RARE REPERTOIRE (20^th Century)
updated: 01/23/2006

ADAMS, John:

“Harmonienlehre”. J. Domarkas; Lithuanian Philharmonic (T: 39:26) (Ve-e-e-ry interesting “Baltic” take on this modern classic. What? John Adams never reminded you of Sibelius? Well, there are moments in this live 1988 Leningrad Festival performance when he just might…)

ADLER, Samuel:

Symphony No. 4. Performers, date * venue known; decent off-the-air stereo. [Adler’s written some good music, but I can’t work up much enthusiasm for the self-conscious, rather dogged (and increasingly dated-sounding) “Modernisms” and jazz-riffs squeezed into this extremely busy but relatively superficial symphony. All here is gesture and allusion. If you’re still interested, the anonymous performers – my Source is one of those wonderful but maddeningly coy old “Aries” pressings, c. 1975 – spiel this stuff with gusto.]

Concerto for Organ & Orchestra. Performers, date & venue unknown. [I like this splurgey, ceremonial, more “public” piece much better. For some reason, it sounds “commissioned”, as though Adler were trying to make a splash, and to a fair degree he does. The well-integrated organ part twines around and through the orchestral texture effectively, the climaxes are loud and grand – in an appropriate space, this piece would generate excitement. Sound is so-so; a little distant for the music to make full impact.]

AKUTAGAWA, Yashushi:

“Ellora” Symphony. William Strickland; Imperial Philharmonic Orchestra.

Rhapsody for Orchestra. Valeri Gierjiev; Leningrad Phil. (T: 16:21)

ALBENIZ:

Iberia. George Sebastian; “Musical Treasures Symphony Orch.” [My guess is the Paris Philharmonic or the Paris Conservetoire, but who knows?]

Iberia: Sevillia, Granada, & El Puerto. Shinya Osaki; Kwansei U. Symphonic Band. [See comment under “Copland” & “Rodeo”]

Navarro (orch. by Arbos). Surinach; Paris Philharmonic Orch. [Superbly idiomatic.]

ALFVEN:

Dalcarlian Rhapsody, Op. 48. Westerberg; Stockholm P.O. (T: 21:13)

Symphony No. 3, Op. 23. Nils Grevillius; Stockholm P.O. (T: 33:47)

ALWYN, William:

Autumn Legend, for English Horn & Orchestra. Performers & venue unknown – sounds like live BBC tape, sound is very clean and up-to-date stereo for its presumed era (mid-70s) and the piece is ravishing.]

AMIROV, Firket:

“Shurh”, A Symphonic Mugam. “Niyazi” (no first name given); Azerbaijan Radio Symphony Orchestra. [Sourced from a 10-inch Melodiya I bought in Leningrad – no notes, no first name given for the conductor! – this splashy, folk-music-colored tone poem confirms Amirov as a second-rate Khatchaturian clone. If you liked Stokowski’s “Mugam” on Everest, with the Houston Symphony, here’s more of the same. Nothing blindingly original, of course, but still great fun. A “mugam”, incidentally, is a popular ballad/dance form in this region. Evidently, Amirov wrote a slew of these pieces, but I’ve only heard two. In fact, if you like Khatchaturian, you’ll probably groove on Amirov as well. On second thought, strike that description “second-rate” – he’s a first-rate “minor” composer; there – that gives him a touch more respect. And all you conductors, take note: audiences would gobble up this stuff!]

ALFVEN:

Festival Prelude, Op. 25. Tor Mann, cond. 3/13/1930 [3:52]

Symphony No. 4, Op. 39. Nils GRAVILLIUS; Stockholm Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 45:11)

Symphony No. 4, Op. 39. Stig WESTERBERG; Stockholm Philharmonic, w/ Elisabeth SODERSTROM, soprano. (Time: 46:06)

ALWYN, William:

Symphony No. 1. Composer; London Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 41:08)

Symphony No. 3. Composer; London Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 32:19)

Symphony No. 4. Composer; London Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 21:57)

Symphony No. 5 (“Hydriotaphia”). Composer; London Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 27.54).

Symphonic Prelude: The Magic Island. Composer; London Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 10:04)

AMRAM, David:

Elegy for Violin & Orchestra. Soloist unknown; David Zinman; Rochester Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 9:22).

ANDERSON, Leroy:

Irish Suite. Fielder; Boston Pops. (Remember when a “pops” concert didn’t insult your intelligence? Fiedler could really “sell” such music. A Guilty Pleasure, this.)

ANDERSON, Thomas Jefferson:

“Squares” for Orchestra. Paul Freeman; Baltimore S. O. (Time: 7:29)

ANDREISSON, Hendryck:

Symphony No. 4. David Zinman; Rotterdam Philharmonic; live, mid-Eighties, I think. [Let’s see now, Louis Andreisson is the younger, wilder one & Hendryck is either his older brother, his dad, or completely unrelated (with Dutch composers it’s sometimes awfully hard to keep track of who’s who) and both have gotten a lot of exposure thanks to the generosity of Radio Nederland & the Dutch tax-payer (it would be exceedingly interesting to learn how much of the revenues taken in through the quasi-legal sale of marijuana in Amsterdam has gone into worthy cultural subsidies!), and both, I think, are esteemable composers, although Louis, too, went through an Obnoxious Period when he wrote tooth-grindingly “political” and gimmicky music. But this piece knocked me out the first time I heard it: tough-fibered, robust, urgent music, tight as a fist and so jam-packed the energy that it throws out sparks. If you enjoy Aaron Copland’s more “urban” style, you’ll probably enjoy this symphony hugely. If you don’t, shame on you. Zinman, who can be utterly clueless in Russian music and modern Romantics in general (but who’s also managed to take Roger Norrington’s amphetamine-rush approach to Beethoven and somehow made it not only tolerable but occasionally revelatory!), conducts a dynamite performance, one that’s very handsomely complimented by the engineers.]

ANDREISSON, Louis:

“The Nine Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven for Promenade Orchestra and Ice Cream Vendor’s Bell”. Corneliu Dubravianu (SP???); Netherlands Radio Symphony Orch. Live, 1982. [As those of you who’ve followed the various installments of this database know, I have, well, a whole shit-load of Dutch “avant-garde” music from the Sixties & Seventies. Lord love ‘em, the Dutch subsidize their composers, and even let them smoke grass without throwing them into the slammer, and so a lot of otherwise very talented young composers cranked out reams and reams of pretentious and egregiously unpleasant codswallop during those decades. Andreisson has always been the maverick, however, kind of thumbing his nose at the whole silly phenomenon even while feeding off the Dutch government’s teat as greedily as any of his colleagues. His streak of Dadaist fur-lined teacup humor often found expression in extended “gag pieces” like this one, which is truly very funny and wondrously clever; worthy of PDQ Bach at his most besotted. It doesn’t last TOO long, either, and manages to work in hilariously out-of-context quotations from about fifteen Beethoven works, the entire demented exercise punctuated by this maddening ching-a-ching-a-ching hand-bell in the percussion section, which eventually drills into your brain-meat like a tiny silver spike. I wish somebody around here (the Triad region of North Carolina) would have the gall to program this spoof on a real concert, but that raises the question: how big a percentage of the typical audience would even GET the musical in-jokes? In twenty-seven years of covering the local arts scene I’ve watched a steady erosion of sensibilities and open-mindedness, not to mention elementary knowledge that previous generations absorbed from the surrounding gestalt by osmosis; this year’s Greensboro Symphony program, for instance, is so reactionary it makes a Toscanini season look daringly progressive by comparison. I guess that’s what the tired businessmen who support the orchestra want to hear, and no recent conductor’s had the balls to challenge them. Anyway, this piece is a hoot and a half!]

de ANGELIUS, Ugalberto: (?)

“Lute Songs” for Harp & Chamber Orch. Performer, date & venue unknown. [If you enjoy Respighi’s “Ancient Aires & Dances”, you’ll surely enjoy this. Wish I knew more about either the performance or the composer…]

ANTHEIL, George::

Ballet Mechanique Robert Craft; Los Angeles Contemporary Music Ensemble. [ Source is a wonderful old Urania collection entitled Percussion!, which also had cool pieces by Hovhaness, Chavez, and Vincent LoPresti. My friends and I thought we were hip as all get-out to be grooving on this stuff at age 14 (and I supposed we were) and I was surprised – when I vacuum-cleaned this LP for dubbing – to find out how good a condition it was in and how well both performances and recorded sound have held up. I suspect this was Robert Craft’s first record (before he learned how to use Igor Stravinsky as his ventriloquist’s dummy – I always thought Craft looked like, I dunno, a shoe salesman or a high school algebra teacher or something – anything but a conductor!), and Paul Price had been doing yeoman’s work on behalf of contemporary music for a long while before this record was taped. You miss something from not having it in stereo, but not as much as you’d think. The Ballet Mechanique had long ago lost its power to shock – it just sounded “quaint”. But the airplane engine still sounds terrific, even in mono.]

Capital of the World. Joseph Levine; Ballet Theater Orch.

McKonkey’s Ferry Overture. F. Charles Adler; Vienna Symphony Orchestra

APOSTEL, Hans Erich (1901-1972):

Requiem. Milan Horvat; Austrian Broadcast S.O. (T. 22:35) [Interested in Schrecker, Schulman, and the like? Apostel composed from the same Zeitgeist, and there’s enough interesting music here to make you curious about his other works – none of which has yet been recorded, to the best of my knowledge.]

ARNOLD, Malcolm:

Scottish Dances, Op. 63. Composer. L.P.O.

Symphony No. 4, Op. 59. Composer; L.P.O.

ARNESTED, Finn:

Aria Apassionata. Herbert Blomsted; Oslo Philharmonic O. (6:01)

ATTERBERG, Kurt (1887-1974:

Suite No. 3 for Violin, Viola & String Orchestra, Op. 19. Endre Wolf, violin; Tage Brostrom, viola; Tor Mann; Gothenburg Symphony Orch., live, 3/19/1940. [12:27[

AULIN, Tor:

“Master Olaf”, Incidental Music, No. 2 (“The Housemistress & the Child”). Ivar Hellmann; Swedish R.S.O. Live 12/10/36. (T: 3:14)

Van BAAREN, Kees (1906-1970):

Septet. Players are first-desk personnel from the Hague orchestra and all excellent. As for the music, it’s quite good: neo-classical in tone, idiomatically written for the instruments, elegantly colorful, and even somewhat melodic – recognizable themes, at any rate. The performance is superb.]

Musica per Orchestra. Haitink; Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Live, 1968 (T. 17:18)

B

BABBITT, Milton:

Arie [sic] da Capo, for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, & Piano. The Group for Contemporary Music. (Time: 14:34) Harvey Sollberger; Group for Contemporary Music [14:34] [By Babbittian standards, parts of this sextet sound almost “romantic”! Once or twice, we sense the composer’s fierce inner struggle to resist the impulse to write a genuine tune, but like a good 12-Stepper turning away from the saloon door at the last instant, he manages to suppress the heresy and get back into his usual arid, atomistic, anti-emotional mode of expression, Avant-garde-ists the world over breathed a vast sigh of relief… All twitting aside, there ARE some lovely tone-colors and pleasing flirtations with melodic cells here and there, making this one of The Babb’s most accessible compositions; I suspect he wrote it that way in jest, or to mock us, but no matter; Lovely, sense-making sounds ARE heard, intentionally or not. The performers, BTW, are breathtakingly secure with the demands of the writing and with the Wizard-of-Oz techno-babble the composer employs in his endless efforts to convince somebody that ten minutes’ worth of ugly, tuneless, emotionally sterile noise is worthy to be mentioned alongside the Unified Field Theory or Newton’s Third Law… And folks, he’s been getting away with it for decades! To crank out music that consistently makes Elliott Carter’s sound as congenial as Mozart’s, relatively speaking, is no small feat of charlatanism. Or…worse…what if he really believes in what he’s doing?? Now that, friends, is truly a spooky thought!

BAECK, Sven-Erik:

Fantasia for Orchestra. Blomstedt; Swedish R.S.O., Live, 6/8/60. (T: 10:55)

BADDINGS, Henk:

“Bicinicum”. Tom Burmanje, guitar. [1:40[

Trois Chasons Bretonnes. Felix de Nobel; Netherlands Chamber Choir. (Time: 8:03)

BAIRD, Tadeusz:

Chansons des Trouveres, for mezzo-soprano & Chamber Orch. Krystyna Szosten; Witold Rowicki; Warsaw Philharmonic O.

Epiphany Music for Orch. Rowicki; Warsaw Philharmonic O.

Four Novelettes for Small Orchestra. Rowicki; Warsaw Philharmonic O.

BANFIELD, Rafaello:

The Combat. Joseph Levine; Ballet Theater Orch. (What? A modern work based on Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered”? Yep, and it’s apparently been totally obscure since its 1953 premiere at the Metropolitan Opera. Pretty colorful, too, although it doesn’t sound a thing like Liszt…)

BANTOCK, Sir Granville:

“The Pierrot of the Minute”, Comedic Ovt. Del Mar/ Bournemouth Sinfonietta (T:11:04)

A Pagan Symphony. Performers, date & venue unknown (presumably British). [Like all Bantock’s orchestral works, this one is more a suite than a symphony – or an extended tone poem. My Source tape is pretty bunged up, but there is no commercial recording and never has been, so this will at least give you an idea of a work that deserves the full, SCDV treatment.]

BARBER, Samuel:

Cello Sonata. George Ricci, cello; Leopold Mittman, piano.

Essay for Orchestra No. 2. GOLSCHMANN, Sym. Of the Air (T: 9:50)

A Hand of Bridge, Op. 35. GOLSCHMANN, Soloists, Chamber Orch. (T:9:17)

Hermit Songs. Leontine price. Sop; COMPOSER at Piano.

“Intermezzo” from “Vanessa” Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic Orch. [4:18]

Piano Sonata, Op. 26. Robert Guralnik piano. (T: 18:36)

Music for a Scene from Shelley, Op. 7. GOLSCHMANN, Sym of Air (T: 8:39)

A Stopwatch & an Ordnance Map, Op. 15. GOLSCHMANN; Roger deCormier Chorale; Symphony of the Air, (T: 5:39) (Extreme rarity – a potent clenched-fist work of protest about the Spanish Civil War. An ear-opener. It’s neglect, inexplicable, unless its Nationalist (Pinko-Commie-Intellectual) overtones were too politically incorrect…)

Serenade for String Orch. Op. 1. GOLSCHMANN; Sym. Of the Air (T: 8:32)

String Quartet in D Major, Op. 11 Stradivari Quartet (as fine a version as there is)

Toccata Festiva, Op. 36. E. Power Biggs; Ormandy; Philadelphia Orch. [13:46] [Smashing!]

“Vanessa”, Intermezzo from. Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic. [4:18]

BAKER, David:

Sonata for Cello. Janos Starker; Alan Planes, piano. (Time: 16:49)

BARKIN, Elaine:

Quartet (1969). The Contemporary Arts Quartet.

BARSUKOV, Sergei:

Piano Concerto No. 2. w/ Composer; Sir Adrianb Boult; New Philharmonia (T: 23:30)

Violin Concerto No. 2. w/ Georges Tessier, piano; Louis Fremaux; Monte-Carlo National Opera Orchestra (T: 20:35)

BARTOK:

Concerto for Orchestra. Von Karajan; Berlin Philharmonic, live, undated. [Spectacular.]

Hungarian Folk Tunes. Oistrakh, violin;

Out-of-Doors Suite. Adam Fellegi, piano [Excellent work by then-young Hungarian pianist who also left us a luminous reading of the Berg Piano Sonata (NYL = Not Yet Listed)]

Piano Concerto No. 2. Edith Fernadi, piano; SCHERCHEN; Vienna State Opera Orch.

Piano Concerto No. 3. “ “ “ “ “ “ “ [Not quite the first LP versions of these modern classics, but certainly the most colorful and intriguing ones in the catalogue for many years. Fernadi is scarcely remembered today, but she & Scherchen made some outstanding discs for early Westminster and this one was at the top of every critics list. Noteworthy: the sheer spookiness of the orchestral accompaniment in movement 2/2, where Scherschen & Co. provide a hushed, slightly foreboding “nachtmusik” effect. Not as glittery, motoric, and steel-drivin’ as most later readings, but suffused with a lot of poetry and scrupulously attentive to structural nuances; essential listening for the Bartok collector.]

Piano Concerto No. 3. w/ Francois Duchables; von Karajan; Berlin Philharmonic. Live, 70s.

Piano Sonata. Benno Pierweijer, piano. [14:20]

Second Suite for Orchestra, Op. 4. DORATI; Minneapolis S.O. (Ferocious mono)

Six Duets for 2 Violins. w/ MENUHIN and Nell Gotkovsky. (Time: 8:33)

Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. w/ Prague Chamber Players.

Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. [See “Stokowski” under “Conductors”]

String Quartets, complete. w/ Ramor Quartet. (First integral recording of the set)

Violin Sonata No. 1. Andre Gertler, violn; Edith Farnadi, pianbo. (T: 31:59)

Violin Sonata No. 1. w/ Hyman Bress, violin; Charles Reiner, piano. [No relation to Fritz.]

Violin Sonata No. 2 w/ Hyman Bress, violin; Charles Reiner, piano.

Violin Sonata No. 2. w/ Andre Gertler, violin; Edith Farnadi, piano. [19:09]

BASSETT, Leslie (1923 - ):

Sextet for Piano & Strings. w/ Gilbert Kalish, piano; the Concord String Quartet

BATH, Hubert (1883-1945):

A Cornish Rhapsody. Fiedler; Boston Pops orchestra. [“Cornball” rfhapsody would be more like it, with so many nods toward the “Warsaw Concerto”; still, it does evoke a nice vague yearning for simpler times and rural landscapes…not a bad thing.]

BAX, Sir Arnold:

In the Faerie Hills. Bryden Thomson; Ulster Orch. (T: 15:17)

Into the Twilight. “ “ “ “ (T: 12:52)

Roscatha, tone poem. “ “ “ “ (10:49)

Symphony No. 4. Bryden Thomson; Ulster Orchestra. (Time: 41:25)

Symphony No. 7. Raymond Leppard; London Philharmonic Orch. (T: 45:13)

The Tale the Pine Trees Knew. Bryden Thomson;Ulster O. (T: 17:23)

Tintagel. Bryden Thomson; Ulster Orch. (T: 14:57)

“ . Barbirolli; Halle Orch. (Time: 15:02)

BAZELON, Irwin:

Duo for Violin & Piano. Karen Phillips, violin & Glenn Jacobsen, piano.

BELY, Pyotr:

Chamber Cantata on Poems of Baudelaire. Margarita Miroshnikova, sop; Mikhail Tolpygo, viola; Alexander Malter, piano. (T. 9:57)

Four Bagatelles. Alexander Filenko, piano. (T. 3:50)

Four Slow Waltzes. Alexander Filenko, piano. (T. 5:00)

Humoresque. Alexander Filenko, piano. (T. .35)

BEN-HAIM, Paul:

Fanfare for Israel. Performers, date & venue unknown; decent off-the-air stereo.

Symphony No. 1. “ “ “ “ “ “ “

BENJAMIN, Sir Arthur:

Jamaican Rumba. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra.

BERG, Alban:

La Vin. Phyllis Curtin, mezzo; Leinsdorf; Boston Symphony Orch.

Die Nachtigall, from “Sieben fruehe Lieder” Jitske Steendam, soprano; Wim Dirriwachter [2:20]

Schilflied, “Sieben fruehe Lieder” Jitske Steendam, sop.; Wim Dirriwachter, piano [2:05]

Three Excerpts from “Wozzeck”. Herbert Kegel; Hanne-Lohe Kuhse, sop. w/ Leipzig Radio Sym. T. 28:02

Violin Concerto. w/ Szegetti; NBC Symphony; live, 12/30/54

BERGER, Arthur:

Duo for cello & Piano. Bernard Greenhouse, celoo; Anthony Makas, piano.

Quartet in C Major for Woodwinds. The Fairfield Wind Ensemble.

BERIO, Luciano:

“Ora”. Composer conducting the Swingle Singers & Rotterdam Philharmonic O. Live, Holland Festival, 1972. (Time: 10:00)

BERKELY, Lennox:

Symphony No. 2. Nicolas Braithwaite; London Philharmonic. [Yet another of that legion of fine post-war British composers. No moony pastoralism in Berekley’s work; although it is tonal and reasonably easy to grasp at first hearing, it is decidedly un-romantic and neo-classical – excepting perhaps the luxurious third, slow, movement which reminds me of Britten in his most relaxed, lyrical vein. All told, ‘tis a manly piece of work that assumes a certain degree of sophistication on the part of its listeners; listening to it will, however, greatly aid you in acquiring that sophistication. Performance is first-rate, but my FM receiver was plagued by atmospherics the night I recorded this BBC broadcast, so there’s an underlying sputter of frying-bacon noise. It’s very low level and does NOT obscure the music; I find it quite easy to ignore, but you might want flawless instead of merely good.. Another composer too little known and well worth the effort of seeking out, if only to savor his fabulous craftsmanship and confidence.]

BERNSTEIN:

Three Dances from “Fancy Free”. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

BERWALD:

“Estrella de Sorta” Overture. Herbert Blomstedt; Swedish R.S.O., live, 11/30/79. (T: 7:01)

BLENDINGER, Herbert (1936- ):

Media in Vita – Symphonic Scenes, Op. 37. Live premiere , 1981. [As the program notes quaintly inform us, “Media in Vita” clearly “shows us the composer’s mental roots” – I’m not sure I want to even GO there – but I suppose that’s true. The music – neither opera nor oratorio nor a series of tableaux – is curiously old-fashioned in form, yet free-tonalities run around all over the place while soprano Helen Donath and bass Hermann Becht declaim/shout/sing and orate over a wide variety of sounds/colors/textures and stuff that sounds sort-of like melodies produced by the Bavarian State Radio S.O. and chorus, under the expert (and apparently committed), leadership of Wolfgang Sawallisch. You’ve heard worse; I was intrigued enough to give the composer another listen if I found anything else by him on disc, but so far I haven’t. If post-Darmstadt Euro-sounds hold any appeal for you, this might be your cup of tea. Total time: 40 22]

BLISS, Sir Arthur:

Meditations on a Theme by John Blow. Hugo Rignold; City of Birmingham Symphony Orch. [Imagine Kodaly’s “Peacock” Variations with an Elizabethan twist and a hearty Yorkshire accent! Bliss, virtually unplayed in America, wrote engagingly colorful and clever music; if he didn’t seek out Profundity, that was because he had the self-confidence to play to his own strengths – I’ve not yet heard any piece by him that’s boring or unpalatable. This is a bang-up orchestral showpiece & this 40-year-old British issue makes a persuasive case for it. Rignold conducts with affection and energy & his orchestra sounds, at least here, every bit as polished as it did later for Simon (“Here’s a fiver for a haircut, you annoying little bugger!”) Rattle. I’d call this work a near-perfect paradigm of “unknown but thoroughly accessible repertoire – I’d love to hear the Philadelphia tackle it!]

Piano Concerto. SOLOMON; Walter Susskind; Philharmonia. (T; 46:15)

Sonata for Viola & Piano. Emannuel Vardi, viola; Frank Weinstock, piano.

A Colour Symphony. Composer/ London Symphony (Remember: it sounds better when it’s spelled “colour” in the program notes than when it’s merely spelled “color”!)

BLOCH:

Sacred Service. Geoffrey Simon; Soloists unidentified; London Symphony & Chorus (rec. circa 1977) (T. 50:43)

“Schelomo”, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello & Orch. w/ Leonard Rose & Mitropoulos; NYPSO.

Suite Hebraique for Vioila & Orch. Marcus Thompson, viola; David Epstein; M.I.T. Symphony Orchestra (T. 13.45)

BLOMDAHL, Karl-Birgir:

Symphony No. 2. Dorati; Swedish Radio S. O. (Time: 24:17)

BOER, Ed de (Gawd, what an unfortunate name for a composer!):

Arina’s Dream, Op. 6. Ernest Bour/ Hilversum RSO Chamber Ensemble, Live, Holland Festival, 1966.

BOIKO, Boris:

The Bells of Peter the Great, Symphonic Suite. SVETLANOV; USSR State Academic S.O. (Time: 21:00)

Carpathian Rhapsody for Violin & Orch, Op. 63. Andrei Korsakov, violin; SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (T: 16:31)

Festival Procession, Op. 77. SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (T: 8:33)

Gutsul Rhapsody, Op. 61. SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (T: 9:49)

Gypsy Rhapsody, Op. 62. Dimitri Sakharov piano; SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (T: 16:23)

Symphony No. 2. SVETLANOV; USSRmic S.O. (T: 21:14)

Symphony No. 3. SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (22:17)

Volga Rhapsody, Op. 62. SVETLANOV; USSR State S.O. (T: 7:49)

Du BOIS, Rob:

Quartet for Obnoe & Strings. Performers not identified. Live, Radio Nederlands broadcast, 1966. (T: 12:27)

BORRENSEN, Hakon (1876-1954):

Symphony No. 2, Op. 7. w/ Laury Grundahl; Danish Radio Orch., live 6/4/1954; [T: 33:14]

BORSTLAP, Dick [Sixties activism – the composer used to build schools for “The People” in Chile – meets the Dutch avant-garde. Dated crap? Yep. Possibly, though, you might be assembling a collection of this kind of stuff. I’ll bet he had a Che Guevara poster in his hut the whole time he wrote this…]

“Vrijheidlied” (“Song of Victory”). Ensemble “Perseverance”, live, 1978. T. 1:55 [Please, God, don’t let anyone write one that lasts MORE than two minutes!]

