Old Gold

By * William Bender

Partly because of high labor costs and low consumer interest, the sales of classical recordings have been sagging drastically. As a result, economy-minded record companies are cleaning out their vaults and cramming their budget-priced labels with new releases of glorious old sounds:

Arturo Toscanini: Overtures (Seraphim). Between 1937 and 1939, Toscanini and the BBC Symphony Orchestra created a series of recordings that were like valentines to each other. Here are five of them: Brahms' Tragic Overture, Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 1, the Weber-Berlioz Invitation to the Dance and, for the first time on American LP, Mozart's Magic Flute Overture and Rossini's La Scala di Seta Overture. As usual, the maestro's familiar musical gusto is the controlling factor, augmented by the expressive freedom he accorded the BBC first-desk men in their solo work. There is also a certain pervasive ease and serenity not always foud in Toscanini's subsequent recordings with the NBC Symphony.

Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4; Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor (Jascha Heifetz, Sir Thomas Beecham, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: Seraphim). Although Heifetz could sometimes be showy in the exercise of a most prodigious violin technique, his tone never lost its radiant silkiness even in the most difficult music. In these two performances (dating, from 1947 and 1949 respectively), the breathtaking Heifetz sound profits from Sir Thomas Beecham's restraining influence.

Mozart: Sonata No. 9; Haydn: Sonata No. 34 and Andante and Variations in F Minor (Wanda Landowska: Victrola). These three tender, highly personal performances--not at the harpsichord, but at the piano--were recorded in the last three years of Landowska's life. Haydn's Andante and Variations is especially endearing for its full measure of romantic freedom.

Josef Hofmann: Works by Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn (Victrola). A superstar born in 1876 to the grand romantic tradition. Hofmann never officially released a commercial studio recording after 1924. In May 1935, however, when he was still at peak form, Hofmann made some test recordings for Victor, now released for the first time. The sound is uneven, but the first movement of Chopin's B-Minor Sonata is a matchless example of the controlled give and take he brought to large-scale works. The Chopin-Liszt Maiden's Wish shows how delicate he could be at painting musical miniatures.

Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (Seraphim). The frisky First Concerto, written when Shostakovich was 27, remains one of his most disarming works--especially when he plays it himself, as in these performances recorded in 1957.

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