgio Tozzi; RCA Victor, 4 LPs, mono and stereo). His performance is the most opulent of the lot, the most animated--and by all odds the farthest from any thought in Handel's mind. In defiance of "drowsy armchair purists," Beecham offers a thunderously 19th century-styled orchestration--lush, richly colored, and full of dramatic contrasts. Soloists and chorus are uniformly fine, but the recording is not for listeners who take their Handel neat. Eugene Ormandy offers a severely cut reading (Eileen Farrell, Martha Lipton, Davis Cunningham, William Warfield; the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; Columbia, 2 LPs, mono and stereo). The performance indulges in fewer pyrotechnics, is chiefly memorable for the truly superb singing of Soprano Farrell.

Sir Malcolm Sargent produces a package (Elsie Morison, Marjorie Thomas, Richard Lewis, James Milligan; the Huddersfield Choral Society; the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; Angel, 3 LPs, mono and stereo) that lacks the fire of Beecham, the vocal glories of some of the Ormandy passages, emerges as painstaking rather than impassioned. Perhaps the best performance of the crop is furnished by Hermann Scherchen (Pierrette Alarie, Nan Merriman, Leopold Simoneau, Richard Standen; the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and the Vienna Academy Chorus; Westminster, 4 LPs, stereo), which is marked by some lovely, light-textured choral passages, a translucent orchestral sound and a movingly meditative air.

Other new records:

Boito: Mefistofele (Cesare Siepi, Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco; Chorus and Orchestra of Accademia di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Tullio Serafin; London, 3 LPs, mono and stereo). When the first of Arrigo Boito's two operas had its premiere at La Scala in 1868, the audience, angered by the opera's excessive length, launched a riot that continued in the piazza outside after the theater closed. A revised, shortened version of Mefistofele was presented seven years later and was a smash, but Boito nevertheless turned to poetry and libretto writing for others (notably Verdi's Otello and Falstaff). The loss to opera is suggested by this excellent album. Mefistofele is a passionate, glowing work studded with darkly florid melody and with some of the most stunningly projected choral passages in all opera.

Halsey Stevens: Symphony No. 1 (Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra ; conducted by Akeo Watanabe; Composers Recordings, Inc., mono). A fresh reading of the work that earned Composer Stevens a reputation as a promising modern about 15 years ago. The symphony is fiery, marked by fresh melody and urgently contrasting rhythms, chock full of highly personal ideas.

Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes (Elsie Morison, soprano; Marjorie Thomas, contralto; Richard Lewis, tenor; Donald Bell, baritone; Vronsky and Babin, duo pianists; Capitol, mono and stereo). These rarely recorded love songs in waltz time display Brahms in the frothiest of his many moods; he wrote them in his 20s, soon after he settled in Vienna, and he sounds almost like a distant cousin of one of the Strauss boys.

Maria Callas: Mad Scenes (Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Nicola Rescigno; Angel, mono and stereo). Soprano Callas rends the air with uneasy mind but beautifully controlled sound in the guise of three of opera's more tormented ladies: Anna Bolena (from the Donizetti opera of that name), Ophelia (from French Composer Charles Thomas' Hamlet), Imogene (from Bellini's Il Pirata). Madness has rarely sounded more thrilling.

Verdi: Macbeth (Leonard Warren, Leonie Rysanek, Jerome Hines, Carlo Bergonzi; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus; conducted by Erich Leinsdorf; RCA Victor, 3 LPs, mono and stereo). The great experimental opera of Verdi's early career gets a fine performance by the cast that brought it back to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera last season. The work remains an uneven affair, hauntingly beautiful in spots, disappointingly pedestrian in others, but Conductor Leinsdorf keeps his forces moving with heroic sound and regal stride.

Beethoven: The Early Quartets (The Budapest Quartet; Columbia, 3 LPs, mono and stereo). With their rapidly shifting rhythms and moods, their springy lyric lines and sprightly syncopations, Beethoven's first six string quartets are as challenging as they are appealing. The men of the Budapest do them full justice, with glowing tone and the seemingly relaxed air of four wits sparring across a table.

Busoni: Fantasia Contrappuntistica (Egon Petri; Westminster, mono). In this stylistic tour de force, Italian Pianist-Composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) started with a chorale prelude and then, using subjects from an unfinished fugue by Bach, spun out four three-part fugues, one of them built on the name and the four notes B-A-C-H.* Throughout, Busoni gradually modernized his musical vocabulary, ending with a style marked by thick, dissonant clusters of notes. The effect, as presented by Dutch Pianist Petri, is a little like watching a nature film in which plants miraculously blossom and grow before the viewer's eyes. Amazingly, Busoni's collection of twigs and branches emerges looking like a single plant.

Lalo: Piano Concerto (Orazio Frugoni, pianist; Vox, mono). French Composer Edouard Lalo (1823-92) is remembered chiefly for his Symphonic Espagnole, but he also wrote a number of operas, chamber works and concertos, of which this is one of the most engaging. Urbane, exotically colored, it sparkles in this recording with the prismatic fascination of a many-tiered chandelier.

* In German usage, H stands for B natural and B for B flat.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.