BOULANGIER, Lili:

Du fond de l’anime. Igor MARKEVITCH; Lamoureux Orch. (T: 24:02)

Pie Jesu. Igor MARKEVITCH; soloists from Lamoureux O. (T: 4:40)

3 Pieces for Violin & Piano. Yehudi MENUHIN; Clifford CURZON (T: 9:33)

Psaume 24. MARKEVICH/ Lamoureux O. & Chorus (T: 3:27)

Psaume 129. “ “ “ “ (T: 6:08)

Vielle priere bouddhique. MARKEVITCH; Lamoureux O. (T: 4:40)

BOYKIN, Martin (1931 - ):

Elegy: David Hoose; The Brandeis Contemporary Chamber Players; Jayne Bryden, soprano; time: 33:19.

Epithalamium: James Maddalena, baritone; Nancy Cirillo, violin; Virginia Crumb, harp. [11:01]

String Quartet No. 1. Contempoary Arts Quartet

String Quartet No. 4. Lydian String Quartet. [17:49]

BRAGA-SANTOS, JOLY ( ):

Symphony No. 4. Silva Pereira; Romanian Broadcasting Symphony orchestra

BRIAN, Havergal:

Symphony No. 5 (“The Wine of Summer”) Performers not identified on Source tape. Presumably British, of course. One of Brian more lyrical, accessible works. [30:11]

Symphony No. 5 “The Wine of Summer”. Unidentified perfoemers. (T: 25:35)

Symphony No. 10 (1954). Eric Plunkett; Leicester Schools S.O. (T: 17:57)

Symphony No. 21. “ “ “ “ (T: 27:48)

Symphony No. 25. Unidentified performers. (T: 24:31)

Symphony No. 30. Performers & provenence unknown. [Curious about the late symphonies of the incredibly prolific & long-lived Brian? This is an excellent place to start, as the work is only about 25 minutes long and it has considerably more melodic interest and structural coherence than many of the composer’s late, uncompromisingly gnomic utterances. My God, the man was 90 years old when he composed this, it sounds as fresh and potent as parts of “The Gothic”! Works up to a stunning climax, too, although it’s sneaky and startlingly abrupt, as Brian’s endings often are. More and more, he looms as one of the greatest composers of the century – although nobody knows that except really determined collectors with esoteric and wide-ranging tastes. For God’s sake, go ahead and try one of his symphonies – there are 32 of them to choose from, you know – and see if they don’t grow on you!]

BRIDGE, Frank:

“Summer”, Symphonic Poem. Norman del Mar; Bournemoouth Sinfonietta (T: 10:35)

Suite for String Orch. del Mar; Bournemouth Sinfonietta (T: 21:05)

“There Grows a Willow Aslant a Brook” (Hamlet); Impression for Small Orch. Norman del Mar; Bournemouth Sinfonietta (T: 9:15)

BRITTEN:

Fantasy for Oboe & Strings, Op. 2. w/ Harold Gomberg, oboe; Galimer Quartet

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25. Galimer Quartet. [World premiere recordings, both, I think, and never bettered. Gomberg was a sublime reed player – as well as an absolute bastard to deal with – and the quartet includes Felix Galimer and Leon Zawisza, violin; Kasren Tuttle, viola; Seymour Barab, cello – all sterling artists long associated with either the NBC Symphony or the NY Philharmonic. Source LP dates from about 1957, mono only, but holds up wonderfully; as performances, these remain unsurpassed. If you’re unacquainted with Britten’s charming chamber works, this is an ideal starting point. If you already know and love this music, you simply owe it to yourself to hear these gleaming yet warm interpretations. One of my Desert Island discs.)

Four Folk Songs. Raymond Gilvan, tenor; Frederick Capon, piano.

Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Raymond Gilvan, tenor; Frederick Capon, piano.

Winter Words (to the ballads of Thomas Hardy). Raymond Gilvan, tenor; Frederick Capon, piano.

Matinees Musicales (2nd Suite). Fiedler; Boston Pops.

BROTT, Boris: (Canadian jack-of-all-trades, Brott was head of the Music

Department of McGill U. in Montreal, a composer of some distinction, and a widely-traveled guest conductor who seems to have made rather a good impression in Holland, Belgium, Mexico, etc. These listing preserve a raw but exciting “Pines” and one of Brott’s own compositions, souvenirs of a guest-tour of the USSR c. 1957). As composer or conductor, I’ve heard a lot worse; sonics have impact but the usual Stalinest roughness of timbre; the stereo is phony but not bothersome. Go ahead, take a chance!)

Spheres in Orbit. w/ USSR “Greater Radio & TV Sym. Orch”. Live, 1956

Violin Concerto. Noel Brunet, violin; STOKOWSKI; His S. O. (Live, 10/16/53)

BROUWER, Leo:

Canticum. Tom Brumanje, guitar. [4:15]

Danza Characteristica. “ “ [1:15]

Fugue. Tom Brumanje, guitar. [2:30]

BROWN, Earl:

Available Forms I. Bruno MODERNA; Rome Symphony Orch (T: 8:50)

Holograph I, for flute & small percussion ensemble. David Tudor & Philip Krauss, percussion; Don Hammond, flute. (Strikes me as pretty dry academicism – I’ve learned to be wary of ANY piece that has the word “available” in the title – but it’s more listenable than much of the joyless crap CRI was circulating in the Seventies.)

Music for Cello & Piano. David Tudor & David Soyer, cello.

Music for Violin, Cello and Piano. Tudor & Soyer again, aided by Matthew Raimondi, violin. (Fifty years from now, will any of this stuff actually be played? And the depressing thing about it is that there are enough scores like Brown’s to fill a fleet of super tankers, while Nicolas Flagello, for example, couldn’t get performed on a bet.

String Quartet (1965). LaSalle Quartet. (T: 9:58)

BOYKIN, Martin (1931 - ):

Elegy: David Hoose; The Brandeis Contemporary Chamber Players; Jayne Bryden, soprano; time: 33:19.

Epithalamium: James Maddalena, baritone; Nancy Cirillo, violin; Virginia Crumb, harp. [11:01]

BRUBECK, Dave:

The Gates of Justice. Erich KUNZEL, cond.; McHenry Boatwright, bass; Westminster Choir; Cincinnati Brass Ensemble. (Time: 47:30).

BUSONI:

Six Elegies. David Bean, piano. (T: 31:48)

BUTSKO, Yuri:

Lacrimossa. Igor Zhukov; New Moscow Chamber O. (T: 25:00)

Sextet for Winds & Piano, Op. 39. Lilan Kilar, piano; New York Woodwind Quintet.

BUTTERWORTH, George:

“The Banks of Green Willow”, Idyll for Small Orch. Norman delMar’ Bournemouth Sinfonietta. (T: 5:56)

BUYS, J. Brandts (1868-1939):

Romantic Serenade for String Quartet, Op. 25. Hague Philharmonic Orchestra

C

CAGE, John (1912- mid-90s):

Amores. Composer; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble

Double Music (w/ Lou Harrison). Paul Price; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble

The Seasons. Davies; American Composers Orchestra. [Believe it or not, children, there was once a time when Big Bad John actually wrote music on score paper with keys and harmonies and dynamic marks and EVERYTHING, just like a real composer. He didn’t toss the runes, consult the I Ching, throw darts at astrological charts or any of that other mind-liberating stuff, either; he actually – if briefly – wanted to be recognized as “a composer” and not as the court jester in the musical world, or the dead-pan mountebank and gadfly-soothsayer he soon became. (Ah, man, those hippies just ate that bullshit up, didn’t they? I know; I was one.). So here’s a more or less conventional ballet score, commissioned by Merce Cunningham in 1947 and performed under the baton of no less a figure than Leon Barzin in May 13 of that year. It is entirely wholesome, benign, thoroughly conventional music, albeit executed in a sort of watery pseudo-Impressionist style that doesn’t stick to your ribs. Hell, the Greensboro Symphony could program it without anybody walking out, boo-ing, or canceling their subscription tickets. Had Cage chosen to pursue this line of artistic development, who knows? He might have ended up being, oh, Lou Harrison or somebody. It’s all…pleasant-sounding and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Worth having as a curiosity; and a sure-fire stumper if you want to play “Name The Composer” at a party of musical snobs. There isn’t enough sinew or tunefulness here to engage a passionate response, but I’m kind of fond of this score. It’s very easy on the ear and anxious-to-please, which makes it pretty much unique in the Cage catalog.]

CARLEVARO, Abel (Uruguayan, mid-20th Cent.):

Tamborillas & Campo. Tom Burmanje, guitar. [6:30]

CARLSON, David:

Rhapsodies for Orchestra. William Smith; Philadelphia Orchestra, live, 1981

CASELLA, Alfredo:

Paganiniana, Op. 65. Cantelli; NBC Symphony live 10/1/54 {T: 17:51]

CASTEREDE, Jacques (1926-):

“La Mythomane.” [The laconic program notes tell us only that Mr. Casterede majored in composition at the Paris Conservatory under Tony Aubin, of whom I have never heard despite the program annotator’s assumption of Tony’s global fame, and that he won the Prix de Rome in 1953; that he thereafter earned his living as a government bureaucrat (Inspector of Musical Instruction!)); and that he has composed over 60 works. That’s good, because I like this one very much. Take a dash of Satie, a pinch of Poulenc, a teaspoon of Francaix, etc., etc. It’s neither original nor profound, but it’s sparkly-fizzy and tuneful and a real toe-tapper. Source is one of those nutty “Aries” pirate records, and the performers are, supposedly, “The Versailles Symphony Orchestra” under the baton of “Pierre Fournier”! But it could be anybody. The playing is neat as a pin, though, and the audio quality of this off-the-air taping is thoroughly acceptable. ]

CASTIGLIONI, Nicolo (20th Centrury Italian):

“Gymel”. Franz Vester, flute; Theo Bruins, piano. [4:15] [Odd. The Radio Nederland program folder – usually full of such information – tells us nothing about what a “geymel” is; A dance form? A small herbivorous mammal? A person born in the remote Balkan city of Gym? Whoever or whatever, it’s 4:15 of relatively innocuous music that I found mildly diverting. If you have five left-over minutes on a CD, you might request this as a filler… Sort of like a candy bar you buy in the airport in Katmandu and forget about until five weeks later you’re stuck in another airport in West Bummrummaland and get very, very hungry and suddenly remember it’s in your briefcase. Quelle surprise! Good or bad? How hungry ARE you. Pilgrim?]

CASTEREDE, Jacques (1926- ):

“La Mythomane”. Performers not identified. [The laconic program notes tell us only that M. Castrede majored in composition at the Paris Conservatory under Tony Aubin, of whom I’ve never heard, and that he won the Prix de Rome in 1953, after which he earned his living as a government bureaucrat (“Inspector of Musical Instruction”!). He’s composed some 60 works. I like this one; Take a dsash of Satie, add a pinch of Poulence, a teaspoon of Francaix, etc. It’s lightweight but sparkly and tuneful. As usual with those wonderful old records, the performers are given coyly improbable names; this, ostensibly, is the “Versailles Symphony Orchestra” under the direction of “Oierre Fournier”, but it could be Joe Blow from Idaho. The playing is neat as a pin, though, and the off-the-air sound is quite acceptable.]

CHAUSSON:

“Viviane”, Symphonic Poem. Carlos Surinach; MGM Symphony Orchestra

CARTER, Elliott:

Double Concerto for Haprsichord & Piano w/ Two Chamber Orchestras. Gustav Meier conductor; Ralph Kikrpatrick, harpsichord; Charles Rosen, piano.anonymous NY pick-up band. (For many years, I resisted Carter’s inhumanly dense and hermetic scores, but at some point in the last 20 years, I suddenly started to “get it” & started hearing all kinds of marvelous things amidst the density: sentiment, droll wit, episodes of real warmth, extraordinary tone colors…you know, real music! Don’t fight it. Still going strong in his 90s, Carter is a wonder and a national treasure. This knotty but rewarding score couldn’t be in better hands, as Kirkpatrick and Rosen make every strand clean and vibrant; hell, if they’re having such fun playing this stuff, let’s have fun listening to it!) (T: 22:46)

CASTEREDE, Jacques (1926 -- ):

“La Mythomane”. [The laconic program notes tell us only that M. Castrede majored in composition at the Paris Conservatory under Tony Aubin, of whom I’ve never heard, and that he won the Prix de Rome in 1953 and earned his living as a government bureaucrat (Inspector of Musical Instruction!) and has composed over 60 works. I like this one. Kind of a dash of Satie, a pinch of Poulenc, a teaspoon of Francaix, etc. etc. Lightweight but sparkly and tuneful. Again, this is ostensibly the “Versailles” Symphony conducted by “Pierre Fournier”. But it could be anybody. The playing is neat as a pin, though, and the off-the-air sound is thoroughly acceptable. Lively, charming stuff.]

CHAIKIN, Nikolai (1915 - ):

Concerto for Accordion & Orchestra. w/ Yuri Kazakov, accordion; Veronika Dudarova; “Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Region”, whatever the hell that means… Time: 25:02) [Back in the very first posting of this “collectors’ service”, I promised to bring you gobs of “obscure but readily accessible” music. Consider this Exhibit A: a finely-crafted, full-scale concerto in form and content, by an otherwise unknown composer who takes the accordion seriously and then writes a first-class concerto to prove just how expressive, colorful, and surprisingly nuanced it can sound, in the hands of a true virtuoso. All three movements build on excellent musical ideas and nationalistic-sounding motifs, the emotional range is surprisingly large, the Lawrence-Welkian technical flourishes aren’t just there for effect but as integrated portions of a serious musical discourse. The 7-minute central andante for example, comprises some memorable and (I think) deeply moving melodic ideas, exquisitely shaped and transformed with deft economy by a composer who knew his craft well enough to draw a powerful sense of atmosphere from an instrument not noted for producing that quality. Now, just for argument’s sake, let’s say I WAS open for business as a “Repertoire Consultant”, this is exactly the kind of piece I would suggest to a conductor who wants to program something “novel” but not freakish, something substantial enough not to proclaim its “tokenism” ( “Fast Ride on a Slow Machine”, etc), and that is well within the technical abilities of almost any semi-pro or even advanced amateur orchestral, THIS IS IT! It’s darn good music, great fun to hear, and even a third-rate municipal orchestra could handle their part with minimal rehearsal time – all you’d need is a crackerjack accordion player of whom there are at least two dozen desperately fighting for bookings (i.e., they’ll work for a pittance compared to a comparably talented violinist or pianist), this nifty and exotic little concerto fills the bill perfectly. Now, for the research of finding 5-8 examples of such pieces, tailored to fit your orchestra’s strengths and your audience’s taste, and for burning you lengthy enough excerpts so you don’t have to hunt down and study a half-dozen hard-to-locate rental scores, I would invoice you anything from $300 to $500, depending on the difficulty of filling your request, and you would consider that an amazing bargain, wouldn’t you? I mean, compared to doing all that research on your own. Sound like a good deal? I think so. The conductor of, well, I’d better not say without his permission, certainly thinks so and he’s used my services twice, both times with considerable success – the musicians had fun playing what he selected from my sampler, the audience adored the sounds, and the morning-after reviews were uniformly positive. Obviously I am testing the waters here. Is there a market for this kind of service? I have the knowledge and the resources to burn samplers of, say, six unfamiliar but show-stopping percussion-band pieces or string-orchestra numbers, or …well, you tell ME. Is this viable? Would it fly? Just because three conductors so far have expressed great enthusiasm doesn’t mean they all would; but I could save you scads of time and money and inconvenience, and that’s what out-sourced “service agencies” do! Let me know, podium-pounders of America – A little more encouragement and I’m going to take the plunge.]

CHAVEZ, Carlos:

Toccata for Percussion. Paul Price; Manhattan Percussion Ensemble. [Still a jolt!]

CHINESE (Communist era; officially composed by a committee?):

“Youth” Piano Concerto. Liu-Shih-Kun, piano; Fan Cheng-Wu; Chinese Conservatory Orch. (Time: 25:20)

COATES, Eric:

Cinderella Phantasy. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Liverpool P.O.

“Covent Garden” from London Suite. James Walker; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

London Suite. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Liverpool P.O.

London Again Suite. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Liverpool P.O.

The Three Bears. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Liverpool P.O.

COCHEREAUX, Pierre:

Paraphrase to “Jerusalem & the Daughters of Zion.” Composer, organ; Lamoureaux Orch.; Notre Dame Choir. [Cochereaux is only the 6th or 7th musician to hold the post of Organist at Notre Dame – rather the pinnacle of his profession. His recordings span a huge rang of repertoire & his musicianship is – one must resort to an over-worked adjective here – awesome. The selections listed here with his name in the performers’ roster are taken from the celebration of Notre Dame’s 800th anniversary and all, including this one, are suitably splendiferous. Too bad the event wasn’t taped in SACD format! Not that I can afford a system, yet, but someday…]

COLGRASS, Michael:

Variations for four Drums & Viola. [See “Boston Sym. Chamber Players below]

CONSTANTINESCU, Paul (1906-1963) (Think: Enesco tinged w/ Stravinsky.)

Piano Concerto. Valentin Gheorghiu, piano; Emil Simon; Cluj-Napoca Philharmonic Orchestra. (T: 27:26)

Symphony No. 1. Ion Baciu; Moldava Philharmonic. (T: 37:04)

COPLAND:

Four Dance Episodes from “Rodeo”. Shinya Osaki; Kwansei U. Symphonic Band. [No joke; this Japanese student ensemble sounds terrific and the LP is audiophile quality, on super-thick vinyl, quiet as the grave.]

COOKE, Arnold (1906 - ? ):

Jabez & the Devil, Ballet Suite. Nicolas Braithewaite/ London Philharmonic.

Symphony No,. 3 in D. Braithwaite/ London Philharmonic Orch. (Yet another of England’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of good-to-very-good note-smiths. What does Mr. Cooke’s music sound like? Suppose Hindemith had been born in Yorkshire…)

COOPER, Paul:

Cycles for Piano. John Hendrickson, piano. (T: 12:48)

Four Intermezzi. “ “ “ (T: 6:33)

Frescoes. “ “ “ (T: 10:23)

Sinfonia for Solo Piano. “ “ “ (T: 18:05)

Sonata for Piano. “ “ “ (T: 9:42)

COULTHARD, Jean:

“The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long”. Mario Bernardi; CBC Vancouver Orch.

CORIGLIANO, John:

Three Hallucinations from “Altered States”. Alex Paul, “Espirit” Orchwatra of Canada.

COWELL Henry:

Concerto for Koto & Orch. Soloist unknown to me; Philadelphia Orch, live, 1964

Saturday Night at the Firehouse. F. Charles Adler; Vienna Symphony Orch. [4:05]

Set of Five. Anahid & Maro Ajemian, violin & piano; Elden Gailey, percussion.

Sinfonietta. Jorge Mester; Louisville Orchestra. [Compelling, as Cowell’s music usually is, but curiously stern and ascetic. Maybe he was heading in a new direction when he wrote it in his late sixties…]

Symphony No. 5. Dean Dixon; American Recording Society Orchestra

Symphony No. 16 (“Icelandic”). Wm Strickland; Iceland S.O.

Twilight in Texas. Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic. [First & so far only recording; slight but atmospheric] [2:55]

CRESTON, Paul:

Midnight – Mexico. Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic Orch. [companion piece to the Cowell, 4:07]

CROSS, LOWELL:

Three Etudes for Magnetic Tape. U. of Toronto Electronic Music Studio.

CRUMB, George (1926- ):

Ancient Voices of Children. Barbara Ann Martin, sop; James Freeman; Unidentified Orch. (Live, 1971) (T:24:59)

Dream Sequence. Aeolian Chamber Players (T: 14:01)

Dream Sequence, Images II. “Orchestra 2001”. (T: 14:22)

Four Nocturnes. Eric Russell, violin; David Hagen, piano (T: 8:52)

A Little Suite for Christmas. Marcantonio Baron, piano. (T: 13:57)

Lux Aeterna. Jan diGaetani, sop; Penn Chamber Players. (T: 13:37)

Music for a Summer Evening (from “Microcosmos III”, or something like that). [from a live German radio concert, mid-80s, performers and venue not given; whoever they were, they played this typically odd-ball Crumb score with enormous relish. I enjoy his work, although a little goes a long way and this is not what would go through most peoples’ minds when they think about sitting around on “a summer evening”. If you’re familiar with most anything Crumb’s composed since 1970, you know what to expect and whether or not you’ll like it. This broadcast times-out around 33-34 minutes and sounds like a self-contained piece, although with this kind of music it’s often hard to tell.]

Three Early Songs. Barbara Lee Martin, sop. & James Freeman, piano (T: 8:47)

D

DABROWSKI, Florian (1915 - ):

Concerto for Violin, 2 Pianos & Percussion. w/ Jadwiga Kaliszewska, violin; Konrad Cosjjowski; Posnan Philharmonic Orch.

DALLAPICCOLA, Luigi:

Marsia, Ballet Suite. Cantelli; NYPSO, live, 3/7/54. {T: 13:00}

DAN, Ikuma:

Symphony in Two Movements. William Strickland; Imperial Philharmonic Orchestra.

DAVID, Johann Nepomuk (1895-1977):

Concerto for Organ & Orch., Op. 61. Wolfgang Dallmann, organ; Karlsruhe Philharmonic. (T: 23:50)

“Ezzalied”, Oratorio, Op. 51. Rolf Schweitzer; Karlsruhe Philharmonic & Pforzheim Motet Singers. (T: 43:22).

Symphony No. 5, Op. 41. Erich Schmid; S.O. of Baden-Baden. (T: 33:15)

DAWSON, William Levi:

Negro Folk Symphony. STOKOWSKI; American Symphony (T: 35:46)

DEBUSSY: (OK, I won’t argue the point, but I think of Debussy as a 20th Century composer, and for composers who straddle the century-lines, it’s my call):

En Bateau. Rene Leibowitz; Orchestre des Concerts Symphonique, Paris.

Danse (Orch. Ravel) Toscanini; NBCSO, live, 1940

“La Demoiselle Eloue”. “ “ “ “

Girl with the Flaxen Hair. Peter Knight; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. [Ravishing!]

“Golliwog’s Cakewalk” from The Children’s Corner. Peter Knight; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

“Evening in Grenada” from “Estampes” (Arr. by Gerhardt). Charles Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

Iberia. Toscanini; NBC Symphony; live, 1940

Iberia. Toscanini; Philadelphia Orchestra; Rec. rec. 11/18/1941 [18:04]

Iberia. Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 2/7/1954. [Riotous nervy dynamism here, if not much perfumed sensuality. Exciting, but a bit too edgy for me.]

Marche Ecossaise. Toscanini; NBCSO, live, 1940

La Mer. “ “ “ “

La Mer. Toscanini; Philadelphia Orchestra; Rec. 2/ 8-9/1942. [31:06]

La Mer. Golschmann; St. Louis Symphony. [See ‘CONDUCTORS”]

La Mer. w/ Berlin Philharmonic, live, c. 1986. [Reminds us of how suave and subtle a colorist the late lamented Giulini could be; this Debussy/Ravel concert reveals the same gleaming Krupp Steel ensemble that Karajan had over-polished by the mid-eighties, playing core French repertoire with affection, silken warmth and refinement – that was Giulini for you; orchestras loved him foremost as a man, then as a conductor. All three pieces on this program received gorgeous readings, but for some reason the Debussy suffers from annoying tape flutter. I’m not sure how it’s physically possible for ONE side of a strip of tape to suffer from distortion while the OTHER side sounds perfectly clean, but here it is… I won’t be offended if you only order the Ravel selections; and you won’t be disappointed if you do.]

Nocturnes (2): Nuages & Fetes. “ “ “

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Ansermet; Orch. de la Suisse Romande.

Reflections on Water (arr. by Gerhardt.) Charles Gerhardt; National Philharmopnic Orchestra

DELIUS:

Complete Violin Sonatas [See “Wilkomirska” under “Virtuosi”]

DELLO-JOIO:

Fantasy Variations for Piano & Orchestra. w/ Lorin Hollander, piano; Leinsdorf; Boston Sym. [21:24] [A really splendid min-concerto by one of America’s most accessible and under-rated composers. Here’s another piece that should be performed live occasionally, but never is.]

