Classical Records: Pick of the Pack

By Joan Downs

Beethoven: Sonata No. 31, Op. 110; Sonata No. 32, Op. 111 (Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy; London, $6.98). There is no halfway point in attitudes toward late Beethoven. For performers and listeners alike, it is either the ultimate in communicative art or too personal and troubled to share with a large audience. Rubinstein and Horowitz subscribe to the latter view and avoid both the music and the problem. Even a comparative youngster like Cliburn has kept his interpretive thoughts on the matter largely to himself. Fortunately there is Ashkenazy, the finest all-round pianist in music today, a man who is possessed of Schnabel's heart but, unlike Schnabel, has technique to burn. How exquisitely he attends to Beethoven's ruminations! How firm he is with the composer's seeming indirection! A truly distinguished performance and recording.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti conducting; London, $6.98; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Colin Davis conducting; Philips, $7.98). One of the fantastic things about this symphony is the number of superior recorded performances it has had over the years. Argenta, Beecham, Munch, Van Beinum and Ozawa are among the many who have mastered this wildly prophetic score, completed in 1830, only three years after Beethoven's death. Here are two new versions, both by virtuoso conductors and virtuoso orchestras, that go to the top of the list. To choose between them is difficult. Davis' elegant approach is underlined, and undermined, by Philips' lusciously veiled, soft-edged acoustics--and by a splitting of the slow third movement (Scene aux champs) between sides. London gets the movement all on one side and still manages to provide stunningly robust sound that is ideal for the now diabolical, now serene, always aptconjury of Solti, the winner.

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti conducting; London, $6.98). Solti's way with Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler and Strauss stamps him as a Romantic and post-Romantic conductor without superior. This megatonic Rite now confirms his mastery of the contemporary idiom. Where Pierre Boulez etches in cold objectivity, Solti paints in swirling shapes and colors. The effect is electrifying.

Chausson: Symphony in B-Flat; Chabrier: Suite Pastorale (Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray conducting; Mercury, $6.98). Bloch: Concert! Gross! Nos. 1 and 2 (Eastman-Rochester Symphony, Howard Hanson conducting; Mercury, $6.98). In the 1950s and '60s, Mercury made an impressive series of U.S. recordings ranging from the nonpareil French interpretations of Paray to the indispensable catalogue of contemporary Americans by Hanson. Many long unavailable, they are now back as part of a novel reissue program. Mercury sent the tapes to The Netherlands, where its sister company Philips provided its usual superior pressings, then shipped them back to be marketed as Golden Imports. Worth the premium price? Indeed these performances are, especially since they sound better than the originals. Not even Munch equaled Paray's way with Chausson's joyous heartbreaker. The concerti grossi are among the finest works of the now shamefully neglected Bloch, and Hanson reads them with snap and vigor.

Bach: Six Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin (Paul Zukofsky; Vanguard, 3 LPs, $20.94). Now 31, Zukofsky is best known as a peerless craftsman in the workshop of contem porary music, with superb recordings ranging from the Sessions Violin Concerto (CRI, made in 1967) to Ives' Four Sonatas for Violin and Piano (Nonesuch, this year). Here he stakes a claim on more familiar ground. As one might have suspected, Zukofsky's technique is more than up to the harrowing demands of these works. But it is his animation and incisive phrasing that set his interpretations apart. They have a note-to-note style that stirs memories of the young Szigeti.

Prokofiev: Concerto No. 2 in G Minor; Tchaikovsky: Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor (Tedd Joselson pianist, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eu gene Ormandy conducting; RCA, $6.98). Born in Antwerp, reared in New York, tutored by Pedagogue Adele Marcus and educated at the Juilliard School, Tedd Joselson at 23 is RCA's latest candidate for keyboard immortality. He drew a great deal of attention last spring when he played the Prokofiev Second in Philadelphia; it was both clever and right of RCA to capture the performance on the spot. The concerto is a beauty. Its blue moods and stroboscopic white lights meld into quicksilver, and Joselson brings to it a steely finger work and contemporary angst reminiscent of the late William Kapell. The recording is splendidly engineered, and Ormandy seems genuinely excited. That is more than can be said for his Tchaikovsky First, the flip side. With the conductor yawning through his umpteenth recording of the work, Joselson does his best in a lost cause.

