Some Classic Small Packages

By Michael Walsh

From Beethoven to Stravinsky, the best of the new CDs

Face facts: compact discs, or CDs as they are known, have arrived. No longer mere technological curiosities, the tiny (4.7 in. in diameter) shiny records have rapidly proliferated since being introduced to the U.S. market little more than a year ago. Today the majority of new classical releases are issued as LPs, cassettes and CDs. At $15 to $21 apiece, not to mention the $550 to $800 or so required for a compact-disc player, an investment in CDs is considerable. But the outlay is well worth it.

Digital sound, recorded by a computer and played back with a laser beam, offers brighter highs and truer lows than conventional analog recording techniques, and eliminates compression and distortion as well. The CD medium has several other practical advantages: most players can be programmed to select cuts in any sequence or repeat a favorite indefinitely; the discs never wear out, since only light touches their surface, and with up to 74 minutes of music on the one usable side, they never have to be flipped over. Finally, they are as easily stored as tapes, yet offer amenities (liner notes, opera librettos) similar to those of regular records. Already there are more than 800 titles available in the U.S. and even more in Europe and Japan. Among the best: Bizet: Carmen (Agnes Baltsa as Carmen, Jose Carreras as Don Jose, Berlin Philharmonic and Paris Opera Chorus, Herbert von Karajan, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon; 3 CDs). Karajan's earlier Carmen, with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli, was a full-throated spectacular in the grand-opera tradition. This one, 19 years later, reflects his current preference for smaller voices in an almost chamber-like setting. Baltsa, a splendid Greek mezzo, who is not heard often enough on this side of the Atlantic, makes a sultry cigarette girl, and Spanish Tenor Carreras an ardent Don Jose. The intimate nature of the tragedy is enhanced by the use of spoken dialogue, which Bizet intended.

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet selections; "Classical" Symphony (Chicago Symphony, Sir Georg Solti, conductor; London). Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, conductor; Telarc). Stravinsky: Petmshka (Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, conductor; EMI). Janacek: Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba (Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor; London). These four albums will give even the most powerful hi-fi systems and doughtiest speakers a thorough workout. The excerpts from Prokofiev's ballet, Romeo and Juliet, show off all the Chicago Symphony's sonic lushness and tensile strength, while the quick tempos and transparent textures of the "Classical" Symphony let the orchestra's virtuosos display their formidable technical dexterity. The two Stravinsky ballets get outstanding readings from conductors of very different temperaments: Maazel's Rite is mercurial and willful, but the conductor's striking interpretation is suited to the score's consummate originality, still startling after 71 years. Muti's Petmshka, on the other hand, is rigidly controlled, with every tritone and minor second in its harmonically piquant place, yet just as dramatically vivid. Most spectacular of all is the Vienna Philharmonic's take-no-prisoners account of Leos Janacek's glorious, brassy Sinfonietta; turn up the sound on this one, but make sure the neighbors have left town for the weekend.

Handel: Water Music (English Concert, Trevor Pinnock, conductor; Archiv).

Pinnock's English Concert is in the vanguard of the authenticity movement, and its version of the irrepressible Water Music on deliciously raucous original instruments is as lively and bumptious as they come, overflowing with the sheer animal high spirits with which Handel infused this exhilarating work.

Beethoven: "Eroica" Symphony (Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; Tel-arc). Dohnanyi, the music director-designate of the Cleveland Orchestra, serves notice with this "Eroica"that under his direction the Clevelanders will continue to be one of the U.S.'s finest orchestras. It is a brisk, lucid performance that correctly treats the piece as a fundamentally classic symphony rather than a full-blown essay in romanticism.

Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Violinist Gidon Kremer, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, conductor; Philips). Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Pianist Ivo Pogorelich, Chicago Symphony, Claudio Abbado, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon). These concertos, featuring two electrifying performers, are of unusual interest. Pogorelich has technique and temperament in equal measure; right from the piano's cascading entry, this is hot-blooded, Russian-style Chopin, more than a continent removed from the genteel salons of 19th century Paris. The Kremer-Marriner partnership in the Beethoven results in an elegant performance deliberately at odds with the customarily virtuosic way of viewing the piece, but the real surprise here is the cadenzas by Alfred Schnittke, a contemporary Soviet composer championed by Kremer. Schnittke's adventurous interludes are a modern commentary on Beethoven's themes and provide a welcome, if at first startling, respite from the usual cadenzas by Joseph Joachim and Fritz Kreisler. This is avant-garde Beethoven with a vengeance that causes the listener to sit up and pay attention to the music. It's about time. --By Michael Walsh