DEL TREDICI, David:

I Hear an Army. Phyllis Bryn-Julson, The Composers Quartet. [12:28]

Night Conjure-Verse. Benita Valente, sop.; Mary Burgess, mezzo; Composer conducting members of the Marlboro Music Festival Orchestra [17:04]

Scherzo for Piano, four hands. Composer & Robert Helps. [6:27]

Syzygy, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, sop.; Richard DuFallo; Members of the Marlboro Festival Orchestra . [24:27]

DESSAU, Paul:

Bach Variations. Composer; Leipzig Gewandhaus O. (T: 19:46)

In Memoriam: Berthold Brecht. Composer; Leipzig Gewandhaus O. (T: 13:45)

DIAMOND, David:

Music from “Romeo & Juliet”. Jan Krenz; Polish National R.S.O. (T: 18:45)

Night Music. Robert DAVANE, accordion; Lamont String Quartet (T: 8:39)

DIEPENBROCK, Alfonse (1862-1921): [Since Chandos issued the first-ever integral set

of his music, Diepenbrock’s stock has been rising. Stylistically, he falls somewhere between Mahler and Richard Strauss & tends toward the dark shadowy side of the tonal palette; this tone poem with baritone is prime late-Romantic fare and spooky as hell]:

“Im Grossen Schweigen” for Baritone & Orchestra. w/ Ruud van der Neer, bar.,; Ferdinand

Leitner conducting the Hague Philharmonic.

D’INDY, Vincent:

Istar. Anatole FISTOULARI; “Westminster Symphony Orch”

“Fervaal” Prelude to Act 1. FISTOULARI; “Westminister S.O.” (??)

La Forest Enchantee, Op. 8. Pierre Dervaux; Orchestre Philharmonique de Loire

Jour d’ete a la Montagne, Op. 61. Pierre Dervaux; Orchestre Philharmonique de Loire

Suite in the Olden Style, for Trumpet, Two Flutes & Strings, Op. 24. Harry GLANTZ, trumpet; Julius BAKER & Claude MONTEUX, flutes; Guilet String Quartet.

The “Wallenstein Trilogy”. Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live. [31:10]

DIMITRIEV, Georgi:

From “The Russian Primary Chronicle” – Oratorio for Soloists, Chorus, & Orchestra. Alexi Martynov, tenor; Anatoli Safiulin, bass; Boy’s Chorus of the Moscow Choral Society; ROZHDESTVENSKY, conducting; USSR Ministry of Culture S.O. (Time: 47:10)

Von DOHNANYI:

Ruralia Hungarica, Op. 32. Gyorgy Lehel; Hungarian State S.O. (T: 25:39)

“ “ “ (Piano version): Evelinde Trenkner, piano.

Serenade in C, Op. 10. Heifitz, Primrose, Fuermann Trio.

Variations on a Nursery Song, Op. 25. Gyeorgy Lehel; Kornel Zempleny, piano; Hungarian State S.O. (T: 26:08)

DODGE, Charles:

In Celebration. Columbia U. Center for Electronic Music

Speech Songs. Realization by Bell Labs

“The Story of our Lives”. Nevis Laboratories & Columbia U. Center.

DOPPER, Cornelius:

Gothic Chaconne. MENGELBERG/ C.o.A. (rec. 1940) (T:19:23)

DORATI, Antal:

Nocturne & Capriccio for Oboe & String Quartet. Robert Lord, oboe; Allegri String Quartet. (“Conductor’s compositions” with considerable class and flare.)

Symphony (1957). Composer; Minneapolis S. O.

DOUBRAVNA, Jaroslav (Sp??):

Symphony No. 3. Josef Jrieck; Czech Radio Symphony, live, 1984. [I’ve never heard another thing by him & can’t tell you the first thing about him; nor do I know if I spelled his name right. But if you like Czech music, this guy’s right in the groove with Smetana, Suk and the lot, except that he composes with a late-20th-Century accent. Highly enjoyable music, played with conviction.]

DRIGO, Riccardo (1846-1930):

Valse Bluette. His Bowen; His Orchestra

DUFFY, John:

The “Utah” Symphony. Makal; Milwaukee Symphony Orch. [About 30 minutes] [Take one cup of John Adams, mix with 3 ounces of Aaron Copland, a tablespoon of Roy Harris, and a dash of John Williams; stir briskly for half-an-hour; pour over audience’s ears. See them clap! And why not? Although it’s relatively spineless, this paean to the beauty of Utah’s landscape is so audience-friendly it does everything but wag its tail. The melodies are agreeable, the orchestration splashy and cinematic, and to judge from the applause the crowd lapped it up. I just wish Mr. Duffy had either disguised or left out the ubiquitous “theme based on an Indian legend about Goo-ga-too-ga, the Spirit of Camp-Fires-Coaxed-from-Wet-Kindling” – it’s SO, you know, Wounded-Knee!]

DUKAS:

“La Peri”, complete. FISTOULARI; “Westminster” Sym. Orch.

DUPARC, Henri (1848 – 1933):

Ecstasy (Arr. by Gerhardt). Charles Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

DUNCAN, Trevor:

Sinfonia Tellurica. Composer conducting; The “new Concert Orchestra”. (Time: 36:28)

DUPARC:

Ecstasy (Arr. by Gerhardt). Charles Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

“Leonore”, Symphonic Poem. Carlos Surinach; MGM Symphony Orchestra

DUTILLEUX, Henri (1916 - ):

Symphony No. 2, (“Le Doubles”). Munch; Lamoureux Orchestra [28:43] [Commissioned by the Boston Symphony for its 75th anniversary (1954), this slightly enigmatic but dramatic work is one of the finest post-war symphonies to come from Europe. Dutilleux isn’t a tune-smith, but he’s no serialist, either; his work is highly original, provocative – in the deeper, more intellectual sense of that work, not the fur-lined-teacup exhibitionism of many “avant-garde” contemporaries. The last movement, with its eerie, sustained diminuendo ending, is masterful and worth the price of admission alone. This happens to be the last recording Charles Much made before his death; he also conducted the world premier in Boston. I think the word “definitive” applies to his interpretation. Excellent sound, too.]

E

EDWARDS, George (1943 -- )

Kreuz und Quer. w/ Boston’s Musica Viva. [According to the composer: “This is one of a series of short pieces in which I attempted to concentrate both a wide variety of material (textures, tempi, etc) and a wide variety of getting from one kind of material to another. Its character is roughly that of a ‘serenade’, while the pacing involves sudden changes, long transitions, pun-like repetitions of previous material in new context and rare moments of complete repose.” I couldn’t have said it better, George!]

EGGE, Klaus:

Cello Concerto, Op. 29. Laszlo Varga, cello; Krisimir Siprusch; Oslo Philharmonic Orch. [37:39]

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 5. Oslo String Quartet. (T: 20:30)

Symphony No.3, Op. 22, “Sinfonia Giacosa”. Oivin Fjelstad; Oslo Philharmonic Orch. [18:35

Symphony No. 4, Op.30. Sixten Ehrling; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra [22:48]

EGK, Werner:

French Suite after Rameau. Composer; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch.

EFFINGER, Cecil:

Nocturne. Robert DAVANE, accordion; Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 4:43)

EISMA, Will:

“Dialogues” for Strings, Harpsichord, Marimba & Percussion. Bruno Moderna; w/ Concertgebouw Orch. Amsterdam. Holland Festival, 1966. (T: 13:03)

Rugiada. Ileana Melita, sop.; Unnamed chamber Ensemble. T. 7:03

World Within World. Netherlands Oboe Quintet. [11:25]

ELLINGTON, “DUKE”:

Suite from “The River”. Conductor & orchestra not identified on Source tape, but the sound is decent stereo and the performance is very dedicated & idiomatic. [37:21] [Originally a much longer ballet score, this “suite” is the closest Ellington came to writing a full-fledged symphony. Usually, hybrid works that try to blend jazz and/or big band elements into a symphonic strait-jacket end up sounding like neither fish nor fowl. But Ellington’s vast innate musicianship carries the day here. As a whole, the piece just sounds like terrific MUSIC, period, and defies all categorizations. It has lyricism, exquisite tone-painting, moments of power and inspiration, and by God it swings! Here’s yet another major orchestral work that would appeal instantly to a wide range of listeners…but who’s programming it? Where’s a new commercial recording? Is the name “Duke EIlington” no longer one to conjure with? If so, our musical culture is in even deeper trouble than I thought. Just remember what he said about “modern music”: “Hey. Man, if it sounds good, it is good.” It really is as simple as that, folks.]

ENESCO, Georges:

Octet in C Major, Op. 7. Silvestri; String Ensemble of the Romanian Sate SO. (Here we’re shown an aesthetic about as far removed from that of the Romanian Rhapsodies as you can imagine – more austere than folksy and never likely to be a crowd-pleaser, but it really, really deserves an occasional hearing. I think this is its only recording, and, predictably, Silvestri makes the juices flow with ideal idiomatic rhythms & colors. (Time: approximately 38 minutes)

Romanian Poem, Op. 1. Iosif Conta; Romanian Broadasting Symphony Orch. [What a wild grab-bag this thing is! Impressionistic washes of pure atmosphere alternate with stirring patriotic choruses and mighty declamations from the full orchestra. Stlystically & thematiucally, it sprawls all over the map, but it’s just incredibly fun to wallow in.]

Romanian Rhapsody No. 1. Composer; USSR Symphony , live, 1941 [Sensational.]

“ “ “ . Iosif Conta; Romanian Broadcast Synmphony Orch.

“ “ 2 . “ “ “ “ “ “ . [These are the only examples of Conta’s work in my collection; I can tell you nothing about him, but I can vouch that these performances rank with the best and that Conta takes his cue from Enesco’s own recordings, whipping up the tempi and dynamic shadings into a dizzying quasi-improvisatory Gypsy frenzy.]

Roumanian Rhapsody No. 2. Wallenstein; L.A. Philharmonic Orch.

“ “ “ “ . Sevitzky; Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Symphony No. 1 in E- flat, Op. 13. George Georgescu; Rumanian State Symphony Orch.

Violin Sonata No. 3, Op. 25. Rafel Druian, violin; John Simms, piano. [Wow! What a piece! Gypsies with ten-foot bows, dark eyes flashing in campfire light! Awesome challenges for the soloist, which Mr. Druian meets with sensational, drop-dead aplomb. If you love hot, and I mean really HOT, fiddling, check this out. Excellent sound, a few small pops & ticks on Source, you won’t care.]

E

ERB, Donald (1927- ):

Concerto for Solo Percussion. Marvin Dahlgrin, percussionist. [9:28]

The Seventh Trumpet. Johanos/ Dallas Symphony Orch. [16:05]

Symphony of Overture. Johanos; Dallas Symphony Orch. [16:05]

Three Pieces for Brass Quintet & Piano. Matthias Bamert, conducting; New York Brass Quintet, etc. [I’ve always liked Erb’s music; it has substance and color and it goes somewhere. Bamert’s dynamic presence must account for the sizzling performance of this absorbing work, which would mnake a fine addition to any wind/brass concert program.]

ERMOLAEV, Mikhail:

Plantain, to Poems by Nikolai Rubtsov. Mikhail Krutikov, bass; Mikhail Ermolaev, piano. (T. 20:11)

ESCHER, Rudolf (Dutch, modern):

Sonata for Solo Clarinet (1973). Marinus Hintzbergen, clarinet. [6:03]

Universe de Rimbaud. w/ Eric Tappy, tenor; Hans VONK; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orch., Live, 1977. (T. 21:49)

ESPAHI, Andrei:

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Minor. Ivanov; USSR State Symphony Orchestra [22:04]

Symphony No. 6, “Liturgy”. Moscow Radio S.O. & Volgograd State Choir. Fedoseyev; conducting. (T: 19:35)

F

De FALLA (1876-1946):

“Homenajes”, Claude Debussy. Tom Burmantje, guitar. [3:25]

The Three-Cornered Hat (complete). Eduardo Toldra; French Ntl. Radio Orch.; Consuelo Rubio, Mezzo-soprano. [Engagingly “French” performance from the days when the ORTF really sounded French. Only recording I have by this conductor, but vocalist-collectors may be familiar with Ms. Rubio’s name. Late-mono era Source is an Angel LP in very good condition.]

Dances from “The 3-Cornered Hat”. Mitropoulos; NYPSO, studio version.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Casadesus, piano; Mitropoulos; NYPSO, studio version. [Sultry]

FARQUHAR, Savid (New Zealand, b. 1928):

Evocation. Composer; New Zealand SO

Symphony 1959. John Hopkins/ New Zealand RSO (T: 23:22)

FAURE:

Apres un Reve. Eric Hammerstein; London Proms Orchestra.

Ballade for Piano & Orchestra, Op. 19. w/ Ingemar Bergfelt, piano; Sixten Eckenberg; Gothenburg Symphon7 Orchestra, live 9/1/1962 (13:52]

Berceuse from the Dolly Suite. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Mandoline” (Op. 56/ 1). Jitske Steendam, sop.; Wim Dirriwachter, piano [2:00]

Masques & Bergamasques. FISTOULARI; “Westminster” Sym. Orch.

Pavan for Orch. PARAY; French Ntl. RSO. (T: 8:02)

Requiem. w/ Nadia BOULANGER; possibly BBC Symphony; no date or time given.

FELCIANO, Richard (1930- ): [Detestable academic avant-garde codswallop, although if you LIKE that kind of thing, I’m more than happy to burn it for you. Look, if a composer feels he has to call attention to his music by weighting it down with cute, cryptic or pseudo-scientific tag-lines (“Crasis”? Is that how Texans pronounce the word “crisis”? Or should it just be “Crapsis”?), then he must feel his music can’t speak for itself! How rapidly this stuff has dated! In 25 years, this style went from being the ultimate “in-Crowd” sound to being the musical equivalent of left-overs that have been in the freezer so long they’ve turned gray…]

“CH OD” for 6 instruments & electronic sounds. Philadelphia Composers Forum Ensemble. [Pronounced, I think, “CH-H-ODD!” but what do I know from Sanskrit? You wanna know what this sack-full-of-stink sounds like? I’ll turn the mike over the composer, who will illuminate you. Here, Dick. No, no, you speak into this end – right. (Droning, somnambulistic, trance-inducing classroom voice) “For some time now I have been fascinated by the apparent dichotomy of two modes of being in the universe: the inevitable, the quasi-periodic motions of atoms and celestial bodies and on the other hand, and on a more indeterminate scale, the actions and rhetoric of man, assertions of his will and thereby his independence, yet inevitably conditioned by the other mode of being and ultimately drawn into union with it. Thus in CH-OED, two kinds of motion are apparent: those which manifest in a pervasive, slow, quasi-periodic movement in which the five C’s of the opening structure move in a single convergence to the central C at the end; and those which, like much of the music of the Occident, are tied to more intermediate time-structures (rhythm and phrases) and to instrumental analogies of the expressive capabilities of the human voice, with all its attendant implications of ego-manifestation. The title comes from a Tibetan mystery play and means “cutting off”, a reference to the absorption of personality unto the universal order of created matter. Any questions?”

“Uh…none of that stuff is ‘apparent’ to me, so is that just your way of telling us that it doesn’t have any good tunes?”

“Skippy, it doesn’t have any tunes. Don’t be naïve! I couldn’t write a ‘melody’ good enough to unlock a pay-toilet! Next question? Mr. Trotter, you have you hand up?”

“How big a foundation grant did you get to write this arch, pretentious, mumbo-jumbo, Dick? I mean, the program notes are ten times more interesting and substantial than the music, for Chrissakes!”

“Tonality Police, arrest this collector and charge him for Heresy in the First Degree: Persistent Anti-Dodecaphonalism!”

(*) Description paraphrased from Felciano’s actual program notes! Really makes you want to hear the music, doesn’t it?]

*** *** ***

“Crasis” for Seven Instruments & Electronic Sounds. Composer conducting Ensemble. [The first few minutes of this farcically self-important piece sounded like something was wrong with my stylus or cartridge – that’s how ugly it is; like a big gob of dog fur had gotten wrapped around the stylus shank and was chewing up the inner grooves. For what it’s worth, the composer has this to say: “I set about writing a work which would not be programmatic, but rather an abstract structure whose acoustical materials would be derived from the Noh (as in “Noh” Drama)”. In which case, why not just buy a good recording of Noh plays and learn how pungent and powerful that music can be? This stuff, I repeat, is sonic dog-droppings.]

“Gravities” for Solo Piano, Four Hands. Milton & Peggy Salten, piano. [“GRAVITIES”??? What does music have to with gravity? And by the way, Prof., there’s only ONE “gravity”, unless theoretical physics has come up with a Dark Gravity to match Dark Matter… If you want to deal in abstruse mathematics, become a physicist, not a f****ng composer!]

“Spectra” for Picccolo Flute, Alto flute, & Contra-bass. Nancy Turetzky, flutes; Bertrand Turetzky, bass’. [Least obnoxious piece on the album, for what that’s worth.]

FELDMAN, Mort:

Durations, for Six Solo Instruments. David Tudor (again!), Don Hammond, et. al. Feldman’s stock continues to rise. Clearly, he was much more than an avatar of Minimalism. And, again, I’ve re-evaluated, over and over, each time I heard something new. At first I had him pegged as the Downtown Brian Eno, but now I’m inclined to think Feldman belongs in the Alternative Pantheon of Great 20th Century Composers. Whether the pitting of epic time-spans against near-microscopic music “events” constitutes Profundity or now…life’s too short to debate that one, folks. But at least therfe’s none of the fur-lined-teacup silliness that, for me, reduced some of John Cage’s more conceptual pieces to charlatanry. Feldman seems to have had one gigantic macro-vision and worked on fragments of it…HUGE fragments…engulfing us with silences and then reshaping the silences with glacially slow, barely audible transformations – but you sense, or at least I do, that it’s all going somewhere. So I no longer respond by thinking: “Yeah, OK, Morty, that’s cool – now will you freakin’ GET ON WITH IT??” He can’t be so easily dismissed; give him some time; don’t force any reactions…this is music that works better at home, through your speakers, than it does in the concert hall. By the tiniest and slowest incremental processes, Feldman’s music drifts toward the sublime.

Or, you may just fall asleep; it probably works pretty good that way, too.

FERNSTROM, John:

String Quartet No. 5, Op. 81. Berwald Quartet (T: 23:31)

“ “ No. 8. Op. 93. “ “ (T: 12:34)

FERRARI, Luc:

Presque Rein No. 1. Konstantin Simonov; Paris Ensemble for Contempoarary Music. (T: 20:42)

Societe II. Simonov; Paris Ensemble for Contemporary Music. (T: 27:27)

FOERSTER, Josef Bohuslav:

Cyrano de Bergerac, for Large Orch., Op. 55. Vaclav Something-or-other/ Czech Philharmonic. (Time: 38:10) (Luxuriant, Straussian tone-painting from one of those marvelous “second-tier” Czech composers who sometimes wrote First Tier music. You may already know Foerster’s 4th Symphony, which was widely available on Nonesuch for many years – if you liked that piece, you’ll find the same high qualities in this suite.

FORSYTHE, Malcolm:

Sun Songs. Alex Paul; “Espirit” Orchestra of Canada.

FOSS, Lucas:

Paradigm (for my friends). Composer, piano: Contemporary Music Ensemble/ (T: 18:00)

Renaissance Concerto for Flute & Orchestra. Carol Wincyz (SP??) flute; Composer; Milwaukee Symphony, live, mid-Eighties. [Foss has never made up his mind what kind of composer he wants, really, to be; he jumps from gimmicky avant-garde to crowd-pleasing neo-romanticism like a June bug on a hot griddle; that’s fine, it’s all pretty good. This is a clever, attractive, instantly enjoyable piece; the highlight is an “echo-effect” movement based on quotes from Monteverdi, which is really quite beautiful. This performance, surely, is definitive.

FRANCAIX (1912- ):

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra. Claude Pailliard-Francaix, piano (the composer’s daughter); Orchestre of Luxembourg Radio, conducted by the composer. [T. 17;26]

Serenade for Small Orchestra [8:20] w/ Willem van Otterloo. [Delightful!]

Symphony for Strings. Carlos Surinach; MGM Symphony Orchestra.

FREEDMAN, Harry (1922- > ):

Images for Orchestra. Ozawa; Toronto Symphoony Orch. [16:04]

FRICKER, Peter Racine:

Symphony No. 1. BBC Symphony Orch. Conductor & date not listed.

FRID, Geza:

Caprices Roumains. Ruth Vissar, oboe; Elisabeth van Malde, piano [9:46]

FUKHAI, Shiro (1907 - ? ):

Quatre Mouvements for Parodiques. Shigenobu, Yamakoka; Yonuri Nippon Symphony O.

FURTWANGLER, Wilhelm:

Piano Concerto. w/ Barenboim & Mehta; Live, New York Philharmonic. [Because this is such an important composition vis-à-vis the great conductor’s career, I feel obligated to offer it. Unfortunately, the timing is such that a tape turn-over near the very end was necessary and I feel that it completely ruins the enigmatic, staring-into-the-Void mood Furtwangler worked so hard to put on score paper. This Mehta/Barenboim version is the only acceptable one of the three in existence (I won’t count the brain-dead performance once issued on Marco Polo and the ancient air-check with Furtwangler conducting is in such execrable sound that it’s purely of historic interest), I’m offering it anyway – but at a cut-rate price and with no frills: $7.50. Includes an interesting radio commentary by my deceased friend and colleague Roger Jones as well as Furtwangler conducting the bizarre Dvorak-like scherzo from his own Symphony No. 2 – we’ll get to the after a while; I have four performances of the bloody thing. Even to attempt a description of the huge, sprawling, shaggy-beast concerto would require several pages of club-footed analysis I don’t feel competent to give you. If you care about Furtwangler and all he stood for, you must hear the concerto; this is the cheapest way to disseminate the work widely (below cost, when you factor in my time), so grab it while you can; the numerous semi-pirate pressings and CD incarnations have all vanished now and who knows if there will ever be more? (Well, you can mail order a very nice mastering from Japan…for about $30.00).].

Violin Sonata in D Major. Wolfgang Meuller-Nisho, violin; Rudolf Dennemarck, piano. ( 48:01) [Ok, if you’re familiar with Furty’s orchestral compositions, you know what you’re in for here: a work of symphonic proportions, great complexity, an almost self-defeating earnestness, and gangly long-limbed melodies that aren’t going to cause the audience to whistle the tunes on their way home. A crowd-pleaser it ain’t, but it has integrity and a certain compulsive appeal. Nothing in the great conductor’s small catalogue equals the towering, neo-Brucknerian Second Symphony or the still shamefully neglected Piano Concerto (which bears comparison with Busoni’s in terms of sweep, ambition, and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stylistic allusions and borrowings; frankly, it isn’t easy listening – a more sweeping, confident, virtuosic reading might change that, but this honest, workmanlike traversal does great credit to the performers; and I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Perlman and Barenboim to take up the cause…]

FOULDS, John (1880-1939): (Mix one part Delius, one part Holst & one part Poulenc! English pastoralism w/ French sophistication. Good stuff.)

April in England, Op. 48/1. Barry Wordsworth; London P.O. (T: 7:09)

Le Caberet Overture, Op. 72A. “ “ “ (T: 3:31)

Hellas: A Suite from Ancient Greece, Op. 45. Wordsworth; London P.O. (T: 18:03)

Pasquinade, Op. 98/2. Wordsworth; London P.O. (T: 6:34)

Three Mantras, Op. 61B. Wordsworth; London P.O. (T: 25:49)

FRANCAIX:

Serenade for Small Orchestra. Van Otterloo; Hague Philharmonic Orch; live, 1965. [8:20]

FREEDMAN, Harry (1922- ):

Images for Orchestra. Ozawa; Toronto Symphony Orch. [16:04]

FRICKER, Peter Racine:

Symphony No. 5 for Organ & Orchestra. Unidentified performers (Dynamite piece!)

FUKHAI, Shiro (1907 - )

Quatre Mouvements Parodiques. Shigenobu Yamaoka; Yonuri Nippon S. O.

FURTWANGLER:

Piano Concerto. w/ Barenboim & Mehta; Live, New York Philharmonic; early Eighties, I think. [Because this is such an important composition vis-à-vis the great conductor’s career, I feel obligated to offer it. Unfortunately, the timing is such that a tape turn-over near the very end was necessary and I feel that it completely ruins the enigmatic, staring-into-the-Void mood Furtwangler worked so hard to put on score paper. This Mehta/Barenboim version is the only acceptable one of the three in existence (I won’t count the brain-dead performance once issued on Marco Polo and the ancient air-check with Furtwangler conducting is in such execrable sound that it’s purely of historic interest), I’m offering it anyway – but at a cut-rate price and with no frills: $7.50. Includes an interesting radio commentary by my deceased friend and colleague Roger Jones as well as Furtwangler conducting the bizarre Dvorak-like scherzo from his own Symphony No. 2 – we’ll get to the after a while; I have four performances of the bloody thing. Even to attempt a description of the huge, sprawling, shaggy-beast concerto would require several pages of club-footed analysis I don’t feel competent to give you. If you care about Furtwangler and all he stood for, you must hear the concerto; this is the cheapest way to disseminate the work widely (below cost, when you factor in my time), so grab it while you can; the numerous semi-pirate pressings and CD incarnations have all vanished now and who knows if there will ever be more? (Well, you can mail order a very nice mastering from Japan…for about $30.00).].