Verdi: Otello (Mirella Freni, Jon Vickers, Peter Glossop, Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Deutsche Oper Chorus, Herbert von Karajan conduct ing; Angel, 3 LPs, $21.98). Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, Christa Ludwig, Robert Kerns, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera Chorus, Von Karajan conducting; London, 3 LPs, $20.94). These two major efforts from Von Karajan have come along with the Bach Mass in B Minor (see below) in the past month or so, plus enough other tone poems, concertos and miscellanies to suggest, to other conductors at least, that antitrust action may be called for. Does the man never sleep?

The Butterfly is a marvel, an instant phono graphic landmark. Every note is at once traditionally in place and yet thought out afresh. The Vienna Philharmonic plays with an esprit that be lies its frequent addiction to the staid. Best of all are Freni and Pavarotti, lyric lovers for now and forever. As for the Otello, what could well have been definitive is at best a near miss. Von Ka rajan does not seem deeply involved. The pulse of the music wobbles. Vickers, the securest of Otellos onstage, does not always seem comfort able on vinyl. Glossop, the lago, has the voice for the role but not the cruelty. The Desdemona of Soprano Freni is not without heartbreak, but Otello is, alas, not primarily a soprano's opera. Slow down, maestro.

William Bender

Hector Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (Seiji Ozawa conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus; Deutsche Grammophon, 3 LPs, $23.94). Rhythm and an instinct for drama animate Ozawa's shaping of this Berlioz semiopera. Although it overflows with melody, Berlioz's musical transformation of Goethe is generally known only by three orchestral pieces-- the exuberant Rakdoczy March, the Dance of the Sylphs and the Minuet of the Will o' the Wisp. With out diminishing the lushness of the com poser's symphonic texture, Ozawa's crisp tempi add clarity and continuity to the 20-scene, four-part work. The oval sounds of Soprano Edith Mathis brush a fresh bloom on Marguerite's Romance (D'amour I'ardenteflamme).

Aleksander Slobodyanik Plays Liszt; Sonata in B Minor, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 (Columbia/Melodiya, $6.98). Slobodyanik ranks among the half a dozen best keyboard artists under 35. A galvanizing pianist whose appeal is not confined to showers of notes, he fuses virtuosity with a sense of poetry, but in this account of the Liszt B Minor Sonata, Slobodyanik shows a lapse of heart. The allegro passage work is more muscled than brilliant; where it should be bold it thumps.

Ludwig van Beethoven: The Late String Quartets, Op. 127, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135 (Vegh Quartett; Telefunken, 4 LPs, $27.92). These quartets are the summit of Beethoven's chamber music. It is music that makes no concessions, ei ther to brain or hand, and sets no store by charm. The Vegh Quartett makes sense of these bristling compositions with their many movements, many rhythms, many ideas, abrupt changes of character. The group is most convincing in the melancholy opening fugue of the C-Sharp Minor but lacks the emotional reach required by the sudden deaths and harsh clashes of the Grosse Fuge.

J.S. Bach: Mass in B Minor (Michel Corboz conducting the Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Lausanne; RCA, 2 LPs, $13.96). J.S. Bach: Mass in B Minor (Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic with soloists and chorus; Deutsche Grammophon, 3 LPs, $23.94). Is a cathedral or a chapel the proper setting for Bach's mighty Mass? These two recordings are not likely to resolve that longstanding controversy. The Von Karajan production is monumental, sumptuous and well planned, with the attention to detail and seamless le gato that are his trademark. In Von Karajan's hands, the six-part chorus of the Sanctus that is the capstone of the Mass builds to Old Testament grandeur. Corboz has a chambered vision. Employing a small orchestra and a mixed chorus of three dozen or so voices, he turns in a finely tuned performance in authentic Baroque style. The vocalism is brisk and light, blending perfect tonal balance with the instruments. Sound quality on both albums is excellent. sbJoan Downs

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