Tops on the Classical Shelf

By Michael Walsh

A maestro's mastery, a virtuoso's debut, afresh look at genius

Wagner: Parsifal (Tenor Peter Hofmann, Bass-Baritone Jose van Dam, Mezzo Dunja Vejzovic, Bass-Baritone Siegmund Nimsgern, Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus; Deutsche Grammophon, five records). Wagner's last and most difficult music drama has not had a really satisfying recording--until now. Hofmann makes Parsifal both strong and guileless, the splendid Van Dam is an anguished Amfortas, and Nimsgern is an evil, but not inhuman Klingsor. Only Vejzovic, a screechy Kundry, is weak. The real stars are Karajan and his Berliners, who capture the score's glowing spirituality and black magic in a luminous performance.

Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2 and other works (Ivo Pogorelich, piano; Deutsche Grammophon). The fastest way to a big career these days seems to lie in not winning a major competition. When Pianist Youri Egorov failed to make the finals of the Van Cliburn four years ago, outraged fans launched him by raising an equivalent of the first-prize money themselves. Similarly, when Yugoslav-born Ivo Pogorelich, 22, was eliminated before the last round of the recent Chopin competition in Warsaw, one judge, Pianist Martha Argerich, resigned in protest. The incident became a musical cause celebre. Pogorelich's first U.S. record includes wayward but ultimately persuasive interpretations of the Chopin Funeral March sonata and six shorter pieces. Lightning tempos in some works, such as the C-sharp-minor Scherzo, display his formidable technique, while the slow E-flat Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2, allows the pianist to show off his ravishing, sensuous tone.

Hamilton Harty: An Irish Symphony

(Bryden Thomson conducting the Ulster Orchestra; Chandos). Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) is probably best known in America as a reorchestrator of Handel's Water Music. But Harty, born in County Down, was also a composer and conductor. The Irish Symphony mixes such well-known tunes as The Girl I Left Behind Me with Gaelic airs and original melodies to produce a score worthy of comparison with another delightful, little-known Irish Symphony--Sir Arthur Sullivan's.

Mozart: The Symphonies, Vol. 5, Salzburg, 1775-1783 (The Academy of Ancient Music directed by Jaap Schroder, violin, and Christopher Hogwood, harpsichord; L'Oiseau-Lyre, four records). How did Mozart's music sound in Mozart's day? The Academy of Ancient Music, one of Britain's best original-instruments ensembles, is answering the question with its traversal of 68 Mozart symphonies--27 more than the commonly accepted 41. They are played on 18th century instruments or modern replicas, which are tuned slightly lower than their modern counterparts. Such familiar works as the "Hajffher" and "Linz"symphonies emerge with new freshness and vitality; by comparison, versions on modern instruments sound stodgy and inflated. A major reevaluation of the classical style, the project is one of the most important in the history of the phonograph.

Holst: The Planets (Simon Rattle conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra; Angel). Born in Britain in 1955, Simon Rattle has already become a leading conductor on the international scene. He knows how to lead the large forces required by Gustav Hoist for his extraterrestrial seven-movement suite (planet earth is not portrayed, and Pluto had not been sighted in 1916 when the work was completed). From the five-beats-to-the-bar war march of Mars through the Falstaffian jollity of Jupiter to the elusive mystery of Neptune with its wordless female chorus, The Planets is a showpiece that fully deserves its popularity.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 (Karl Boehm conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; Deutsche Grammophon). Karl Bohm, who died last month at 86, was one of the finest interpreters of the standard, middle-European repertory. The Fifth Symphony, recorded in bright, focused digital sound, is typical of the Austrian conductor's respectful aesthetic: there is no fussing with the music in an attempt at "personalizing" it. Bohm lets Tchaikovsky's anguish speak for itself in a performance that combines passion with restraint. One of the maestro's last recordings, it will also serve as an eloquent memorial.

Berg: Wozzeck (Baritone Eberhard Waechter, Soprano Anja Silja, Christoph von Dohnanyi conducting the Vienna Philharmonic; London, two records). In Wozzeck, Alban Berg mixed atonality with unabashed romanticism to create the greatest opera of the 20th century. Despite its difficulty (the first performance in 1925 required some 34 orchestral rehearsals), it has had a happy fate on records. With Mack Harrell and Eileen Farrell singing the doomed lovers, Dimitri Mitropoulos revealed the brooding power of the score back in 1951. Later came Karl Boehm's version with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Evelyn Lear, which emphasized the work's late-romantic aspects. Pierre Boulez's regal set, issued in 1967, remains the finest overall; it boasts the best Wozzeck in Walter Berry and the conductor's unmatched sympathy and understanding of Berg's style. On this new recording, Silja is touching and vulnerable, while Waechter sings the title role with the kind of stolid bewilderment befitting the poor, tortured antihero. Conductor Dohnanyi, like Bohm before him, revels in the music's profound lyricism, yet does not slight its moments of stark terror and violence. London's digital recording captures the rustle, whisper and shriek of this magnificent score. --By Michael Walsh

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