G

Le GALLIENNE, Dorian:

Sinfonietta. John Hopkins; Melbourne S.O. (Time: 12:47)

GART, John:

Vivo. Robert DAVANE, accordion; the Lamont Quartet. (Time: 2:11)

GERMAN, Edward:

Nell Gwynn’s Dances. Leslie Heward; Halle Orch., rec. 1/13/42

GERSWHIN:

Complete Concert Works. [See “Gould” under “Conductors”]

Piano Concerto in F. Andre Previn; Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic. [As good as any & better than most.] [32:10]

GHEDINI, Giorgio: [Yes, there were other Italian symphonic composers besides Respighi, just nobody as good. Ghedini had skill and interesting ideas; his music is tonal and accessible. You might like it, although my reaction, thus far, is sort of lukewarm.]

Partita for Orchestra. Cantelli; NBC Symphony, live, 2/23/52 [T: 23:00]

Pezzo Concertante. Cantelli; NBC Symphony, live, 2/2/52 [T: 13:00]

GIDEON, Miriam (1906 - ):

The Condemned Playground. w/ Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano; Chamber Ensemble conducted by Fritz Jahoda]

Questions of Nature. Jan de Gaetani, mezzo; w/ oboe, piano & percussion. [Eloquen, probling song cycle based on passages from the writing of Adelard of Bath (12th Century English). As always, Ms. De Gaetani’s work is brilliant.]

GILLIS, Don:

Ranch House Party. Gilbert Vintner; London Prominade Orchestra

GINESTERA, Alberto:

Piano Sonata. Robert Guralnik, piano; (T: 14:31)

GLANVILE-HICKS, Peggy:

“Etruscan Concerto” for Piano & Chamber Orchestra. Carlo Bussoltti, piano; Carlos Surinach; MGM Chamber Orchestra. [Delightful; should be played more often. Or at least once more ,,,]

GLASS, Louis (1864-1936):

Symphony No. 5, Op. 57. Laury Gruendahl; Danish Radio Orch., live, 10/22/1957 [T: 33:43]

GLIERE, Reinhold (1875-1956):

The Bronze Horseman, complete ballet. Algis Ziraitis; Bolshoi Theater Orchestra [45:24]

Red Poppy Ballet Suite. Fistoulari; London Philharmonic Orch.

GOLOVIN, Andrei:

Music for Strings. Igor Zhukov; New Moscow Chamber O. (T: 27:09)

Two Pieces for Flute & Piano. Alexander Golyshev, flute; composer, piano. (T. 6:26)

GOULD, Morton:

American Salute. Composer; National Philharmonic Orchestra. [Crackles w/ energy.]

Tap-Dance Concerto No. 2. Fred Strickler taps; Oliver Knussen; New York Philharmonic Live, 1984. [What, there are TWO of them?? Who but the indefatigable Gould could come up with a pair of TAP-DANCE concerti? And guess what, this one is a stone gas! Mr. Strickler’s superhuman hoofing takes your breath away. How he manages to sustain the virtuoso romp through three fully-developed movements, I’ll never know. This one gets the honor of being the first on my new “Classical Party Records” category (see MUNDO BIZARRO listings)]

GRILLER, Arnold:

Symphony for Eight Celli & Piano. Composer; San Francisco Chamber Ensemble.

GROFE:

Trick or Treat? Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic. [Only recording; 2:07]]

GROSS, Robert:

Sonata for Violin & Piano, 1943. Composer, violin/ Leonard Stein, piano. Gross was a child prodigy who gave his first public recital at age 12; he later came Concert Master for Stokowski’s All-American Youth Symphony. Respected as a teacher, and chamber music player, Gross knew how to write for his instrument, and even thought this sonata is something of a pastiche (Copland to Gershwin to Chausson), it holds together pretty well. In this 1944 performance, the composer proves a strong advocate for his own work. You may not play it often, but you won’t feel short-changed when you do. (T: 11:20)

GRUENBERG, Louis:

Concerto for Violin & Orch, Op. 47. HEIFITZ; MONTEUX; San Francisco S.O.

HAKANSON, Knut:

Variations on a Theme by Lomjangsguten, Op. 30. Tor Man; rec. on 3/19/1940 [16:17] [Who, you might well ask, is Mr. Lomjansguten? Well, actually, his real name was “Peter Johnson” and he was reputed to be the last surviving pupil of the legendary fiddler, Ole Bull. Johnson too became an itinerant virtuoso & composed many works to show off his chops. Hakanson chose one of these, a choice folk-tune indeed, as the basis for this well-wrought orchestral piece. At 16 minutes & change, it doesn’t outstay its welcome and the sound if better than acceptable.]

HALLNAS, Hilding (1903-1974):

Divertimento for Orchestra, Op. 9 (2nd movement, “Pastoral” only). Sixten Eckerberg; Gothenburg Symphony Orch., live, 10/27/ 1942. [5:31]

“Pieta” for Solo Organ. Lannert Svegelius; Gothernberg Concert Hall organ, live, 3.24.58, Time: 5:53

HALVORSEN:

Entry of the Boyars. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra. [One of the craziest pieces of music ever composed. Nothing “Russian” about it (that is where they keep the Boyars, isn’t it?). Always sounds to me like a herd of rabid chipmunks dancing a conga-line under the full moon.]

HANSON:

Concerto da Camera in C Minor, for Piano & Strings. Brian Preston, piano; Meliora Quarter. (T: 14:50)

Concerto for Organ, Harp & Strings. David Craighead, piano; David Felltor, cond; Rochester Chamber Orchestra.

Nymphs & Satyrs, Ballet Suite. David Felter; Rochester Chamber Irch. (T: 13:10)

Serenade for Flute, Harp & Strings, Op. 35. [See “Koussevitzky]

Two Yuletide Pieces for Piano. Brian Preston, piano. (5:15)

HARRIS, Roy:

Sonata for Violin & Piano. Josef Gingold, vln; Johanna Harris, piano [19:50]

Symphonic Epigram. w/ Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 11/14/1954

HEKSTER, Walter:

Between Two Worlds. Ed Spanjaard, cond.; Hilversum Radio Chamber Orch., live, 1978 T. 28:20 [Remember “Third Stream” music? Well, here’s a paradigm of the good, the bad, and the ugly.]

Von HEMEL, Oscar:

“About Commedia dell’Arte”. Netherlands Oboe Quartet. [14:00]

String Quartet No. 4. Amati String Quartet. [7:14]

HERBERT, Victor:

Symphonic Suite. Wm. Strickland; American Recording Society Orchestra. [Corny but irresistible.]

HEPPENER, Robert:

Hymns and Conversations for 23 Harps (In Memoriam Eduard van Beinum). Bart van Beinum; Ensemble of International Harp Week, 1969. (Time: 12:12)

HAIEFF, Alexi:

String Quartet No. 1. Julliard String Quartet

HAKIM, Talib Rasul:

Visions of Ishwara. Paul Freeman; Baltimore S. O. (Time: 8:55)

HALLNAS, Hilding (1903-1974):

Divertimento for Orchestra, Op. 9 (2nd movement, “Pastoral” only). Sixten Eckerberg; Gothenburg Symphony Orch., live, 10/27/ 1942. [5:31]

“Pieta” for Solo Organ. Lannert Svegelius; Gothernberg Concert Hall organ, live, 3.24.58, Time: 5:53

HANSON, Howard:

Serenade for Flute, Strings & Harp, Op. 35. w/ Georges Laurent, flute; Bernard Zighara, harp; Koussevitzky; Boston Symphony. Rec. Nov. 1947 [5:53]

HARRIS, Roy:

Sonata for Violin & Piano. Josef Gingold, vln; Johanna Harris, piano [19:50]

Symphonic Epigram. Mitropoulos/ NYPSO, live,11/14/54.

Symphony No. 3. TOSCANINI; NBC S.O. (Live, 1940; T: 17:05)

HENZE, Heinz Werner:

“Ein Landarzt”, Radio Opera After Franz Kafka. Sixten EHRLING; Swedish R.S.O., :Live. 11/24/58/ (T: 24:49)

HERBERT, Victor:

Symphonic Suite. Wm. Strickland; American Recording Society Orch. (Corny but irresistible!)

HERRMANN, Bernard:

“The Battle of Naretva”. His only war movie score – ferocious. Unidentified Orch.

“The Bride Wore Black”, Suite from the film. Conductor & Orch. Not identified.

“The Twisted Nerve”, Suite from the film. Conductor & Orch. not identified.

The Fantasticks (Song cycle based on poems of Nicolas Breton, 1545-1626). Composer; Thames Chamber Choir.

For the Fallen. Composer; National P.O.

“Hangover Square” Piano Concerto. Soloist, conductor, orchestra not identified.

HILLER, Lejaren:

Algorithms I, Version 1. Composer; Contemp, Music Ensemble. (T: 18:30)

HINDEMITH:

“Educational Music” for Instrumental Ensembles, Op. 44. Maurive Levine String Ens.

Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, & 2 Harps. Libor Pesek; Harmony Wind Ensemble of Prague

“Der Schwanendreher”, Cto for Viola & Orchestra. Marcus Thompson, viola; David Epstein; M.I.T. Symphony Orch. (T. 26:25). [I’ve always thought the only remotely entertaining thing about this turgid little pot-boiler was the title, but I know some esteemed musicians and collectors who listen with beatific smiles and one professional violist who insists it’s really the bee’s-knees and that perhaps Hindemith’s rollicking sense of humor is just too subtle for me. I concede he might be right, but after dutiful listenings stretching back to the late Fifties, I hear about two minutes’ worth of enjoyable music in the whole piece. If you feel differently, this version’s as good as any, and the M.I.T. ensemble plays just fine, thank you.]

“Der Schanendreher”. Wm. PRIMROSE, viola; John Pritchard; Chamber Orchestra (unidentified). (This piece bores the crap out of me, but if you like it, there’s no better version to be heard.)

Requiem: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. Composer conducting the N Y Philharmonic and the Schola Cantorum; George London, bass. (T: 60:55). (I’ve met numerous music-lovers and a couple of good composers who really think this piece is the composer’s finest. I’ve tried, Vicar; God knows I’ve tried, but this large-gestured requiem leaves me resolutely unmoved, though I can’t quite figure out why. Oh well, if you’re a fan and you haven’t heard this intense composer-conducted performance, you should.]

HOLMBOE, Vagn (1909 - ): [Holmboe is the greatest Danish composer since Nielsen! Period; end of debate.]:

Concerto No. 11, for Trumpet solo, two Horns, and Strings. Carlos Surinach; Robert Nagel, trumpet; MGM Chamber Orchestra. [God bless ol’ MGM Records – the most adventurous small label of its day. This was waxed in 1954; another 50 years would elapse before all of Holmboe’s wonderful “small symphonies” would be recorded! He composed about a dozen, and there’s not a dud in the lot. Instantly appealing neo-romanticism, as only the Scandinavians were writing at that time.]

HOLST:

Beni Mora, Orchestral Suite, Op. 29. Composer; LSO; Rec. 1924

Capriccio for Orchestra, 1932. Imogene Holst; ECO.

Dances from “The Morning of the Year”, Op. 45, No. 2. David Atherton; LSO

Double Concerto for 2 Violins & Orch., Op. 49. Imogene Holst; Emanuel Hurwitz; Kenneth Sillito, violins; ECO

“The Golden Goose”, Ballet Music from, Op. 45. Imogene Holst; ECO

“The Lure”, Ballet Suite, w/oo. David Atherton; LSO

The Mystic Trumpeter, Op. 18. Composer; Shiela Armstrong, sop; LSO

St. Paul’s Suite, Op. 29. Composer; LSO strings; rec. 1924.

Two Songs Without Words, Op. 22. Imogene Holst; ECO.

“ “ “ : Composer; LSO; rec. 1924

Four Songs for Voice & Violin, Op. 35. Composer; Dora Labbette, sop; W. H. Reed, violin; rec. 1924.

HONEGGER:

Symphony No. 2 . w/ Szymon Goldberg; Netherlands Chamber Orch.

HOVHANESS, Alan:

Armenian Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 51. Carlos Surinach; MGM String O. (Time: 6:35).

Armenian Rhapsody No. 3 for String Orch. Composer; Royal Philharmonic O.

Celestial Fantasy, Op. 44. Carlos Surinach; MGM Chamber O. (Time: 6:45).

Ghazal No, 1, Op. 93/1. Composer, piano. (T: 2:20)

Kirghiz Suite, Op. 73, No. 2. Anahid & Maro Ajemian, violin & piano. (Time: 14:40).

Komachi, Op. 240. Composer, piano. (T: 10:56)

“Love Song Vanishing into Cricket-Sounds”. Composer, piano. (T: 3:39)

Macedonian Mountain Dance, Op. 39, No. 6. Manhattan String Quartet. (Time: 3:15)..

Meditations on Orpheus. Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic. [13:10]

Mountain Idylls, Op. 39, No.s 1 & 3. Marga Richter, piano. (Time: 5:00)

“Mountains & Rivers Without End” (Chamber Sym. For 10 Players). Composer; Members of Royal Philharmonic O.

Odysseus Symphony. Composer; “Polyphonia” Orchestra (sic).

Prayer for St. Gregory. Composer. “Polyphonia” Orchestra.

Quartet No. 2 for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Piano, Op. 112. MGM Orch. (Time: 13:25)

Requiem and Resurrection. Composer; West Caldwell Symphonic Band.

“Shalamar”, Op. 117. Composer, piano. (T: 12:34) (Ravishingly beautiful)

*** Carlos Surinach; MGM Chamber Orch. (Time: 4:07).

Slumber Song & Siris Dance. Marga Richter, piano. (Time: 2:54).

Sonata for Piano, “Prophet’s Hill”, Op. 346. Composer, piano. (T: 8:15.

Symphony No. 6 (“Celestial Gaye”). Composer; “Polyphonia” Orch.

Symphony No. 19 (“Vishnu”). Composer; Sevan Philharmonic O. (Time: 29:14)

Symphony No. 21 (“Etchmiadzin” Sym.) Composer; Royal Philharmonic O.

To Hiroshige’s Cat, Op. 366. Composer, piano. (T: 4:25)

IBERT:

The Circus Suite. John Hollingsworth; Royal Philharmonic Orch. [Only known American release of this scintillating confection. Movements are: Acrobats; Clowns’ Dance; Bacchanal; Love Duet; Variations; Clock Dance; Consolation and Finale. Timing, I’d guess 16-17 minutes; Hollingsworth’s ballet-pit experience tells, here, for the performance is all sparkle and gaiety. Source is extremely rare MGM LP, which I chanced upon recently in near-mint condition; recording dated 1958.].

Divertissement. Carlos Surinach; MGM Symphony Orchestra

ISOLFSSON, Paul:

Passacaglia for Orchestra (1938) Wm. Strickland; Iceland S.O.

IVES:

Sonata No. 4. Anahid & Maro Ajemian, violin & Piano.

Variations on “America”. Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic. [A great romp, 6:43]

JANACEK:

Concertino for Piano & Winds. Jaromir Borghausen; Prague Soloists Ensemble.

“The Cunning Little Vixen”, Suite. Rozhdestvensky; Leningrad P.O.

“ “ “ “ “ : Sir Andrew Davis; Toronto Sym. Orch. (T: 19:18

“The Danube” – Tone Poem for Large Orch. Libor Pesek; Slovak Philharmonic Orch. [16:59] [Imagine Janacek trying to write like Richard Strauss… very early but ambitious work. Not bad, but it doesn’t much sound like Janacek!]

Incidental Music to “Schluck und Jau”. Pesek; Slovak Philharmonic. [9:29] [Perversely, I keep wanting to call this piece “Incidental Music to “Schuck and Jive”…but that’s just me.]

Moravian Dances. Pesek; Slovak Philharmonic Orch. [16:42]

Orchestral Suite No. 3. Pesek; Slovak Philharmonic Orch. [13:35]

Taras Bulba, Rhapsody for Orch. “ “ “ “ “ “ (T: 22:36)

JANSSEN, Guus (1951- ): “Dance of the Malic Matrixes”, for Piano &

Wind Instruments. Composer on piano; Lucas Vis; Hague Philharmonic. [No. I don’t have the foggiest idea what a “Malic Matrix” is, either, but the piece isn’t bad, in a self-consciously avant-garde mid-Seventies kind of way.]

Music for Six Woodwinds. Amsterdam Student Chamber Orch. (T. 6:52)

JOHANSON, Sven-Erik (1919 - ?):

Symphony No. 3. Dean Dixon; Gothenburg Symphony Orch, live, 9/23/1959.

JONES, Daniel: (Welsh. No folk music. Terse, tight, but grows on you,)

String Quartet 1975. Delme Quartet (T: 15:18)

String Quartet 1978. Delme Quartet (T: 16:48)

String Quartet 1980. “ “ ( T: 16:45)

KABALEVSKY, Dimitri:

“Colas Breugnon” Overture. TOSCANINI; NBC S.O. (Live, 1943; T: 4:58)

KAGEL, Mauricio:

“Der Scholl” for 5 players w/ 45 Instruments. Cologne Ensemble for New Music. (T:37:18)

KALMAR, Laszlo:

Harom zongoradarab. Adam FELLEGI, Piano (You know: “Dum-de-DUMMM-de..”)

Three Piano Pieces. Adam FELLEGI, piano

KALOMIRIS, Manolis (1883-1962) (Founder of the Greek nationalist school; not a great maverick, like Skalkottas, but time spent listening his music is not wasted.)

Ballade No. 1 in E Minor. Aris Garoufalis, piano.

Ballade No. 2 for Piano “ “

Easy Pieces for Greek Children. “ “

5 Preludes for Piano “ “

Nocturne. “ “

Rhapsody No. 2 for Piano “ “

Symphonic Concerto for Piano & Orch. Krino Kalomiris, piano; composer; O. of the Greek Radio Foundation. (Source is the broadcast premiere in 1953; adequate only.)

KARABITS, Ivan:

Concerto for Orchestra No. 2. J. Domarkas; Lithuanian P.O. (T: 15:42)

KAY, Ulysses Simposon:

Markings. Paul Freeman; London S. O. (T: 19:05)

KAYN, Roland:

Cybernetics III. Electonic Realization by RAI Studios, Milan (T: 22:52)

KETELBY, Edward:

In a Chinese Temple Garden. Kostelanetz; Rochester Pops Orch.

The Clock & the Dresden Figures. “ “ “ “

In a Monatery Garden. “ “ “ “

In a Persian Market. “ “ “ “ [See comments under “Conductors”.]

KETTING, Otto:

“Intrada” for Solo Horn [3:25]

The Light of the Sun. Jill Gomez, sop; Kenneth Montgomery; Hilversum Radio S.O., 6/26/85. (T: 36:34)

Symphony for Saxophone & Orchestra, Bernard HAITINK; Netherlands Saxophone Quarter; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orch. (T. 31:40) (Live, Holland Festival, 1979)

Symphony No. 3. Composer; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Premiere, Oct. 6, 1990. (Time: 33:40).

KEULEN, Geert:

Cors et cordes. Lucas Vis, cond; Netherlands Chamber Ensemble, live, 1978. T. 9:13

KEURIS, Tristan:

Music for Violin, Clarinet & Piano. Pheminos Trio, Live, 1977 (T. 7:54)

KHATCHATURIAN:

“Lezghinka” from “Gayne”. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Masquerade” – Waltz from. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

Masquerade Suite. Kostelanetz; N Y Philharmonic (studio, c. 1956)

KIRCHNER, Leon (Kirchner wasn’t – isn’t? – I’m not sure – terribly prolific, but every composition I’ve heard is distinguished and stamped with a highly individual profile. His modernisms don’t come wrapped in aural barbed wire and there’s always worthy musical substance within the forms. Later on, I hope to include a listing for his Piano Concerto, with Mitropoulos and the great Louis Krassner, but the copy I have is in marginal condition and I’m looking for a better one.):

Concerto for Violin, Cello, Ten Winds & Percussion. Composer cond./ Anonymous N.Y. Ensemble/ Tossy Spivakovsky, violin. (T: 18:10) (Close-to-perfect performance.)

KLAMI, Uuno (Another outstanding post-Sibelian Finnish neo-romantic):

Cheremissian Fantasy for Cello & Orch, Op. 19. Arto Noras, cello; Jorma Panula; Helsinki Philharmonic O. (T: 11:30)

“Kalevala” Suite, Op. 23. Panula; Helsinki Philharmonic O. (T: 30:17)

Sea Pictures. Eero Bister; Kouvola City Orch. (“La Mer” in the Baltic…and where DOES Finland find such terrific “small town” orchestras?) (T: 23:23)

Violin Concerto. Iilka Talvi, violin; Bister; Kuovola City Symphony. (T: 27:33)

KLEMPERER, Otto:

Merry Waltz. Stokowski; Philharmonia Orch. Live, 1974

Symphony No. 1. Composer; Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, live, `1960. [An ungodly mess, but highly amusing. What WAS he thinking? See comments under “Conductors”]

KOBIALKA, Daniel (American, b. 1943)

Echoes of Secret Silence. Kent Nagano; Oakland Youth Symphony.

KODALY:

Peacock Variations. Mengelberg; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orch., world premier, Nov. 11, 1939. T. 28:31. [Rich-sounding and vital; shows what a superb colorist Mengelberg could be. Source derived from copy of “official” Radio Nederland aircheck and aside from a slightly low dynamic level, it’s really very fine.]

Psalmus Hungaricus. Markevitch; Russian State Symphony Orch & Chorus. [See comment under CONDUCTORS]

KORNDORF, Margarita:

Hymn No. One for Orchestra. Vladimir Dimitrov; Moscow State S.O. (T: 19:35

Improvisioni per Pianoforte. Adam FELLEGI, piano.

KOUSS, Margarita:

Lyric Poem for Orch. FEDOSYEV; Moscow Radio S.O. (T: 18:14)

KRENEK, Ernst:

“Kitharaulos”. David Atherton, cond. Ursula HOLLIGER, harp; Heinz HOLLIGER, oboe; Hilversum Radio Chamber Orchestra. Live, Holland Festival, 1972. (Time: 22:45)

KRENNIKOV, Tikhon:

A Hussar’s Ballad – Ballet Suite. Fedoseyev; USSR Radio & TV Large S.O. (T:44:18)

Symphony No. 2, Op. 9. Svetlanov; USSR Academic S.O. (T: 34:36)

Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 14. Leonid KOGAN; Svetlanov; USSR Academic S.O. (T: 20:32)

De KRUYF, Ton:

Cantata: “Pour faire le portrait d’un oiseau”. Elie Poslovsky, cond/ Helana Melita, mezzo/ Concertgebouw Orch. Holland Festival, 1966. )Time: 12:27)

Five Impromptus. Paul Hupperts; Hilversum Radio S.O., live, 1968 (T. 4:10)

KULENOVICH, Vuk (sp???):

“Icarus”, a Postlude for Large Orchestra. Dubravianu; Netherlands Radio Symphony Orch.

KUNAD, Rainer:

Concerto for Organ, String Orchestras & Drums. Unidentified performers

KVANDAL, Johan:

“Antagonia”, Op. 38. (Concerto for two String Orchestras & Percussion). Karsten Andersen; Norwegian Youth SO. (Time: 24:11)

Concerto for Oboe & Strings, Op. 46. Mariss Jansons; Erik Niord Larsen, oboe; Oslo PO. (Time: 20:09)

Concerto for Violin & Orch., Op. 52. Frantisek Veselka, violin; Jiri Starek; Trondheim SO. (Time: 30:02)

String Quartet No. 3, Op.10. Oslo String Quartet. (Time: 25:38)

Symphonic Epos, Op. 21. Herbert Blomstedt; Oslo Philharmonic. (T: 17:24)

LANGGAARD, Rued: (The “wild man” of Danish music; Nielsen thought him deranged, as did many critics. There are moments, when one listens to these unendingly quirky but sometimes deeply moving works, when one tends to agree.)

Symphony No. 10 (“Yon Dwelling of Thunder”): Ole Schmidt; Danish R.S.O, Live, 8/28/77. (T: 30:56)

Symphony No. 14 (“The Morning”). Michael Schoenwandt; Danish R.S.O. & Chorus. (T: 29:54)

LANG, Hans:

Prelude & Fugue in C. Robert DAVINE, accordion; Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 2:58)

LANG, Istvan:

Intermezzo for pianoforte. Adam Fellegi, piano. (Time: approx. 12:00)

LANSKY, Paul:

Modal Fantasy. Robert Miller, piano.

LARSSON, Lars-Erik:

Liten March. Stig Westerberg; Stockholm Philharmonic O.

Pastoral Suite. “ “ “ “ .

LECUONA:

Malaguena. Eric Hammerstein; London Proms Orchestra. [Come on, admit it! You love it, too! Everybody loves it! It’s the musical equivalent of a Reeces Peanut Butter Cup with cold milk…]

LEES, Benjamin:

Sonata No. 2. Rafael Drurian, violin; Ilse von Alpenheim, piano.

DE LEEUW, Reinbert:

Music for Piano (1964). Benno Pierweijer, piano. [5:25]

DE LEEUW, Ton:

Haiku II. Dorothy Dorow, soprano; Edo de Waart; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. [12:53]

Lamento Pacis, for Choir & 9 Instruments. Marinus Voorberg; Vocal Ensemble of Radio Nederland. (Time: 25:25)

Music for Strings. Jean Fournet; Netherlands Broadcasting Symphony, live, 1971 (T. 10:30)

2 Songs on Texts by Gabriela Mistral. Soloist unnamed; composer @ piano [2:25]

Spatial Music No. 1. Paul Hupperts; Hilversum Radio S.O., Live, 1968 (T. 24:25) No, sir, they just don’t write ‘em like this any more. Nostalgic for the days when rooms full of otherwise intelligent people bowed down when Milton Babbitt entered their presence? Here ya go!]

LEIFS, Jon:

Iceland Overture, Op. 6. Wm. Strickland; Iceland S.O.

LEOVENDI (sp?), Theo (1930 - ):

“Orbits” for Horn Quartet & Orchestra. Cornilianu Dubravianu (sp?); Netherlands Radio Symphony

LILBURN, Douglas (New Zealand’s greatest composer; evolved from dramatic/pastoral style to tauter, yet still highly communicative, neo-classicism. Anyone who cares for English music will delight in making his acquaintance.)

Aotaroa Overture. John Hopkins; New Zealand RSO. (T: 7:49)

Festival Overture. “ “ “ “ “

Symphony No. 1. John Hopkins; New Zealand S.O.

Symphony No. 2. Ashley Heenan; New Zealand S. O.

Symphony No. 3. Juan Matteucci; New Zealand RSO. (T: 14:43)

Suite for Orchestra. John Hopkins; New Zealand S.O.

LITKEI, Ervin:

Piano Concerto (“Love & Remembrance”) Michael Reeves, piano; Bernard Ebbinghouse; London Symphony O.

LOCKWOOD, Norman:

Sonata-Fantasia. Robert DAVANE, accordion; Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 8:07)

LOFGREN, Albert:

“Hay-making Party” – A Swedish Rhapsody. Tor Mann; Rec. on 3/11/1930. [8:09]

LOVENDIE, Theo:

Flexio. Richard Dufallo; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orch; (T. 20:15) Live, 1978 [Sounds exactly like you’d expect a piece entitled “Flexio” to sound…]

LUTOSLAWAKI, Witold:

Variations Symphoniques. Composer; Swedish R.S.O., Live, 3/28/69. (T: 8:37)

LYGETI, Gyorgy:

String Quartet (1965). LaSalle Quartet. (29:43)

MACDOUGALL, Robert [1941 - ):

“Anacoluthon”: A Confluence. Alexis Weisenberg; Contemporary Music Ensemble. [By now, you probably know what music with such a pretentious, arcane, pseudo-scientific title is going to sound like. It does – the composer requires 300 words to tell us what the title means. It might just as well be called “Chamber Music No. 1”]

MacMILLAN, Sir Ernest:

String Quartet in C Minor. Amadeua Quartet. (T: 25:35)

Two Sketches on French Canadian Airs. Amadeus Quartet. (T: 6:18)

MADETOJA, Leevi: (Another excellent post-Sibelius Finn)

Comedy Overture. Jorma Panula; Helsinki Philharmonic Orch. (Time: 8:30)

Symphony No. 3. Jorma Panula; Helsinki Philharmonic Orch. (T: 30:05)

MAHLER:

Symphony No. 6, “Tragic”. Leinsdorf; Boston Symphony [See comments under “Conductors”]

Symphony No. 10. w/ Sir Simon Rattle/ Los Angeles Phil. live, mid-Eighties. [Y’know, if this bloke ever stops clowning around – a haircut would help some of us to take him more seriously – he might make a half-way decent Mahler conductor.]

MANNEKE, Daan:

Sinfonia for 13 Strings. Paul Hupperts; Hilversum Radio Chamber Orch. (T. 6:15)

MARTIN, Frank:

Piano Concerto No. 2. w. Badura-Skida; Composer conducting; Radio Luxembourg Sym Orch. (T: 22:24)

Sonata di Chiesa for Viola d’Amore & Strings. Marcus Thompson, viola d’amore; David Epstein; M.I.T. Symphony Orchestra (T. 16:30)

Violin Concerto. MITROPOULOS and SZEGETI; US Premiere; NYPSO live, 11/16/52. (T: 21:35)

Violin Concerto. w/ Wolfgang Schneiderhann; Composer; Radio Lumexbourg Sym. (T:22:13)

MARTINO, Donald (1931 - ):

Concerto for Wind Quintet. Arthur Weisberg; Contemporary Chamber Ensemble of Rutgers University [13:20]

Fantasy Variations for Violin. Paul Zukovsky, violin [13:20].

Quodlibets for Flute. Samuel Baron, flute. [7:58]

Set for Clarinet. Michael Webster, clarinet. [9:15]

Strata for Bass Clarinet. Dennis Smythe, bass clarinet. [6:20]

Trio for Violin, Clarinet & Piano. Paul Zukovsky, violin; Arthur Bloom, clarinet; Gilbert Kalish, piano. [11:50]

Triple Concerto for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, and Double-bass Clarinet [!!?] Harvey Sollberger; the Group for Contemporary Music [25:46] [You might hate it, but it surely is a dazzling accomplishment…IF you can find three clarinetists who can cope,,,]

MARTINU:

Half Time – Rondo for Orch. Petr Vronsky; Brno Symphony Orch. [8:58]

Intermezzo for Orchestra. “ “ “ “ “ [9:07]

Symphony No. 4. Martin Turnovsky; Czech Philharmonic Orch.

Symphony No. 6. Michael Bialoguski; New Philharmonia Orch

Tre Ricercari for Chamber Orch. Turnovsky; Czech Philharmonic Orch.

MARTUCCI, Giuseppe ( ):

Symphony No. 1, Op. 75. Toscanini; NBC Symphony Orch., live 1938. [See comments under CONDUCTORS]

Symphony No. 2, Op. 81. Toscanini; NBC Symphony Orch. live, 1940. [See comment under CONDUCTORS]

MATHIAS, William (1934- ):

Harp Concerto. Ossian Ellis; David Atherton; London Symphony. [Nice; very nice.]

Symphony No. 1. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Philharmonic; live 1966. [The leading Welsh composer of our time, Mathias offers a reliable blend of hard-edged romanticism & scintillating, very personal, orchestration. A fine 20th-Century symphony.]

MAXWELL-DAVIES (1934- ):

“Salome” ballet, complete. Janos Furst; Danish Radio Symphony. [total time: 78:34. Here’s a coup! This is a major work in Sir Peter’s oeuvre, and never released in the U.S. I special-ordered it from, I think, Harold Moore’s in London, back around 1978, just because of the cover! OK, I’m not proud, but take a look at it and tell me you too wouldn’t be curious to hear how Maxwell-Davies interpreted a story already superbly maxed-out by Richard Strauss!! Well…don’t expect a sultry “Dance of the Seven Veils” from the flinty, anti-Romantic Sir Peter; for that matter, don’t expect any immediately-memorable “tunes”, either. He’s always been perfectly capable writing them, he just doesn’t work that way. But don’t expect dry serialism, either; the music is starkly dramatic, quirkily orchestrated, and suffused with an appropriately decadent atmosphere. It’s a gripping score (although I had a hard time visualizing the choreography; it must have been something to see!), but hardly listener-friendly. First time I heard it, I hated every freakin’ minute of it (which has usually been my initial reaction to every new M-D score); second time through, I began thinking “hey, that’s pretty interesting stuff!” at certain moments; now, after hearing it about 17-18 times, I’m inclined to think it’s some kind of cock-eyed masterpiece, even though I still haven’t found a hum-able tune. What the hell, folks, if you already know and admire any of Maxwell-Davies’ works, Salome is self-recommending; both performance and sonics are spectacular (except for one minor skip at the very beginning; that’s how it was when I got it); if you’re one of those brave souls who likes a challenge, you may have to meet this music more than half-way but ultimately you may come to admire it very much – as I did. (Oh, let’s not be coy! Take another look at that incredible album cover and tell me you’re not bloody curious!!). In any case, the entire ballet times-out at 96:23, roughly a CD and a half, so pick something else as filler; a nice Mozart concerto, maybe…]

MAYER, William ( ? )still living, I think):

Andante fir Strings. Skrowaczewski; Minnesota Orchestra.

Two Pastels for String Orchestra. Skrowaczewski; Minnesota Orchestra. [The title pretty much tells you what to expect: English-style pastoralism with a mid-western accent. Very nice piece.]

McMILLAN, Sir Ernest (1895 - ):

Sketches for Strings on French-Canadian Airs. Ozawa; Toronto Symphony Orch. [6:47]

McPHEE, Colin:

“Tabu-Tabuhan”, Orchestral Suite. STOKOWSKI; His S.O. (Live at Carnegie Hall, Oct. 16, 1953)

MEDTNER, Nikolai:

Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 33. Igor Zhukov; Alexander Dmitriev; USSR Large R.S.O. (T: 33:16)

MEIJERING, Michael:

Electric Blue. Ernest Bour/ Hilversum Radio S.O., live, 1966. (T: 7:48)

MENGELBERG, Mischa: (No relation to the conductor (whose immortal soul just lit another cigar, slugged down a pint of aquavit, and sighed, “Thank God!”. The piece is titled “Dresser, with Sideboard” and the performing group is named “Perseverance” and that tells you everything you need to know about the music! Well, not quite: they’re “a democratically-run, self-governing”, wind band whose intent is to bring “freedom from tyranny” by fusing “art” and “popular” musics. Obviously, they succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, since almost nobody pays attention to Art Music any more, and “pop” has mutated into an insidious monster from MTV Land. Way to go, “Perseverance”!!]

Dressoir. Ensemble Perseverance. Live, 1978. T. 9:50

MENGELBERG, Rudolf (Yes, the conductor’s brother!):

Salve Regina. Jo Vincent, sop; C.o.A., April 1940 (T: 11:01)

MENOTTI:

The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi. Leinsdorf; George London; Lili Chookasian; Boston S. O. & several choirs.

Goya. Mercurio; Orchestra & Chorus, Spoleto Festival. [See under “Opera”]

The Unicorn, the Gorgon & the Manticore. Schippers; NY City Ballet Ensemble. [Whimsical & delightful, this is one of Menotti’s least pretentious and most enjoyable scores. This disc is a treasure among the all-too-short list of fine performances left to us by Thomas Schippers; had he lived, he would have been the natural heir to Bernstein and he had many of the same gifts, especially the charisma and the wide range of musical interests.]

MERCURE, Pierre (1927-1966):

Tryptique for Orchestra. Ozawa; Toronto Symphony Orch. [8:30]

MEYER, Krzysztof (1943- ):

Concerto for Violin & Orchestra, Op. 12. w/ Jadwiga Kaliszewska, violin; Konrad Csojkowski; Poznan Philharmonic Orch. [Very impressive; Bartokian in mood, with some fine soulful melodies and Penderecki-esque accompaniment effects. Both performance and sound, from a 1975 Polish “Muza” LP, are knock-outs.]

MIASKOVSKY:

Symphony No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 3. Rozdhestvensy; USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orch. [41:37]

Symphony No. 17 in G-sharp minor, Op. 41. [See comment at “Gauk” in “CONDUCTORS”.

Symphony No. 19 in E Flat Major, Op. 46. Nokolai Sergeyev; Russian State Brass Orchestra [22:18] [Miaskovsky was too conservative and private to be a political lightning rod like Shostakovich – whose music he greatly admired, but didn’t quite understand. Written for the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, it manages not to become inflated with Socialist-Realist pomposity; it’s just a very Russian-sounding, dynamic, optimistic work, scored brilliantly for brass, winds & percussion alone. Wind music fanciers will find it a treasure, and Russian-music fans in general will find their horizons expanded. In his long, prolific career, Miaskovsky tried-out many styles, from crowd-pleasing rousers to bleak, dark, introspective music that sounds very private but still packs a lot of audience appeal. There’s so much to discover in his catalogue, and as more and more western orchestras dip into these waters, I suspect his reputation will continually be revised upward. He was basically cut from the same cloth as Glazunov, but his range was much wider and he must have been a very complicated man on the inside, even as he was famously approachable and congenial on the outside.]

Symphony No. 23. Alexander KOVALEV; USSR Radio S.O. (I include this out of nostalgia; the 10-inch Melodia disc is pretty noisy and pop-filled – don’t blaim me, it was like that when I bought it, in a Leningrad record store for about $1.00. Yet it was my first experience with a Miaskovsky symphony and I loved it – still do. Kovalev made few discs, or at least few that ever were exported beyond Russia, but his interpretation is sheer magic (watery horns and all), so I’ve listed it. The scratches fade out as each side plays, but I’m giving you fair warning: you’ll need tolerance to penetrate through them to the performance below. It’s worth the hassle, I think, but unless you’re a real Miaskovsky fan, you might not agree. Anyhow, you’ve been warned. I’d love to dub this for you, but no record-cleaning device ever made can make the sound pristine again…)

MILHAUD:

Concerto for Percussion & Orch. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra

Concertino de Printemps. Composer conducting; Hague Philharmonic Orch.. [8:19 “ La Creation du Monde. Composer conducting; Hague Philharmonic Orch. [15:22]

“Christophe Colombe”:. Manuel Rosenthal; soloists, orchestra & chorus of the Theatre des Champs-Elysses, May 31, 1956. (Time: 127:12) [see comments under “Operas”]

Saudates do Brasil. Composer; Los Angeles Philharmonic, c. 1958; mono

Symphony for Wind Instruments. Libor Pesek; Harmony Wind Ensemble of Prague.

Suite Provencale. Composer; L.A. Philharmonic, c. 1958; mono [Two of the unpredictable Milhaud’s most charming and tuneful works – with the occasional “wrong note” harmonies thrown in just to remind everybody that he was once a fearsome modernist. Absolutely delicious music.]

MIMAROGLU, Ilhan:

String Quartet No. 4 w/ voice obligato. Janis Siegel, sop.; Beaux Arts Quartet (T: 31:20)

MINCHEV, Georgi:

Concert Music for Orchestra. Vassil Syefanov; Bulgarian Radio S.O. (Eclectic he may be, but Minchev’s energetic blend of the folkloric, the motoric, and the poetic-nationalistic-cautiously post-Stalinistic idioms may well appeal to listeners seeking a glimpse of Bulgarian concert music in the mid-Seventies.)

Piano Concerto. Ivan Drehikov, piano; Vassil Kaszandjiev, cond. Bulgarian Radio Symphony Orch.

MITROPOULOS:

Concerto Grosso for Orchestra. Bernstein; NY Philharmonic, live, 1960. [See comments under “Bernstein” in the Conductor’s section.]

Ten Inventions for Soprano on Poems of Kazantzakis. [Tape of a private performance, sent to me a an Athenian fan of “Priest of Music”. Of the ten or so Mitropoulos compositions I’ve heard, this is the one that shows the most brilliance, the mostg unquestionable genius for composition. It’s as tight, economical, and hard-edged as anything Stravinsky composer, but it is also richly expressive. I repeat: this music is not available on any commercial recording, and whoever the singer and pianist are, they turn in a near-perfect reading. You cannot find this anywhere else.]

MOERAN:

Symphony in G Minor, Leslie Heward; Halle Orch., 1942 (1st recording of this wonderful work; said to be the composer’s favorite)

MOREL, Francois (1926- ):

L’Etoile noire. Ozawa; Toronto Symphony Orch. [6:39]

MORTENSEN, Finn:

Suite for Wind Quintet, Op. 4. Oslo Quintet. (T:13:15)

Symphony No. 1, Op. 5, Mariss Jansons; Oslo Philharmonic O. (T: 37:49) (Tautly constructed, but brimming with epic emotion, this is one of the finest neo-Romantic scores to come from Scandinavia since Sibelius stopped composing. The climax still makes my hair stand on end. Terrific performance by Janssons.)

Suite for Wind Quintet, Op. 39. Oslo Wind Quintet. (T: 12:27)

NIELSEN:

Symphony No. 4, Op. 29. Sixten Erhling; Gothenburg Symphony Orch., 9/25/1978 [33:58]

Violin Concerto. w/ Menuhin; Moegens Woldike; Danish State R.S.O. [From exceedingly rare HMV 10-incher; Menuhin was in prime form – the intonation problems that bugged him from about the mid-Sixties hadn’t shown up when this recording was made. I don’t know if it was the first-ever version of this under-played and essentially lyrical concerto, but it must have been only the second or third. Woeldike’s few recordings are cherished by collectors the world over – especially his Haydn discs – and he spins tonal magic from Nielsen’s rather plain-spoken opus. I can imagine better-sounding performances, but not one more insightful or more impassioned. Reasonably good mono sound; light scratches, but no major flaws. Even twenty years ago, this was a premium collectors’ item – Angel never released an American pressing, and older EMI imports weren’t exactly growing on kudzu vines. Maybe in another ten years – let’s hope I get them – I’ll have a different verdict, but as of today, I find this concerto just misses greatness by a hair, although in Menuhin’s inspired hands, even that hair fades away. It’s certainly prime Nielsen, however you examine it, and that signifies superbly crafted and imaginative music. No finer realization of the score is likely to come along soon, if ever, so this is the one to have if you’re a Nielsen fan (and if you’re not, I suggest starting with his Third Symphony and then his sunny, utterly beguiling woodwind quintet. Meanwhile, here’s a very, very rare performance of a shamefully neglected concerto.]

NOBRE, Marlo (Brazilian, 1887-1959):

In Memoriam. Isaac Karabtchevsky; Brazil Symphony O. (Good piece, of its genre)

NONO, Luigi:

Contrapunct diallectico alla Mente. Coro da Camera della RAI. (Time: 19:51)

NORHOLM, IB:

“The Shadow”, Orchestral Fantasy, Op. 104. Tamas Veto; Danish R.S.O. (T: 12:15)

Symphonic Fantasy: “On Hearing Andersen”. Op. 110. Michael Schonwandt; Danish R.S.O. (T: 27:18)

Symphony No. 5, “The Elements”, Op. 80. Jan Latham-Koenig; Danish R.S.O. (T: 29:01)

NORTH, Alex:

Holiday Set (“Sunday Morning” – “Journey to a Country Scene” – “Baseball Game” – A Journey From…”). F. Charles Adler; Vienna Symphony Orch.

NYSTEDT, Knut:

The Seven Seals, Op. 46. Oivin Fjelstad; Oslo Philharmonic. (T: 28:30)

NYSTROEM, Goesta:

“Love in Springtime”, Orchestral Song. Jerry Hogstedt; Swedish R.S.O. (Live, 1962; )T: 3:19)

“1945”, Symphonic Overture. Sixten Eckerberg; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra; live, 12/12/1945. [A “victory” piece by a neutral Swedish Romantic? Improbable though the idea is, that’s what Nystroem gives us here and a terrifically exciting work-out it is, too! Would make a super curtain-raiser for any concert, anywhere, any time.]

Sinfonia Concertante for Cello & Orchestra. Guido Vecchi, cello; Issay Bobrowen; Gothenberg Symphony Orch., live, 1/10/1949 [34:37] [Finds Nystroem in a somewhat more neo-classical mode than usual, but it’s instantly appealing music, packed with memorable themes and dramatic transformations. Excellent performance and good sound. A wonderful addition to the cello/orchestra repertoire, should anyone be interested in playing something besides the same five or six pieces over and over again. Hey, don ‘t all you cellists shout at once!]

ORFF:

Carmina Burana (Opening chorus). Sandy Bull, guitar & banjo. [See comments under “Byrd”]

Street Song & Other “Kindermusik” Pieces. Composer; instrumentalists. [Back in the late-Sixties, listeners to stations WFMR in Milwaukee and WCLV in Cleveland became fascinated with a 2:54 ditty that was the signature theme for the stations’ morning show line-up. It was catchy, charming, somehow innocent-sounding. What it was, was Orff’s “Gassenhauer” (“Street Song”), and the tune became, for a time, as popular and ubiquitous as the “TacoBell Cannon” and a single rushed into regional markets became a best-seller. Here’s the album from which it derived, from the long-defunct BASF label, containing twenty similarly charming/obnoxious ditties, intended for kids but played here by adult professionals. Source is near-flawless, with excellent sound. Total time:46:10]

Weinachtsgeshichte (Christmas Songs). Composer; Cologne Childrens’ Choir & Instrumental Ensemble. [The kinder, gentler side of Orff has always been his “Kindermusik” compositions – catchy, toe-tapping, clever-but-not-cloying lyrics; works that, apparently, children actually love to play (or at least bang a tambourine with the singers). These are just what the collective title implies: new Childrens’ songs – most of them new anyway; a few old standards get into the mix -- with Orffian percussion and primary colors added on. OK, sure, it’s the musical equivalent of drawing INSIDE-THE-LINES with big fat crayons, but at least the German educational system makes room FOR music, whereas the subject has become extinct in American schools, unless you play in The Band. A little bit of the contents goes a long way, and 60:05 worth of it gets to be mighty cloying after 30:10, but it’s rank hypocrisy to castigate Orff for writing “Nazi” music in his adult works and also for writing “simple-minded” drivel for children. Whatever you call it, he writes what he writes with supreme skill and his emotional (if not his stylistic) range is broader than he’s usually given credit for. Try this – you might find it, as I did, refreshing, charming, and utterly unpretentious. Or it may turn you into a axe-murderer with its relentless cheerfulness and squeaky-clean vocals. Whatever! Playing, singing, and marching around to this stuff is a whole lot better for kids than being mesmerized by video games.)

OVCHINNIKOV, Vyacheslav:

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Minor (1956). Maxim Shostakovich; USSR Large Radio S. O.

Suite for Orch. No. 6. Composer conducting the USSR Large Radio S. O.

PADEREWSKI:

Minuet in G. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

PALMER, Robert:

Quartet for Piano & Strings. Walden Quartet w/ John Kirkpatrick, piano

PARAY, Paul: [He did not leave a large catalogue, but this long-term conductor of the Detroit Symphony was a composer of no mean ability. His two (or is it three; one forgets) symphonies are thoroughly engaging and the sacred work listed below is justly considered his finest composition. I think it’s a terrific Mass (and a blessedly short one!) with equal measures of power and reverence, calm reflection and sonic spectacle. I understand there is a later, stereo, version Paray recorded not long before his death, but I’ve never seen it. Meanwhile, this mono Mercury displays the customary brilliance of that label’s “Living Presence” techniques with stirring vividness. I don’t hear anything especially “French” in the music – well, other than the title – but mixed with the Notre Dame incense you might catch a whiff of Stravinskian chromite. God help me, I almost typed “you might catch a whiff of Stravinsky”, who’s been dead for half-a-century and…well, you get the idea.]

Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc. Paul Parry; Detroit Symphony Orch. & the Rackham Symphonic Choir.

Symphony No. 1. Composer; French Natl. R.S.O. (T: 28:00)

PARTCH, Harry:

“The Bewitched”,A Dance Satire. Composer; Ensemble of 17 Screwball Instruments & The Chorus of Lost Musicians. (Time: 74:43. (Exceedingly rare; Source is composer’s own micro-label release, Gate Records #5. Most days, a little of Partch goes a long way, but if you’re in the right mood… this is the only recording of one of his longest & most elaborate works; a veritable compendium of his hand-made Gourds-and-Plumbing-Fixtures orchestra of unique instruments.)

PAVLENKO, Sergei:

Farewell. Igor Zhukov; New Moscow Chamber Orch. (T: 15:16)

PENDERECKI:

Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima. Bruno MODERNA; Rome S. O. (T: 9:44)

PENN, William (1943 -- ):

“Ultra Mensuram” for Three Brass Quintets. Carole Bjerregaard; Western Michigan University Wind Ensemble. [8:15] [Spectacular wind playing, whether you like the music of not.]

PERPESSA, Harilaos: “Christus” Symphony. Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 12/10/1950. [See comments under “Conductors”]

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PERSIAN MUSIC, ANTHOLOGY OF:

Well, we know it better as “Iran”, and this 3-disc anthology was published just about the time the Shah was overthrown and “decadent” Western music was proscribed by the High Muck-a-Mucks who replaced that suave, ever-so-cultured butcher. They reflect the “official” nationalistic style of the time, which bears more than a passing kinship to the self-consciously exotic works of Khatchaturian, Amirov, Kabalevsky, etc., then being churned out by the ream in the USSR’s more restive constituent republics, but they’re each vividly colorful, vibrant compositions full of splurgey percussion, lush string passages, infectious foot-stomping rhythms, and a marvelously naïve self-confidence. I’ve no idea what became of most of these guys – whether they vanished in the Taliban-like cultural reaction which followed the Clerics’ revolution, or ended up teaching composition in one obscure conservatory or another, but they were (hopefully are) gifted musicians with something strong and often powerful to say. And none of them ever bit the Poisoned Apple of Darmstadt! It would be hard to find another three discs of “contemporary” orchestral music so warm, ripe, and unapologetically tonal, for all the novel techniques and ethnic flourishes displayed in these selections.

The conductor, and compiler of the set, Ali Rahbari, has never made much of a mark as a composer (although the work heard here is nothing to sneeze at), but his talents as a conductor were recognized abroad. He was Music Director of the Belgian Radio & TV Ensemble and made a fairly large number of recordings for Naxos and the now-defunct budget label BRT (including 3 or 4 outstanding collections of romantic Flemish music that often turn up in cut-out bins for a pittance); a recent review in American Record Guide savaged a Naxos compilation a Rahbari-led Wagner chestnuts, leaving the impression that Rahbari is a talentless hack. Just because he’s not temperamentally attuned to Wagner? If that’s the criterion for condemning a conductor’s entire discography, then he has some very distinguished company! Personally, I’ve always found even his non-competitive standard repertoire recordings to be at least sporadically exciting and his recordings of off-beat music (such as the Flemish anthologies) to be excellent in every respect.

In any case, Rahbari’s podium work with the Nurembergers in this collection is very fine indeed, for he compels that usually stolid German outfit to play with a richness of sonority that damn near reminds one of Stokowski: sumptuous velvety strings, alert and “forward” woodwinds, ample, even heroic brass, and positively incandescent percussion work! Sonically, too, these are outstanding discs, near audiophile in their vividness and immediacy.

This “Music of Persia” set was produced by a small label that’s been extinct for 20 years (and its American distributor was so marginal that, even though I was manager of a record store at the time I read about it, it took me two months to secure a pair of copies – one for the store (it sold the first weekend I had it on display) and one for me. I doubt, therefore, that it was ever widely or easily obtainable, and if the distributor followed customary practice, the sets were probably ordered in quantities of a few dozen, no more. I dimly remember a review in Fanfare, but other than that I don’t think any other mass-market publication even acknowledged the set’s existence.

So: here’s a rare item indeed, featuring music that’s drop-dead gorgeous even when it’s clearly derivative, dubbed from pristine Source LPs, in stunning sonics. To put it another way, if you adore Hovhaness, Rimsky-Korsakov (Mr. Hossein’s version of “Scheherazade” is almost as lush and tuneful as Rimsky’s, and would bring down the house if it were ever performed live!), or the more conservative works of Miaskovsky, I think you’ll find much to enjoy here: And conductors looking for music that’s fresh yet full of immediate audience appeal will definitely want to audition these works!

DELAHVI, Hossein (1927 - ):

Suite from the Opera “Bijan and Manijeh. [23;32]

HOSSEIN, Aminollah (1908 - ? ):

Sheherazade (sic). [22:55]

MASSOUDIEH, Mohammad Taghi (1927 - )

Mouvement Symphonique [8:10]

OSTOVAR, Houchang (1928 - ):

Suite Iranienne [23:00]

PEJMAN, Ahmad (1937 - ):

Dance from the opera “Samander” [6:40]

Orchestral Rhapsody [9:15]

Ballet Impressions [12:35]

RAHBARI, Ali (1948 - ):

Persian Mysticism in G [12:30]

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PERSICHETTI:

Sinfonia Janiculum (Symphony No. 9). ORMANDY; Philadelphia, c. 1971. (Deeper and more philosophical than is customary for this excellent composer; a late-life meditation inspired by a sojourn in and around various Roman Empire sites. Tightly compacted – 21 minutes – it conveys a wide variety of moods, by means of highly individual and very colorful orchestration. Don’t expect Respighi – this is music you need to think about for a few listenings before its beauties unfold, but it’s one of Persichetti’s strongest works. Together with the grimly evocative Wm. Schuamn Ninth, this is hands-down one of the finest interpretations of a contemporary score Eugene Ormandy left us. The audio quality is superb.)

PETRIDIS, Petros (1892 – 1972): [Lusty, makes-you-want-to-dance-like-Zorba folk-music inspired works from the heady days of Greek Nationalism. If you know and like the music of Theodorakis or the “Greek Dances” by Skalkottas, you’ll almost certainly enjoy this music too.]

Kleftic Dances (1922). Byron Fidetzis; Bulgarian Radio & TV Orchestra

Symphony No. 1, “The Greek”. “ “ ; “ “ “

PETTERSSON, Allan. [One critic, generally hostile to Pettersson’s “endless whining and complaining in music” – one hopes this reviewer was unaware that Pettersson suffered from a congenital neurological disease and spent most of his adult life wracked with crippling chronic pain – described Pettersson’s music as being “Like Mahler’s, but without the laughs.” And it can be grim stuff, but to my ears it’s also monolithically powerful and uncompromising. The second piece listed below is almost an “Anti-Concerto”, so fiercely does the solo instrument do metaphorical battle with the orchestra. It’s not “pleasant” listening; Pettersson assuages his agony by transmuting it into music, and this 53-minute concerto contains 48 minutes of the most tortured, jagged, violent music you’ll ever hear, before breaking through, in the final few moments, into a hard-won ending of cathartic, deeply moving serenity. Ida Haendel’s the only violinlist who’s ever had the guts and/or technique to tackle this audience-killer and her reading verges on the superhuman. Blomstedt, usually such a cipher on the podium, seems swept away by the music, too, and matches Haendel’s incandescence at every turn. A defiant, heart-wrenching late-2oth-Century masterpiece, doomed by its own excesses to remain on the fringes of the repertoire – if it gets that far.]

Symphony No. 4. Sergiu Comissiona; Gothenburg Symphony Orch., 2/5/1979 [39:03] [Not only shorter than most of Pettersson’s symphonies, the Fourth is also (relatively) optimistic in tone, with extremely wide, very deliberate climaxes painted across the tonal sky. It’s not the most listener-friendly of his works, but it’s a far cry from the grinding angst and bitterness that electrifies the Violin Concerto. Cast in a single gargantuan movement, it lays out its themes early on and then develops them obsessively until the relatively warm-hearted closing pages (which remind me of the ending of Ein Heldenleben!) –the pain-wracked and physically isolated composer reaches some kind of reconciliation with his fate. It takes several hearings to follow the deeper strands of the orchestral design, but even a first hearing should convince you that Pettersson’s was a unique and powerful voice in contemporary music, a stoic and solitary figure who stood, rock-like, outside of the ideological and metaphysical fisticuffs of his era. “Here is life,” he seems to be saying. “It is pitiless and unjust in its dispensation of suffering, yes, but it is also warmed by nature’s impersonal beauty, by beacons of human kindness, and by the artist’s capacity to transmute his personal pain into shared communicative experience, one that is not, finally, without the possibility of heroic acts, profound friendships and loyalties, and redemption-through-creativity.” Corny stuff, Trotter? Yeah, well, that’s how I’m feeling today’ soory if it bothers you. At its best, Pettersson’s music seizes you by the throat and bears you along on a chill but revitalizing wind. Comissiona was a True Believer and his recordings of Pettersson’s works are likely to be definitive for many years to come.]

Violin Concerto No. 2, 1977. Ida Haendel, violin; Herbert Blomtsedt; Swedish Radio Orchestra. [54:44]

Symphony No. 10. Antal Dorati; Stockholm Philharmonic. (Time: 23:11)

PFITZNER, Hans:

Symphony No. 1, Op. 36. Heinrich Hollreiser; Bamberg S. O.

Symphony No. 2, Op. 44. Richard Krauss; Berlin Radio S. O.

Symphony No. 3, Op. 46. Walter Gillessen; Cologne Radio S. O.

“Von Deutsche Seele,” Romantic Cantata, Op. 28. Joseph Keilberth; Bavarian Radio Symphony & Chorus; Agnes Giebel, sop.; Hertha Topper, Alto; Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Otto Wiener, bass. [Yeah, I know, there’s a lot of bad Third-Reich jokes you can make on a title like “From the German Soul”, written by a then-young & idealistic composer whom Goebbels often held up as an example of Pure Aryan genius – at a time when Pfitzner, poor old soul, as a doddering, feeble-minded relic from the days of Bismarck; what of the music? If I listen to it in certain moods, its overwhelming sense of High Seriousness totters on the brink of self-parody & I find myself chortling out loud at the numbness that sets in after one has listened to almost 90 minutes of unvarying earnestness. Pfitzner himself labeled it “A Romantic Cantata”, using verses from the young & tragically short-lived poet, Joseph von Eichendorff. The ironies accumulate with sledgehammer subtlety, as in this verse near the end: “From the war now we’re coming home, ‘mid a wild night of storm and of rain,/ When I lay in wait in the ambush,/ How often did I think of thee!/ But God stood by us in our need’ By the light of the moon above,/ Sleep sweetly, for the land is now free!” Oh, really? Other times, when I listen, I hear only the sad, increasingly isolated voice of a second-rate composer who wrote some first-rate music, but mostly not until ten or more years after he wrote this. It’s a musical white elephant, really; one finds it tacky, almost embarrassingly sincere yet undeniably exciting (when the organ kicks in with floor-humping power and the whole chorus sings this xenophobic clap-trap with the power & zeal of a Victorian choir launching into the Hallelujah Chorus). This is the only recording & has been out of print for almost 20 years. The performers give it their all (especially the under-rated Keilberth, who does a masterful job of clarifying the sometimes lumpy-gravy harmonies and tropical thickness-of-orchestration.) If you dig Pfitzner, you’ll want to hear this singular and touchingly naïve would-be-masterpiece; if you’re just into German Romanticism, it’s practically a Manifesto-in-Tone, and the performance, assuming there ever IS another one, isn’t likely to be surpassed in our lifetimes. Timing is about 92:00 and change.]

PIERNE, Gabriel:

Concerto for Harp & Orvhestra. Lily Laskine, harp: MARTINON; National Orch, de la O.R.T.F. (28:26)

Cydalise et la Chevre-pied, Suite No. One. Paul PARAY; French National R.S.O.(T: 15:00)

Cydalise et las Chevre-pied, Suite No. 1. MARTINON; National Orch. de O.R.T.F. (T:28:45)

Divertissements dur un Theme. MARTINON; National Orch. de la O.R.T.F.

March of the Little Lead Soldiers. Leibowitz; Orchestre des Concerts Symphonique Paris.

PIJPER, Willem (1894-1947):

Six Adagios. Roelf van Driesten; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orch. [8:26]

Ariel’s Songs from “The Tempest”. Inge Frolich, mezzo; Diego Masson; Hague Philharmonic Orch. [2:48]

Cello Concerto. Marion van Stahlen, cello; Lucas Vis; Rotterdam P.O. [13:27]

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra. w/ Theo Bruns, piano; Willem van Otterloo; Philharmonic Orchestra of the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation. [12:15]

Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, & Horn. The Danzi Wind Quintet. [8:14]

Septet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Piano & Double-bass. The Ardito Quintet, with Reinhart de Leeuw, piano. [17:13]

Sextet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, & Piano. The Philharmonic Sextet of the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation. [11:56]

Six Symphonic Epirgrams. Simon RATTLE: Rotterdam Philharmonic [7:27]

Sonata for Solo Violin – Allegro Maestoso only. Theo Olof, violin. [4:05]

“ : Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 2. Theo Olof, violin; Janine Dacosta, piano. [14:37]

Sonatina for Piano No. 3. Gerard Hengeveld, piano. [3:47]

String Quartet No. 3. Gaudiamus Quartet. [9:40]

String Quartet No. 5 (Unfinished). Amati String Quartet [11:00]

Symphonic Drama, “Halloween”, the Dressing Scene. W. Elisabeth Lugt, soprano; Sophia van Sante, mezzo.; Hans Vonk; Concertgebouw Orchestra. [8:00]

Symphony No. 2. w/ Haitink; Concertgebouw Orch. [14:37]

Symphony No. 3. w/ van Otterloo; Concertgebouw Orch. [13:20]

Symphony No. 3. Richard DuFallo; Rotterdam Philharmonic. [15:43]

Three French Songs (1918). w/ Elisabeth Cooymans, mezzo-soprano; Cor Backers, piano; Guus Hoekman, double-bass; Geza Frid, piano [5:00]

Trio for Flute, Clarinet & Bassoon. w/ Emile Biessen, flute; Sjef Douwes, clarinet; John Mostard, bassoon. [4:05]

Violin Concerto. Joan Berkhemer, violin; Richard DuFallo; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orch. [15:25]

PINO, Carmelo:

Concertino. Robert Davane, accordion; Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 7:53)

PLESKOW, Raoul:

Motet & Madrigal. Ursula Oppens, piano, with ensemble cond. by Charles Wuorinen.

PONSSEUR, Henri:

Rimes pour differences sources sonores. Bruno MODERNA; Rome S.O. (T: 13:45)

POPOV, Gavriil:

Symphony No. 2, Op. 39, “Motherland”. Gennady Provatorov; Moscow State S.O. (T: 35:22)

Symphony No. 1, Op. 7. Gennady Provatorov; USSR Radio S.O. (T: 42:25)

PORCELJIN, David:

Requiem. Composer; Amsterdam Percussion Ensemble. Live, 1971 (T. 9:40)

POULENC:

Concerto Champetre for Harpsichord & Orchestra. Wanda Landowska; Leopold Stokowski; NYPSO, live, 11/19/49 [Absolutely delectable.]

Elegy, for Horn & Piano. Herman Jeurissen, horn; Carlos Moerdijk, piano. [8:45]

Andante, for Horn & Piano.

Sonata for Clarinet & Piano. Marinus Hintzbergen, clarinet; Jan Gruithuyzen, piano [15:05]

Sonata for Oboe & Piano. Ruth Visser, oboe; Elisabeth van Malde, piano. [14:20]

PROKOFIEV:

Athletic Festival March, Op. 96-a. Shinya Osaki; Kwansei Symphonic Band. [I’ll bet you didn’t even know Prokofiev wrote a march for athletes, or athletic supporters, or whoever. Well, he did (hey, a guy’s gotta make a living!) and here ‘tis, about six minutes’ worth of tub-thumping populist humbug; Ok, Sergei, you got your ticket punched for another year – got write a new ballet!]

Ivan the Terrible, Op. 116. Abraham Stasevich; Moscow State Chorus; USSR Symphony Orchestra; Valentine Levko, mezzo; Anatoly Mokrenjo, baritone; Aleksander Estrin, narrator. Total time: 74:18. [TBOMK, this is the first complete recording of the composer-sanctioned oratorio (not premiered, alas, under after his death, ironically the first performance was on what would have been the composer’s 70th birthday); music of epic grandeur and such awesome “Russian-ness” that it probably won’t ever enter the repertoire as readily as Alexander Nevsky did. Stasevich was the arranger, and although not known as a conductor per se, his raw, at times savage, gusto has never been surpassed. The sound is vivid, in-your-face, mid-Sixties stereo, a little grainy perhaps but enormously “present”, luridly colorful. Source is a near-mint set of Melodiya LPs purchased, I think, from the old Four Continents bookstore in NYC (where ALL the clerks were assumed to be KGB agents and special orders immediately got tossed into a trash can – if they had it in stock, you could buy it. If they didn’t, tough samovars.) Anyway, it’s a great piece and a definitive performance.]

“Love For 3 Oranges” Suite. Gerhard Pfluger; Radio Leipzig Sym. Orch. (Only on Urania…)

“March” from “Love for 3 Oranges”. Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic.

On Guard for Peace, Op. 124. Rozhdestvensky; Irina Arkhipova, sop.; children’s choir and the orchestra is the Moscow Radio Symphony. [Hard to believe that this turgid, empty, soulless lump of commissar food was composed by the same man who wrote Alexander Nevsky. I treasure it because it’s a perfect example of how the exigencies of survival under Stalinism could turn a genius into a cringing whore. The suck-up factor here is off the scale! Rozhdestvensky does his damnedest to whip up some genuine excitement, but the stupefied, numb-souled vacuity of this singing propaganda poster defeats him. Arkhipova shrieks her solos as though a KGB pistol were being held to her head (which might at least metaphorically be true!) and there’s a boy soprano whose voice is so hideously shrill and adenoidal that it produces a timbre comparable to a low-speed dentists’ drill; one cringes and whimpers whenever little Alyushka starts belting out his banalities about peace and universal brotherhood. I heartily recommend this: it is incontestably the worst piece of dreck ever cranked out by a major composer, and in the Soviet Union that’s saying a lot. I’m pretty sure this is the only recording of this monstrosity. It was composed in 1950, if that’s of any interest, at a time when even Prokofiev feared that icy knock on the door at midnight… Timing is about 43 minutes, all of them unbearable.]

Piano Concerto No. 1. Malcolm Frager; Maxum Shostakovitch, Cleveland Orchestra, Live, 1984. [Broad, grim crushingly powerful at the end, Maxim’s earned the right to conduct such an interopretation, so he can get away with it. Few others have – Celibidache is another; and Stokowski. The interpretive picks get slim after that

Piano Concerto No. 3. Composer at the keyboard; Piero Coppola conducting the London Symphony, recording made in early 1930s; very steely-fingered approach by the composer; orchestral sound is rather recessed by comparison, but presumably everything you hear is authentic to Prokofiev’s wishes. Dated sonics put this out of the running as anyone’s “first choice” Third, but if you like the piece, you should hear it played by its composer, who was no slouch of a pianist!][26:52]

Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 39. Ricardo Odnoposoff, vln; Heinrich Hollreiser; Radio Zurich Orchestra. [Sourced from a 10-inch Musical Masterpieces Society disc in remarkably fine condition, considering how most surviving specimens of this fascinating micro-label look like Frizbees the dog’s been chasing.]

Sinfonietta, Op. 48. Jemal Dalgal; Moscow R.S.O. (Time: 21:39)

Symphony No. 1, “Classical”. Arthur Rother; (E) Berlin Symphony Orch

Symphony No. 6, Op. 111. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra [Source Columbia LP dates from the final days of the Dark Blue Label, just before the introduction of the Confederate Gray label, so this was recorded less than ten years after the symphony’s premier. Ormandy digs pretty deep here, and if he doesn’t quite match the avid, sardonic bite of Mravinsky (who could?) or the sheer isn’t-this-great-stuff? dazzle of Stokowski’s New York Philharmonic version, he certainly deploys the Philadelphia’s full tonal glories to bring this elusive score to life. Come on, folks, this is Prokofiev’s finest symphony, not the Fifth, good though it is. Pity Ormandy didn’t re-make this in stereo, but this version’s very distinguished. Slight inner groove distortion end of Movement II, otherwise condition is very good]

Symphony No. 6. Slatkin; Chicago Symphony; live, 1985 or thereabouts. When Slatkin is “on”, he’s one of the best of his generation, and this reading really crackles (the sneering glissandi in the CSO trombones is worth the price of admission all by itself].

Summer Day Suite, Op. 65. Alois Klima; Prague Chamber Orch. (T. 15:32)

A Winter’s Camp Fire. Klima; Prague Symphony Orch. (T. 18:56)

RACHMANINOFF:

“Aleko”, Suite from the Opera. Svetlanov; USSR State Symphony Orch. [21:20]

Caprice Bohemien, Op. 12. Svetlanov; USSR Sympphony Orch. [ 17:08] {Rachy in a rather wild Gypsy mode; the young composer had fallen madly in love with the wife of a friend, Pyotr Lodyzhensky – her name was Anna & she claimed to be “part Gypsy”, whatever the hell that might mean – so he wrote this swirling, hot-blooded little orchestra work-out in her honor, and then dedicated it to her husband; decorum was preserved; so was this youthful and impassioned theme-and-variations piece, which clocks in at just over 17 minutes. When was the last time you heard it in concert? Right. Is there any composer more audience-friendly than Rachmaninoff? Instead of the “Paganini Rhapsody” or the damned Second Concerto, why don’t conductors turn up the heat with this piece? Sloth; ignorance; fear of the know-nothing Suits who raise the money each season for their salaries as Music Director of the Podunk Philharmonic, or whatever third-rate post even the best conductors have to settle for these days. It’s a depressing situation, and one reason why concert audiences shrink and age and the spark has gone out of live serious music in so many regions of this benighted nation… Yeah, well shut up about it; it’s MY website and I’ll keep flogging this horse until its ghost dies, okay?]

Piano Concerto No. 4. w/ Viktoria Postnikova; Chicago Symphony, Ravinia Festival, 1991

String Quartet No. 1 (unfinished). The Rimsky-Korsakov Quartet. [11:17] [And what would a string quartet by Rachmaninoff sound like? Pretty much as you’d expect, from the Andante expressivo & Scherzo: allegro movements that survive from this early (1898) student work. It is lovely, lyrical, and rather Russian-Generic. Nothing memorable – which I guess is why he never picked it up again – but the eleven minutes’ duration pass very agreeably & the performance is rapt.]

Suite No. 1 for 2 Pianos, Op. 5 (orchestrated by Rebekah Harkness); Jorge Mester; London Symphony. Now here’s another great idea – two orchestra & piano arrangements of some of Rachy’s most delectable music, which we almost never get to hear because there are so few duo-pianist acts still surviving in the blighted landscape that was once the vast Concert Hall of the Mind. Composer Lee Hoiby tackles the piano part with palpable zest & the recording is superb. Look: it’s ANOTHER Rachmaninoff piano concerto, only short and sweet. What’s not to like?]

Suite No. II for 2 Pianos, Op. 17 (Orchestrated by Lee Hoiby); Lawrence Foster; London Symphony. [Two times a great idea! There isn’t a boring bar in either of these transcriptions, so why isn’t somebody beating the drum for them? It’s RACH-BLOODY-MANINOFF, people, not Schoenberg or Roger Sessions or…oh, screw it. Never mind. If you’re even remotely curious, I’ll be delighted top dub both of them for you (and with room left over for that Gypsy thing on the same CD!) That’s 70-odd minutes of prime, virtually unknown Rachmaninoff! Hello? Hello? Is anybody listening?]

Three Preludes (Op. 3/2; Op. 32/5; Op. 23/5) in orchestrations by the fabled Lucien Cailliet. Ormandy; Philadelphia. (Source: rare 10-inch Columbia)

Symphony No. 2 (UNCUT). Slatkin; Chicago Symphony, live, 1983

Vocalaise, Op. 34/no. 14. Kostelanetz; NYPSO, mid-fifties

RAVEL (also Ibert, Ferroud, Roland-Manuel, Poulenc, Florent Schmitt, Auric, Milhaud, Roussel!): L’Eventail de Jeanne (Complete Ballet, “collectively” written by Ravel & 9 others). Groffrey SIMON; Philharmonia Orch. (T: 29:50)

Concerto for the left Hand. Giulini; Mikhail Bloch, piano; Berlin Philharmonic live, mid-80s

Gaspard de la nuit. Beveridge Webster, piano. T. 22:00

Jeux d’eau. “ “ “ (Timing estimated @ 4:00)

Ma Mer L’Oye. Giulini; Berlin Philharmonic Orch; live, 1985.

Mother Goose Suite. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra [Lush & sensitive reading.]

Bolero.

Le Tombeau de Couperin. Beveridge Webster, piano. [T. 19:54]

Trio in A Minor. Beaux Arts Trio. [A classic reading]

Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. [See “Golschmann”, at “CONDUCTORS”]

RAWSTHORNE, Alan:

Piano Concerto No. 2. John Ogdon, piano; Elgar Howarth; BBC Symphony, live. [May in fact be the world premier – source tape is undated but appears to be from late 70s/early 80s. Ogdon, of course, could tame the most ferocious modern concerti with brawny confidence and Rawsthorne’s sinewy but heartily tonal style makes for a substantive & instantly enjoyable concerto – I’m not sure how it’ll wear over the long haul, but as no living pianists seem to be interested in espousing it, that may make no difference. Anyway, here’s a first-class introduction the Sir Alan’s (I think he’s been knighted since this was played…) finely-crafted music.]

RESPIGHI:

Feste Romane. Toscanini; Philadelphia Orchestra; Rec. 11/19/1941 [23:27]

Pines of Rome. Boris Brott, w/ USSR “Greater Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra”, live concert, c. 1956. [Gutsy reading; wooly sound; ursine tones a-plenty from the Muscovite orchestra. You’ve heard “Pines” a lot worse than this one.]

REVUELTAS, Silvertri:

Night of the Mayas (Original version). S. Limantour; Guadalajara S. O.

Music for Radios. S. Limantour; Guadalajara S. O.

REZNICEK, Emil (1860-1945): [An interesting book could be written about the “One-Hit Wonders” of classical music! He was an exact contemporary of Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Mahler; he was very well acquainted with the musical cross-currents of his time; he was accepted as a colleague, albeit somewhat diffidently by the more gregarious “poetic” (translation: hard-drinking, followed by a few cubes of absinthe) souls such as Hugo Wolf, but he was essentially rather shy and did not press either his company or his music upon others. Consequently, he was able to arrange first performances of his major compositions more easily than second or third ones! With introversion came self-criticism, and Reznicek was forever tinkering with published scores and trying vainly to have last-minute revisions pasted over pages that were already in the galleys. He was tortured by having to look at printed scores, which he knew to be riddled with minute typos and other nicky-nacky details. His one great success, the opera Dona Diana, was just that – his one great success. But he also composer four symphonies, a better-than-fair violin concerto, several large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, and a wide assortment of shorter pieces in many genres. This first symphony is a major discovery, written while under the spell of Mahler’s “Titan” symphony, which Reznicek had heard only recently before he started composing. It’s a huge, sprawling, often grandiose work, especially in the second movement, subtitled (with tongue-in-cheek or not? You decide!) “Funeral March for a Dead Actor”! Against a dark, brooding background, the brass conjure up skittering lightning bolts…we hear scurrying terrified-animals in the skirls of the woodwinds…rising tempest winds lash the strings…a barely controlled feeling of impending violence wells up through the overall orchestral fabric until, irresistibly, a seismic eruption tears-open the sound and roiling half-mocking, half-serious fanfares come boiling and seething into the air high above (along with a cloud of toxic bloated metaphors and swollen semiles!). Gordon Wright, a tall, barrel-chested, ursine fellow from Alaska (where he conducts a state-wide chamber orchestra – is also American chairman of the Reznicek Society and worked with the composer’s widow in preparation for this recordings. His zeal communicates well (despite the serious decline evident in the ensemble playing of the Philharmonia Hungarica), imparting to the performance as a whole an almost feverish intensity. If you’ve responded emotionally to similar “in memoriam” works by Suk, Rott, Korngold, et. al, I think you’ll be equally blown-away by Reznicek’s towering essay. There’s one small skip on Side One, otherwise the Source LP is in spanking good condition. In sum: here’s yet another late-Romantic blockbuster which hasn’t been given it’s chance to find an audience.]

REZNIKOV, (?) (no dates, either):

Tocatta for Balalaika. w/ Eugene Avksentiev, soloist; T: 3:19. [Whatever his full name, M. Reznikov delivers the goods; dazzling piece, a real show-stopper or a perfect encore, for all you balalaika virtuosi who happen to read these listings.)

RHODES, Philip:

Autumn Setting for Sop. & String Quartet. Phyllis Bryn-Julson, sop; Speculum Musicae Quartet. (Time: 11:06)

Divertimento for Small Orch. Russell-Davies; St. Paul Chamber Orch. (T: 12:54)

Museum Pieces for Clarinet & String Quartet. James Livingston, clarinet; Louisville String Quartet. (Time: 17:27)

Visions of Remembrance, for Soprano, Mezzo, & String Quartet. Carol Wilson, sop; Lorraine Manz, mezzo; William Wells, conductor; Carleton Contempoary Ensemble. (T: 20:52)

RIMMER, John (New Zealand)

At the Appointed Time. Brian Priestman. New Zealand S.O.

ROCHBERG, George: (1918- ): [One of our finest living composers; unmistakably “modern” yet highly accessible; technique does not drown expression in his music. Best place to start is his Second Symphony, or any of the string quartets – any of them.]

Duo Concertante. Mark Sokol, violin; Norman Fischer, cello.

Ricordanza – Soliloquy for Piano & Cello. Norman Fischer, cello; composer, piano. [Hauntingly evocative, rather dark, meditation-piece.]

String Quartet No. 1. The Concord Quartet

ROGER-DUCASSE:

Poem Symphonique: Sarabande. TOSCANINI; NBC S.O. & Chours (1946; T: 10:40)

ROGERS, Richard:

Lagoon. Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic. [“South Pacific” in miniature; only recording, 8:37]

“Victory at Sea” – “Guadalcanal March”. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra.

ROREM, Ned:

Night Music. Earl Carlyss, violin; Ann Schein, piano.

ROSENBERG. Hilding:

“The Created Interests”, Incidental Music, Op. 35; parts 1 & 5 (“Festival Music”). Lars-Erik Larsen; Swedish R.S.O., Live, 10/4/43) (T: 3:42)

“Marionette” Overture. Fricsay; Swedish R. S.O., live, 2/8/53. (T: 5:32)

Symphony No. 6, (“Sinfonia Simplice”). Charles Dutoit; Gothenberg Symphony Orch., 9/8/1977 [22:53]

ROSENBERG, Wolf:

String Quartet (1960). LaSalle Quartet. (T: 10:46)

ROSS, Walter (1936 -- ):

Concerto for Trombone & Orch. Per Brevig, trombonist; Karsten Anderson; Bergen Symphony Orchestra [that’s “Bergen” Norway, and they really swing!] [Time. 13:02]

Prelude, Fugue, and Big Apple. Per Brevig, trombone; rest of mix provided by electronics & sampling techniques, realized at the U. of Virginia Studios.] [5:10] [A fun piece!]

ROUSE, Christopher:

The Infernal Machine. Slatkin; Chicago Sym. 1983

[Along with Adams’ Short Ride on a Fast Machine, this rowdy, enjoyable little warmer-upper has become the Token Contemporary Work on many a concert series. I think it’s shallow and meretricious stuff, but it works well enough as a curtain-raiser. Slatkin conducts a lively performance.]

ROUSSEL:

Concerto for Small Orchestra, Op. 34. w/ Antonio Ros-Marba; Netherlands Chamber Orch.[13:30]

ROUSSEL RARITIES

[Under the baton of Paul Sacher, who commissioned so many 20th-Century orchestral gems, here are four almost-totally-ignored compositions from the Twenties, Albert Roussel’s most productive period. You might find one or two of these works on a contemporary CD, but not all four, especially not in such idiomatic and fluent readings. Source is an ancient Epic “Yellow Dog” label mono LP, with a few patches of rough surface here and there (it was second or third hand when I acquired it; sorry), but there’s little groove wear. Fascinating works; seldom played at all in this country, and rarely played with this kind of intuitive stylistic “rightness”. Sacher commissioned at least one of these works (his program notes are self-effacing; he doesn’t brag, although he has ample reason to!). If you like the 2 or 3 Roussel works that ARE programmed occasionally, you should find these pieces to be delightful discoveries.]:

Concerto for Small Orchestra, Op. 34. w/ Lamoureux Orchestra

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, Op. 36. Leila Gousseau, piano.

Petite Suite, Op. 39. w/ Lamoureux Orchestra.

Sinfonietta for String Orchestra, Op. 52. w/ Lamoureux Orchestra

Symphony No. 2, Op. 23. Pierre Dervaux; Orchestre Colonne. [Where has this piece BEEN all my life? It’s ravishing, rotten-ripe gorgeous – the melodies flow out of it like nectarine juices; your speakers will exude exotic, tumescent fragrances, surfing on the sound-waves, caressing you like a warm Aegean wind, or the lascivious tongue of a Parisian courtesan or … Hold it, Trotter! Enough is enough. This is a much juicier and lusher work than the somewhat-popular Third Symphony, but it may be Too Much for some listeners. Structurally it does sag here and there (no, don’t worry – I won’t use the expected metaphor here!) and it certainly doesn’t have the sophisticated Oomph! most listeners associate with Roussel’s style, but boy is it steamy and luscious! So is the performance Dervaux coaxes out of his second-tier ensemble. When, I wonder, was the last time this symphony received a live performance in America… Don’t hold your breath. If you groove on Wagner in his Liebestod mode, you’ll probably wilt when you hear this tarty French imitation.]

ROZSA, Miklos:

Concerto for String Orchestra. Composer; Unnamed Ensemble. (Time: 9:58)

RUBBRA, Edmund:

Soliloquy for Cello & Orch., Op. 57. Rohan de SARAM, cello; Vernon HANDLEY; London Symphony Orch.

Symphony No. 6, Op. 80. Sir Adrian Boult; Royal Phil. O., Live, 1971. (T: 37:38)

Symphony No. 7, Op. 88. Sir Adrian Boult; London Philharmonic Orch.

Symphony No. 8, Op. 132. Sir Charles Groves; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. World premiere, live, 8/5/71. (T: 25:34)

RUDHYAR, Dane:

Syntony (1968 version). Michael Sellers, piano

Pentagrams, Book III. Michael Sellers, piano.

SAINT-SAENS:

Cypres et Lauriers, Op. 156. Performers & date not identified on Source tape; good stereo, sounds French, and it’s one helluvva treat. Augmented brass, two harps, and a gorgeous throbbing organ obligato not unlike that of the Third Symphony. A little research showed me, however, that this tone poem was composed almost a quarter-century after the “Organ Symphony”. Aside from the logistics of the organ, I can’t imagine why we don’t hear this first-rate music more often. I mean, come on people,. This is SAINT-SAENS, not Stockhausen! Anyhow, if you’re curious but you don’t want to buy an anonymous version, there’s a Plasson/ Orchestre du Tollouse performance on EMI that ought to be excellent, as he usually doesn’t disappoint in this repertoire. But whoever’s playing on my Source is also idiomatic and the recorded sound is first-rate; the work times-out at around 15 minutes, so it’d make a dandy filler”.]

Septet for Piano, Trumpet & Strings, Op. 65. Menahem Pressler, piano; Harry Glantz, trumpet; Philip Sklarr, double-bass; The Guilet String Quartet.

SALLINEN, Aulis:

“Mauermusik” – Elegy for Orchestra. Paavo Berglund; Finnish Radio Sym. [8:44] [As usual, Sallinen has something powerful to say and a unique way of saying it; you can tell he writes from the late 20th-Century purview – there are some quarter-tone effects in the first part of this work, which is basically a passacaglia in form – but you can also tell he writes from the same spiritual plane as Sibelius. How is it that the Finns manage to produce both great conductors AND great post-modern composers at the same period in their history? It probably has something to do with all those saunas… Aho & Rautavaara may be more popular worldwide than Sallinen, at the moment, but his work gained attention about a decade earlier than theirs and he broke the ice. I think he’s one of the finest living composers, period. Although you’ll need to hear more than this one short work to decide that for yourself, this is a good place to start listening to one of the strongest, most individual musical voices from the Northland. The performance by Berglund & the Finnish RSO is superb and the sonics are demonstration-quality.]

SANDBY, Herman (1881-1965):

Symphony No. 4. Launy Gruendahl; Danish Radio Sym. Live, 3/19/1956 [Time: 27:43]

SANTORO, Claudio (Brazilian, 1919- ):

Asymptopic Interactions. Isaac Karabtchevsky; Brazil Symphony O.

SARY, Lazslo:

Sounds for Piano. Adam Felligi, piano.

SATIE:

Mass for the Poor. Marilyn Mason, organist; choir directed by David Randolph.

SAUGUET, Henri:

Melodie Concertante. w/ ROSTROPOVICH; Rozhdestvensky; Moscow R.S.O. (T: 24:44)

SCHAEUBLE, Hans:

Concerto for Piano & String Orchestra, Op. 50. Maureen Jones, piano; Alois Springer; SW German Chamber Orch. (T. 28:22)

Music for Clarinet & String Orchestra, Op. 46. Jost Michaels, clarinet; Alois Springer; SW German Chamber Orch. (T. 23:10).

SHARMAN, Rodney:

Chansons & Ritornellos. Mario Bernardi; CBC Vancouver Symphony Orch.

SCHAT, Peter:

Clockwise & Anti-Clockwise. Composer conducting; Hilversum Radio Winds. [10:15]

Symphony No. 1, Op. 27. Colin DAVIS; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orch. (T. 38:18) One of the few Dutch avant-garde-ists with a sense of humor, Schat’s music strikes me as always worth listening-to, even if it’s ultimately a fur-lined teacup joke. This, however, is a serious, but not grim, symphony in one movement, through-composed variations on a three-note cell (C-G-B); neither too hermetic nor too facile, it doesn’t wag its tail in friendliness, but it sticks to the ribs. You may find it grows on your after 2-3 hearings. In any case, here’s a rare example of Sir Colin Davis conducting fare one would not normally associate him with and doing so with lots of energy and commitment.

Theme for Oboe, 18 Winds & Electronic Ensemble. Han de Vries, oboe; composer cond.; Netherlands Wind Ensemble; Live, 1971 (T. 13:15)

SCHIPIZKY, Frederick:

“Kleine” Suite for String Orchestra. Mario Bernardi; CBC Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver

SCHULMAN, Alan

Concerto for Cello & Orchestra. w/ Leonard Rose; Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 4/14/1954.

SCHUMAN, William:

Symphony No. 9 (“The Ardeatine Caves”). Ormandy; Philadelphia. [As the composer states in his notes, “program music” per se had rarely attracted him, not since the early crowd-pleasing Three Places in New England…until he visited the Adreatine Caves outside Rome, the location of a Nazi reprisal massacre of 335 Italian civilians, Jews and Catholics alike – the worst recorded atrocity committed in Italy during the war. The vibes of the place haunted him for years, until they found expression in this dark, brooding, semi-abstract score, which I at least regard as one of Schuman’s finest works. As with the Persichetti listed above, Ormandy turns in a simply stunning performance, preserved in spectacular sonics. Essential for any library of 20th Century symphonies.]

SCOTT, Cyril:

Piano Sonata No. 3. Evelinde Trenkner, piano. (Time: 18:15)

SHERE, Charles (American, b. 1935):

Night Music. Kent Nagano; Oakland Youth Symphony.

SCHIPIZKY, Frederick:

“Kleine” Suite for String Orchestra. Mario Bernardi; CBC Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver

SCHOENBERG, Arnold:

SCHMITT, Florent:

Oriane & the Prince of Love (Ballet Suite), Op. 83. Pierre Stoll; Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic. (T. 20:06)

In Memoriam, Op. 72. Pierre Stoll; Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic. (T. 15:21)

Psaume XLVII, Op. 38. Jean Martinon; Orch. & Chorus Nationale de L’O.R.T.F.; (T. 27:07)

Rondo Burlesque, Op. 78. Pierre Stoll; Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic. (T. 5:55)

La Tragedie de Salome, Op. 50. Jean Martinon; Orchestre Nationale de L’O.R.T.F. (T. 22:28)

SCHNABEL, Artur:

Symphony. No. 2. Paul Zukoffsky; Royal P.O. (T: 61:92.). (Pianist noted for his chastely classical style kicks over the traces and produces one of the wildest, densest, most chromatically complex works you will ever hear. He draws back from the edge of serialism, but only just. Requires several listenings to find aural points of reference, then it starts to grow on you. Hell, I’ve forced myself to listen once a year for ten years, and I’m almost ready to call it a masterpiece!)

SCHWANTNER, Joseph (1943):

“Modus Caelestis” (Consortium III). Richard Pittman; New England Conservatory Orch. [12:24] [What I wanna know is what happened to “Consortiums” One and Two???]

SCHWARTZ, Elliott:

Signals. James Fulkerson, percussion; James Fulkerson, doublebass. (T: 9:38)

SCRIABIN:

Piano Concerto. SOLOMON; Walter Susskind; Philharmonia O. (T: 26:07)

Symphony No. 1, Op. 26. Svetlanov; USSR State S. O. (These performances may not be the last word in suaveness & sensuality, but by God they’re vital!)

Symphony No. 2, Op. 29. Svetlanov; USSR State S. O.

Symphony No. 3, Op. 43 (“The Devine Poem”). Svetlanov;USSR State S.O.

SCULTHORPE, Peter:

Sun Music I. John Hopkins; Melbourne S.O. (Time: 10:20)

Irkanda IV. John Hopkins; Melbourne S.O. (Time: 11:26)

SCHIFRIN, LALO:

Cantos Aztecos. Composer; Mexico P.O. & Chorus (T: 38:53)

SCHMIDT, Franz:

The Book with Seven Seals. MITROPOULOS; Vienna Philharmonic; soloists of distinction; Singverein Chorus; Live, Salzburg Festival, 1959. (T: 110:48) (Blazing!)

SCHNITTKE, Alfred:

Violin Concerto No. 3. Oleh Krysa, violin; Eri Klas; Malmo S. O. (T:26:34)

Violin Concerto No. 4. “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ (T: 34:12)

SCHOENBERG:

Bach Orchestration: Prelude & Fugue in E flat (“St. Anne”). Abravanel; Utah S.O.

“ “ : Chorale Prelude “Schucke Dich, O liebe Seele”. Abravanel; Utah

“ “ : Chorale Prelude “Komm Gott…heilger Geist: Abravanel; Utah S.

Jacob’s Ladder, oratorio. (Die Jakobsleiter) . Bruno MODERNA, cond.; soloists, chorus, and Hilversum Radio Philharmonic. Live, Holland Festival, 1972. (Time: 43:27)

Serenade, Op. 24. Boulez; Domain Musical Ensemble. [One of the first Boulez recordings to gain international recognition. He’d hand-picked these musicians and neither Schonberg nor any other fearsome Modernist gave them pause. The performance is sharp but warmly colored, and Boulez conducts it with genuine affection – it was only in his middle period that his conducting tended toward icy precision without any leavening of human warmth. Of course, these days, he’s mellowed so greatly he seems almost lovable. But I part company with many of my colleagues when it comes to his Mahler interpretations: they sucked twenty years ago and they suck now. It’s just a richer-sounding kind of suckage because even the Vienna Philharmonic wants to show the old Frog some respect. That’s fine with me; he’s earned it; just don’t turn logic inside-out trying to convince me that his tight-lipped, emotionally constipated approach to Mahler is anything but the whirring of gears and clockwork mechanisms.]

Variations on a Recitative. Marilyn Mason, organist. [Flip side of the Satie and surely one of the weirdest LP pairings in history (Sourced appropriately enough from “Esoteric” Records, another of those feisty, explore-the-unknown labels that flourished from 1951 to the mid-Sixties and did heroic work on shoestring budgets.]

SCHUMAN, William:

Symphony No. 9 (“The Ardeatine Caves”). ORMANDY; Philadelphia. [As the composer states in his notes, “program music” per se had rarely attracted him, not since the early crowd-pleasing Three Places in New England…until he visited the Adreatine Caves outside Rome, the location of a Nazi reprisal massacre of 335 Italian civilians, Jews and Catholics alike – the worst recorded atrocity committed in Italy during the war. The vibes of the place haunted him for years, until they found expression in this dark, brooding, semi-abstract score, which I at least regard as one of Schuman’s finest works. As with the Persichetti listed above, Ormandy turns in a simply stunning performance, preserved in spectacular sonics. Essential for any library of 20th Century symphonies.]

SCHWANTNER, Joseph (1943):

“Modus Caelestis” (Consortium III). Richard Pittman; New England Conservatory Orch. [12:24] [What I wanna know is what happened to “Consortiums” One and Two???]

SCOTT, Cyril:

Piano Concerto No. 1. John Ogdon; Bernard Herrmann; London P.O.

SHARMAN (20th Century Canadian)::

Chansons & Ritornellos. Mario Bernardi; CBC Vancouver Symphony Orch.

SHISHAKOV, Yuri (1925 - ):

Concerto for Balalaika & Orch. Mikhail Rozhkov, balalaika; Victor Smirnov; State Radio Orchestra of Folk Instruments [T: 13:04) [Colorful, toe-tapping, happy-peasants-celebrate-meeting-their-sugar-beet-quota music, with all the inherent virtues & limitations thereof. It has the profundity of a soap bubble, but it’s mighty good fun.]

SHOSTAKOVICH:

The Bells of Novorosisk. Boris Alexandrov; Soviet Army Bands & Chorus, (T: 3:25) (An almost forgotten pot-boiler, ultra patriotic clap-trap it may be, but played and sung with the kind of dark fervor heard here, it can blow you away!)

Chamber Symphony, Op. 110-b. w/ Kees Bakels; Netherlands Chamber Orch.[21:46]

Festive Overture, Op. 96. GAUK; USSR “Grand” Radio S.O. T. 5:37

“Polka” from “The Age of Gold.” Gerhardt; National Symphony Orchestra

Symphony No. 1. Stokowski; Symphony of the Air (ex-NBC Symphony). [Originally issued by the ambitious but short-lived United Artists label in 1961, this stunning, window-rattling, hell-for-leather performance was an audiophile’s wet-dream. If the sonics no longer have the startling presence and impact they once did, the performance remains sensational – Stokie makes this piece sound “revolutionary” again.]

Symphony no. 5. w/ Maxim Shostakovich; Cleveland Symphony Orch

Symphony No. 7 (“Leningrad”). Paavo Berglund; Bournemouth Symphony. [Dunno if this ever received much distribution over here or not, but it derives from the period when EMI’s U.K. releases had some of the warmest, deepest, most all-around satisfying sound in the business…which Angel/Capitol utterly ruined in their domestic re-edits and second-rate vinyl compound products. Smoothing off both the ultra high and ultra lows and sucking depth of imaging out until the LPs sounded as flat and dull as their UK counterparts sounded brilliant. Berglund, a greatly under-rated conductor in my estimation, scored hits as a cult favorite over here because his records just SOUNDED so fabulous. Admittedly, the combo of little-known conductor and second-tier British band didn’t spur excitement in the hearts of Shostakovich fans, but damned if this version isn’t right up there with the stellar group just below the ne-plus-ultra interpretation: Bernstein’s crushing, shamelessly heart-wrenching Chicago Symphony set (still available on DG, I think). Anyway, Berglund’s tempi are sensible – note the implacable just-right “Panzer March” in movement I, the slowly expanding apotheosis of triumph in IV, so that bombast is minimized while the full measure of excitement, pathos, and triumphalism is realized. Orchestral playing is splendid throughout. A real “sleeper”; if you love to wallow in this music as much as I do, you’ll not regret adding Berglund’s version to your collection.]

Symphony No. 8, Op. 65. GAUK; USSR “Grand” Radio S. O. T. 60:18. [See my comments under “Gauk” in the Conductor’s List.]

Symphony No. 9. w/ Boston Symphony, recorded Nov-Dec 1946; which is to say only one year after its premier in the USSR. [Yes, it’s a great reading – how could it not be? But in this case the sardonicism and rude japery in the music is, I think, better served by several more contemporary conductors who could view the 9th in relation to the composer’s oeuvre as a whole. Even so, the hair-trigger virtuosity of the BSO makes “subtext” and ideological hair-splitting quite irrelevant; it’s one of those drop-dead, eat-shit-and-die, performances that made every other orchestra in the land fiercely jealous of Boston. Would that it were still true… would that the Board of Trustees had not, for unfathomable reasons, presided over the “mediocritisation” of their great orchestra ever since Munch departed, followed by the mostly dreary Steinberg, the prickly and wildly erratic Leinsdorf and then, like a great sodden lump of intellectual tofu, the inscrutable and bafflingly inert Ozawa, who stayed there long enough to found the Tokugawa Dynasty, despite the fact that nobody bought his records and only a handful of ass-licking critics had anything good to say about his live concerts. Now, of course, they’ve traded what remains of their glorious heritage for the kind of sweaty, shallow excitement Jimmy Levine generates on a good day (on a bad day, he generates near-comic derision – I’m no homophobe (two of my three sons and three of my closest friends are gay and it makes not one whit of difference in my love for them), but Levine swishes so outrageously that he might as well conduct in drag. When personal proclivities detract from the music-making, they should be suppressed; as Mitropoulos did for so many years and at such bitter cost. Anyway, here’s the old BSO spangled in glory, digging into the sort of accessible “new music” that Koussevitzky could sell to an audience like nobody else…well, maybe with the exception of Stokowski, but he could become a bit too overbearingly messianic in some of his crusades, while Koussie just patiently insisted that his audiences shut up and listen with open minds or earn his withering contempt. That was incentive enough, even for the most reactionary audience members.]

Symphony No. 9. Gauk; USSR Radio Symphony. [See under “CONDUCTORS”]

Unforgettable Year 1919. [See comment under ‘Gauk”, in “CONDUCTORS”]

SHULMAN, Alan:

The Bop Gavotte. Don Gillis; NBC S.O., 7/11/54. (T: 2:53)

Cello Concerto. Leonard Rose, cello; Mitropoulos; NYPSO, live, 4/14/1954

“Hatikhav” (Arr by Shulman) BERNSTEIN; NBC S.O., 4/23/49. (T: 1:32 (Historic – played just after the announcement of the creation of Israel; ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria.)

A Laurentian Overture. CANTELLI; NYP S.O., live, 3/1/55. (T: 9:06)

“Minuet for Moderns”. Don Gillis; NBC S.O., live, 7/11/54. (T: 3:37)

Nocturne for Strings. Samuel Antak; NBC S.O., live, 8/8/48. (T: 4:26)

Rendezvous for Clarinet & Strings. Milton Katims; NBC S.O., live, 12/30/ 46 (T: 4:49)

Theme & Variations vor Viola & Orch. EMANUEL VARDI, viola; Frank Black; NBC S. O., Live, 3/11/41 (T: 13:54)

Waltzes for Orchestra. Milton Katims; NBC S.O., Live, 8/15/48. (Time: 7:58)

SEIBER, Matyas:

Introduction and Allegro. Robert DAVANE, accordion; Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 4:21)

SHIFRIN, Seymour (1926 - ):

Serenade for Five Instruments. [Vivacious, attractive neo-classical piece commissioned by Julliard as part of that institution’s celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. I especially like the slow movement, largo assai, which has a decided nocturnal quality, and the snappy up-beat ending. Well regarded at the time of its premiere, this piece has slipped into obscurity; shame, too, for it would add a modern-but-not-hermetic The performers, all Julliard faculty I think, nail the piece convincingly.]

SIBELIUS:

“Berceuse” from “Incidental Music to The Tempest”, Op. 122. Stokowski; His Symphony Orchestra, rec. 1947 [See comments under “Conductors”]

“Berceuse” from “The Tempest”. Charles Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra. [This may be the most sheerly magical five minutes of music in the whole Sibelius canon. Gerhardt uses his own “arrangement”, which consists of adding a few bars of recapitulation – makes sense when the piece is performed alone and not part of the rest of the incidental music to the Shakespeare play – and dares to take the tempo as slow as it can go without the music falling apart. It works; oh God, how it works! The recently re-issued Sir Charles Groves reading of the entire suite would be warmly recommended except for the fact that he zips through the “Berceuse” as though it were a superficial little transitional passage instead of a voluptuous and dreamy miniature tone poem; ruins Groves’ whole effort for me. How could he be so insensitive? Anyway, Gerhardt’s version is the only one that matches Stokowski’s pre-war Philadelphia reading, mainly because the sound of those Philadelphia strings, as they spin Ariel’s lullaby, is beyond belief. But that relic is hard to find, so go with the Gerhardt; don’t be surprised if tears come to your eyes, as they did to mine the first time I heard it.]

En Saga, Op. 9. Sanderling; Berlin Symphony Orch.

“ “ “ “ van Beinum; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam

Finlandia. Ormandy; Philadelphia. Source: rare 10-inch Columbia; quite fine.

Karelia Suite, Op. 11. See “Hannikainen” under CONDUCTORS.]

The Origin of Fire, Op. 32. Thor Johnson; Cinncinati Symphony Orch; Helsinki University Male Choir. Rec. 1954. [8:47] [See comments under ‘Conductors”]

Pohjola’s Daughter, Op. 49. Thor Johnson; Cinncinnati Symphony Orchestra; rec. 1954 in genuine stereo.

Sonata in F major, Op. 12. David Rubenstein, piano. [18:36]

Symphony No. 2. Dorati; Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra

Symphony no. 5. Hannikainen; Sinfonia of London. [See comment under CINDUCTORS]

The Swan of Tuonela. Stokowski; His Symphony Orchestra; rec. 1947.

Swan of Tuonela. w/ John Minsker, Eng. Horn. Ormandy; Philadelphia (Source: rare 10-inch Columbia)

Tapiola, Op. van Beinum; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

Valse Triste. “ “ “ “ ; rec. 1949.

SIEGMEISTER, Ely:

Sunday in Brooklyn (“Prospect Park” – “Sunday Driver” – “Family at Home” – “Children’s Story” – “Coney Island”). F. Charles Adler; SPA Symphony Orchestra. [Siegmeister tended to give his works folksy aw-shucks titles that veer toward the mawkish when you read them today. The loss of that Norman-Rockwell innocence is our sorrow, of course, not Mr. Siegmeister’s; while his music seldom essays the flimsiest hem of Profundity’s raiment, it is nevertheless always pleasing, sincere, and expertly crafted. TBOMK, this is the first and only recording of this charming set of orchestral miniatures; Source is an old SPA disc in marvelously clean shape, with perfectly acceptable mono sound.]

SIMONSEN, Rudolph (1889-1947):

Symphony No. 2, A Major (“Hellas”). Laury Greundahl; Danish Radio Sym, live, 9/5/1954 {T: 20:19]

SKORWACZEWSKI, Stanislaw:

Concerto for English Horn & Orchestra. Composer; Thomas Stacy, English Horn; Minnesota Orchestra. [I think “Skrow” is one of the more consistently splendid conductors we’ve got; he’d be reckoned a superstar…if anybody could spell his name. Like his predecessor Antal Dorati, Scewro…Sszkova… oh, you know, dabbles seriously in composing; and like Dorati’s lone symphony, this concerto is pretty good, especially the soulful “aria” slow movement. The performance is presumably definitive & the sound exemplary.]

SIBELIUS:

SLONIMSKY, Sergei (1932 - ):

Antiphons for String Quartet. The Taneyev Quartet [11:15]

Symphony No. 9. Timus Mynbaev; Leningrad Philharmonic Orch. [20:24]

SODERBERG, Hans:

String Quartet No. 1. Berwald Quartet. (T: 18:36)

SOPRONI, Jossef:

Invenzioni sul B-A-C-H per Pianoforte (1971). Adam FELLAGI, piano.

SORENSEN, Torsten (1908 - ):

Sinfonietta for String Orchestra. Dean Dixon; Gothenburg Symphony Orch.: live, 4/6/1953 [Time is 16:42] [Another testimony to Dixon’s unflagging commitment to the music of his time,]

STANFORD, Sir Charles Villiers (1854-1924):

Irish Symphony. Norman Del Mar; Bournemouth Sinfonietta.

STOCKHAUSEN:

Foresetzung. Collegium Vocale, Cologne. (T: 37:12)

Kontra-Punkte for 10 Instruments. MODERNA; Rome Symphony O. (T: 11:36)

Stimmung. Collegium Vocale, Cologne. (T: 35:35)

STENHAMMER, Wilhelm:

“Ithaka”, for Baritone & Orchestra, Op. 21. w/ Goesta Kjellertz, baritone;Sten Fryberg; Gothenberg Symphony Orch., 6/19/1063. [11:44}

“Mid-Winter”, Rhapsody for Orchestra, Op. 24. Sixten Eckenberg; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, 12/12/1964. {13:26]

Sentimental Romance for Violin & Orchestra, Op. 28. Franceso Asti, violin; Tor Man; rec. on 3/13/1930 [4:17]

Serenade for Large Orch., Op. 31. Kubelik; Stockholm P.O. (T. 33:58)

STEINER, MAX:

Beyond the Forest, soundtrack suite. Composer conducting “Orchestra of the Max Steiner Society”. The film, now pretty much forgotten, was the last one Bette Davis made for Warner Brothers and was directed by King Vidor, in 1949. To be honest, I haven’t heard this LP yet – I bought it only three days ago at a yard sale – but it’s in near flawless condition; if you’re a fan of Steiner’s film music, it’s self-recommending. This is the only recording and must be assumed to be definitive. Timing is roughly 40 minutes. Rare!]

STRAESSER, Joep (Dutch; 20th Century):

“22 Pages”, for Wind Orchestra, Percussion, Double-bass, and three Male Voices.

Bruno Moderna/ Hilversum R.S.O. and Choir, live. Holland Festival, 1966. (Time: 10:45)

Intervals II, Music on (sic) War and Peace; Kerry Woodward; Anne Haenen, mezzo; Netherlands Chamber Choir; Ensemble of percussion, trumpets & Piano. (T. 13:15) Yeah, I know – I usually run the other way when I see a composition entitled “Intervals” or “Matrixes” or anything like that . You’ve heard worse; you’ve heard better. The performers certainly give it their all. Another avant-garde gem from the 1979 Holland Festival.

STRAUSS, Richard:

Alpine Symphony, Op. 64. Emil Tabakov; Sofia Philoharmonic. (This little-known conductor has always been sparsely represented outside of east Europe, but I have yet to hear a performance by him that was not first-rate. C’mon, aren’t you curious?)

“Andante”, for Horn & Piano. Herman Jeurissen, horn; Carlos Moerdijk, piano. [4:20]

Don Juan, Op. Klemperer; Berlin State Opera Orch, 1935. [See comment under CONDUCTORS]

Festive Prelude, Op. 61. w/ Biggs; Bernstein; NYPO. [9:41] [Music to stage a Brown Shirt rally by!]

“Der Rosenkavalier” Suite. Krips; Philharmonia Orch. [See “Conductors” for details]

Salome – Complete Opera. [See “Mitopoulos” under “Conductors”]

Tod und Verklarung, Op. 24. Toscanini; Philadelphia Orchestra; REC. 1/11/1942 [23:30]

Violin Concerto, in D Minor, Op. 8. Ulf Hoelscher, violin; Rudolf Kempe; Dresden Staatskapelle. [If Strauss himself hadn’t written so many later blockbusters, I suspect more attention would be paid to this early violin concerto; it bears few of the later Straussian hallmarks, true, but it’s a tuneful, well-made virtuoso vehicle without any boring parts and would surely make an excellent demonstration-piece for any aspiring violinist to use in showing off his chops. I can’t imagine anyone making a better case for this oddly neglected work than this combination of soloist and conductor. Another “sleeper”.]

Wanderer’s Sturmlied. Swoboda; Vienna Symphony & Kammerchor. [Early Straussian .essay into Goethe-land, this work teeters precariously on the brink of self-parody with its bombast & self-conscious heroic posturing. The scabrous performance doesn’t help either – as with the Bruckner psalms listed above, the VSO can barely keep together, much less deliver this tub-thumper with any sense of conviction. There aren’t many rival recordings, if any, so this antique Westminster, one of the label’s cruddier recording jobs, will at least give you a point of reference.]

STRAVINSKY:

[This first batch of listings preserves a complete concert of October 23, 1957 with the Rome RIA Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky had by now become a passable conductor; the Italians obviously were on the edge of their seats for their distinguished guest; the sound is good off-the-air mono for its time and the program is full, well-balanced, generally captivating. Ensemble isn’t always drum-tight, of course, but there’s a pleasant earthiness to the playing overall. A fine addition to any Stravinsky collection, and the Scource discs are virtually unplayed. Timings not listed on Scource, but you know about what they are.]

Apollo, complete ballet. w/ Rome RIA Symphony Orchestra

Concerto Grosso for Strings. w/ Romer RIA Symphony Orchestra

The Firebird, complete ballet. w/ Rome RIA Broadcast Symphony Orch.

Firebird Suite. Walter Goehr; Netherlands Philharmonic Orch. [From a scarce Musical Masterworks Society 10-incher; interesting performance, with numerous well-considered etails brought to the fore. Somewhat short in the drama department, though. Like most surviving MMS records, this one has some slight surface wear, but no skips of major distortion. A curiosity.]

Scherzo a la Russe. w/ Rome RIA Symphony Orchestra

Octet for Winds. Libor Pesek; Harmony Chamber Orch. of Prague

Bach Orchestration: Chorale Prelude Variations “Vom Himmel Hoch”. Abravanel; Utah S.O.

Circus Polka. Gerhardt; National Philharmonic Orchestra

Concertino for Violin, Cello, & 13 Winds. Roelof Krol; Hilversum Radio Chamber O. (Time: 5:47)

Divertimento from “The Fairy’s Kiss”. Eudice Sharpiro & Brooks Smith.

Duo Concertante. Eudice Shapiro & Brooks Smith

Firebird Suite. Walter Goehr; Netherlands Philharmonic Orch. [From a rare Musical Masterworks Society 10-incher; interesting performance with numerous well-considered details, somewhat short on drama however. Like most surviving MMS records, this one has some small surface wear, but no skips or major distortion. Decidedly rare item, though.]

Firebird Suite. Krips; Philharmonia Orchestra [See “Conductors” for more details.]

Firebird Suite – “Berceuse” and “Finale” only. Issay Dobrowen; rec. 11/12/1942. [Notes on the Source are mute as to whether the entire “Firebird” was played or just this snippet, at the end of what surely is one of the most eclectic radio concerts one can imagine. Dobrowen (1894-1953) was Russian by birth and Scandinavian by choice. He made quite a few early LPs, and was highly thought of in Europe, especially in France. Even conducto-maniacs like myself have a hard time remembering him now, but these last 7 minutes of the Stravinsky are so vividly-etched, despite very dated sound, that one wishes the whole performance had been issued.]

L’Histoire du Soldat (Arranged for trio). Roy D’Antonio, clarinet; Myron Sandler, violin; Delores Stevens, piano. [14:30]

Octet for Winds. Libor Pesek; Harmony Chamber Orch. of Prague

Petroushka – Complete Ballet. Dorati; Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. [This is the earlier, monaural, Dorati recording, which I much prefer to the stereo version, as is often the case when Dorati made two more or less back-to-back recordings of the same piece, one in that bright, punchy, in-your-face Mercury “Living presence” – i.e., “really loud” and the other one, four or five years in the future. All if his mono Bartok recordings possess a savagery and clawing bite that the re-makes just didn’t have. An outstanding Petroushka.]

“Pulcinella” Suite for Violin. Oistrakh; Natalia Zertsalova, piano. [15:26] [An absolute delight! Oistrakh fiddles like a madman baying at the moon, slashing into Stravinsky’s rhythmic thickets with utter fearlessness. Much as I love the orchestral version, I think I like this solo incarnation better – especially when it’s played with this much verve.]

Requiem Canticles. Haitink; Netherlands Chamber Choir; Amsterdam Concertgebouw O. (Time: 13:31)

Suite for Small Orchestra. Lorin Maazel; Rotterdam Philharmonic O. (Time: 4:23)

SURINACH, Carlos:

Concerto for Orchestra. w/ Paris Philharmonic Orch. [A worthy addition to this after-Bartok sub-genre; enterprising conductors looking for something “new” but audience-friendly could do a lot worse than to check out this score.]

Melorhythmic Dramas. Jorge Mester; Lousville Orchestra. [I’ve now heard maybe seven or eight compositions by Surinach and every damn one was a winner. When Stokowski performed this exciting work with the American Symphony in 1966 or 67, the crowd went bonkers for it; I was there and I went bonkers, too. I also have a listing for his Concerto for Orchestra and that work, too, is a dandy. Why don’t we ever hear any of this guy’s work in concert? Yeah, I know, I know. The list of reasons is too dismal and shameful to bear repeating again. Dramatic, colorful, splashily orchestrated music; what’s not to like?]

SZABO, Ferenc (1903 - ):

“In Fury Rose the Ocean” Oratorio After Poems of Petofi. Gyula Nemeth; Hungarian State Orchestra & Budapest Chorus, [Born of “proletarian” parents – the program annotators for Hungaroton Records still used terms like that, even in 1975, which is when this spacious and powerful recording was taped. From what little I’ve been able to discover about him, he seems to have divided his time pretty evenly between studying folk music and modern composition with Kodaly and dabbling in revolutionary politics (Ah, youth!). Like Katchaturian, he seems to have kept his nose clean with the commissars and his most popular works were ostensibly inspired by ideas of justice and Communist utopianism. This big-boned oratorio was commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Budapest’s liberation by the Red Army, and is built around some perfervid rabble-rousing verses by Petofi, the hero-poet of the 1848 revolution. Cosmic Irony Alert: the piece received its thunderously successful premiere in September, 1955, almost exactly one year before the people of Hungary rose “in fury like the ocean”, overthrew their Stalinist masters, and actually established a free government for about five days, before 120,000 Soviet troops, 2,000 heavy tanks, and 3500 pieces of artillery crushed the freedom fighters during five days of savage street righting in which the overconfident Russians lost 250 tanks and about 2,000 men.

The album notes, alas, do not tell us if Maestro Szabo’s politics changed after this traumatic event (one imagines that they did!), but what I can tell you is that this is one hell of a powerful, even thrilling piece for chorus & orchestra; with a translated copy of Petofi’s verses in hand, it would thrill foreign audiences just as much as it must have thrilled the Hungarians. The style owes much, it is true, to Kodaly – the Psalmus Hungaricus especially, although Bartok’s Cantata Profana also comes to mind – but only in a general, paprika-flavored way. This is intense, earthy, passionate music with a couple of well-prepared choral climaxes that gave me gooseflesh. I hope “Frank” Szabo lived long enough to see the collapse of Stalinism and that, like Shostakovich, he composed in a private as well as a public; style and that some of those works surface. This VERY public oratorio got me so excited the first time I heard it, that I wanted more; alas, this is the only work of Szabo’s I’ve ever found. The performers seem equally stirred – I can’t imagine a

more emotionally-charged version – and the engineers captured the huge ensemble with clarity, warmth, and plenty of soaring power. Trust me on this one, folks; if you’ve ever been moved by the Shostakovich Eleventh or the Kabalevsky Requiem you’ll be blown away by Szabo’s tub-thumper.]

SZEKELY, Endre:

Sonata No. 3. Adam FELLEGI, piano.

SZELL, George:

Lyric Overture, Op. 5. Louis Lane/Cleveland Institute O. (Live, 1992) (T: 21:34)

Piano Quintet, Op. 2. Cavani String Quartet; Anne Epperson, piano. (T: 27:28)

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 4. Carl Topilow; Cleveland Institute O. (T: 14:13)

SZERVANSZKY, ( ) [Very odd indeed; nowhere on the label or the album notes do we learn this composer’s first name or the year of his birth!]

Concerto for Orchestra in Memory of Attila Jozsef. Gyula Borbely; Hungarian State Orchestra. [More post-war neo-nationalist Hungarian music. Not up to the fierce level of inspiration we hear in Szabo’s oratorio, but sophisticated, colorful, and well-crafted. You’ll have a ball playing guess-the-influence (I hear everybody from Bartok to Alban Berg, and for a minute, right at the beginning, there’s an ascending clarinet solo that sounds like it’s about to turn into a parody of Rhapsody in Blue.! It’s a busy-busy composition, and while the sum isn’t anywhere as interesting as the parts, it’s never dull. Now if I could just learn what this guy’s first name was…]

SZYMANOWSKI, Karol:

Songs, Op. 7, (?) complete. Krystyana Szostek-Radkowa, mezzo-soprano; Jerzy Leffeld, piano. (T: approximately 36 minutes)

Stabat Mater, Op. 53. Witold Rowicki; Warsaw Philharmonic O. & Crakow State Philharmonic Choir. (Source is reel/reel Soviet tape; a bit dim, but incomparably idiomatic.)

Symphony No. 3, “Song of the Night”, Op. 27. Stefania Woytowicz, soprano; Rowicki; Warsaw Philharmonic. (Source is similar to above. NOT “hi-fi” but superb anyhow)

TANSMAN, Alexander (1897 - ?):

Isaiah the Prophet. Paul van Kempen; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic & Chorus. [Tansman, born in Lodz, Poland, enjoyed a brief vogue in the U.S., when conductor Vladimir Golschmann championed his music & performed several premieres in St. Louis. His music’s pretty much faded off the radar now, alas, and this severe-but-gripping oratorio, which reminds me more than a bit of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, certainly makes me curious to hear more of his work. As usual, the great Paul van Kempen, a scandalously under-rated conductor, turns in a reading full of passionate conviction. Definitely a Major Statement by a very interesting and undeservedly forgotten composer; like so many of his generation, he fell into the yawning chasm between Late Romanticism and Modernism, simply by hewing faithfully to a very personal aesthetic. Adventurous listeners with a taste for big-boned choral/orchestral works will surely be fascinated by this one; a new recording is badly needed. Naxos, how about it?]

TAVERNER:

The Whale. David Atherton; London Sinietta, narrator & Chorus. (Interesting example of what T’s music sounded like before he became so insufferably pious and picturesque; “radio oratorio” commissioned by BBC; “kitchen-sink” post-modernism and a relatively charming specimen of same – at least there are not hushed-with-awe references to the Virgin or any of the other Mount-Athosian mountebankery Taverner wallows-around in these days…)

TCHEREPNIN, Alexander:

Concerto for Harmonica & Orch. John SEBASTIEN; Schweiger; Stuttgart R,S.O.

THEODORAKIS, Mikis:

Symphony No. 3. Heinz Bogner; Berlin Radio Symphony & Chorus [No timing given] [So sue me, but I think he’s a great composer; not the symphonic works, especially – although they all have their moments – but the rabble-rousing and sentimental folk-music-based song cycles, guitar pieces, and soundtracks. Here’s a composer who took pride in being a “populist” and it didn’t have a thing to do with his wishy-washy Marxist inclinations, either; you won’t turn into a Communist by listening to and reveling in his colorful and often elementally powerful scores.]

THIRIET, Marcel (1906- ? ):

“Psyche”, Symphonic Suite. Source is one of those ditzy “Aries” LPs, pirates in every sense, yet purveyors of wonderful otherwise ignored repertoire (that’s the label that gave us Boult’s staggering premier of Havergal Brian’s “GOTHIC” Symphony – and for his labors, was rewarded by having his name spelled “Bolt” on the album cover.) The bogus orchestra and conductor here are called “Pierre Fournier” and the “Versailles Symphony Orchestra”. No timings, of course. As for the music, think “Ravel Meets Zamphyr in a Gay Bar in St. Tropez…” This is music that sounds the way expensive cologne smells.]

THOMSON, Virgil:

4 Blake Songs. w/ composer conducting Philadelphia Orchestra & Mack Harrell [8:59]

Three Pictures for Orchestra. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra [18:39]

Three Portraits for Orchestra. Composer; Philadelphia Orchestra. [Truly lovely music, from the most huffy, doctrinaire music critic of his time! The Blake Songs are powerful & wonderfully apposite to the poetry; and Mack Harrell’s in fine voice; the short tone-poems “The Seine at Night” and “Sea-Piece with Birds” are definitely worthy of performance as stand-alone short works. But then no conductor programs short works any more, and how many younger than, say, Lorin Maazel, have the intellectual curiosity to seek out accessible but unfamiliar music? Send US an email, progressive young iconoclasts who’ve just landed a job as conductor of the East Bumm-Wart, Florida Civic Symphony; tell us what parameters you’re working within (“I need a 12-15-minute piece that’s refreshing, easily grasped, and works to an exciting climax. The orchestra has passable woodwinds, a pretty good brass section, bellicose percussion, and of course the strings can stay in tune for five minutes and there’s only 25 of them in the whole band. The Chairman of the Board likes French music, but his wife raises half the budget and she ADORES Russian, so send a mixture, please. Help me, Obi-Wan-Trotter!” Glad to, Maestro; I’ll burn a CD for you with 6-8 different pieces that fit your description, so you can actually HEAR the candidates, without going to the trouble of renting hard-to-find scores. We call this our new REPERTOIRE CONSULTATION SERVICE and this buried-in-the-text notice is a delicate way of testing the waters – come August, we might take out an ad with the Conductors’ Guild. I’ve run the notion by two composers and three real live hard-working conductors and they all think it’s a winner. For this kind of time-intensive, one-on-one service, however. I’ll have to charge appropriately. Remember: “Good work isn’t cheap and cheap work isn’t good!”]

THORNE, Francis:

Burlesque Overture. Wm Strickland; Polish Ntl. Radio O. (T”8:30)

Rhapsodic Variations for Piano & Orch. Composer, piano; Jan Krenz; Polish Ntl Radio S.O. (T: 13:30)

TOCH, Ernst:

Circus Overture. Kostelanetz; NYSPO. [This may be the only recording of this crowd-pleaser – a mono Columbia from about 1954, in super condition – and Kostelanetz, whose career spanned a far greater range of musical activities and whose working repertoire would put most living conductors to shame, is just the man to bring it alive.]

TURKISH COMPOSERS, Modern: [God and Public Radio only know who these guys are; the announcer couldn’t remotely say their names, so I made a hash of trying to scribble them down. Besides, the tape has deteriorated seriously over the past quarter-century and it’s plagued with wow and flutter, so I offer this only as a place-holder. If you’re interested in, well, Modern Turkish Music, here’s 78 minutes’ worth of it, in presumably good performances, on a tape that is problematical to say the least Yours if you want it, but I’m only hanging on to it because I might never hear most of these pieces again and some of them are very good.]

VALEN, Fartein: (Not a “serialist”, nor exactly an a-tonalist, Valen worked out his own weirdly personal system of harmony that avoids conventional key signatures, yet has clearly limned melodic arcs and phrases. His “sound” is unique, and although it takes some hard listening to get “inside” his music, you’ll be struck, first of all, by its icy integrity and somber Nordic emotional range. His harmonic system was a dead-end, of course (no one else adopted it), but his modest output shares just a touch of the monolithic power of Sibelius at his most recondite – say, the chillier pages of the Fourth. Valen may be a hard composer to “love”, but he’s easy to admire and repays the effort required to penetrate his aesthetic.)

String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13. Oslo Quartet. (T: 15:32)

VAN BAAREN, Kees (1906-1970):

Septet. Chamber Ensemble of the Hague Philharmonic. [Fine performances by all concerned. As for the music, it ain’t bad: neo-classical in mood, idiomatically written for the wind instruments, elegant and even a bit “tuneful” here and there. Another former member of the once-dreaded Dutch Avant-Garde comes in from the cold!]

VASSILENKO, Sergei (1872-1956):

Suite for Balalaika. w/ Nikolai Khrivich; Ukranian Radio Folk Instruments Ensemble. (T: 9:41). [Khrivich makes his ungainly instrument sing, croon, tap-dance, and shoot off sparks. Like the bagpipes, I reckon, you either adore this stuff or run gagging from the room at the first trills. For what it is, it’s terrific.]

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp Minor, Op. 128. Yakov Zak, piano; composer conducting; USSR State Radio Symphony Orch. [OK, let’s see now…this guy wrote at least 130 works, and neither of us has ever heard of him, right? So any composer who managed to squeak through forty years under Stalin without getting skull-capped by the KGB or persuaded to accept a new career as a Lumber Technician in Siberia almost had to be a cringing lick-spittle. In his program notes for this hoary old Westminster mono LP, the admirable James Lyons begins his thumbnail biography with the following eyebrow-raiser: “Like so many other composers, Vassilenko was destined for the law….” Excuse me? ‘Like so many other composers…’ ??? Name two, Jim! Anyway, the music’s the thing, right, and what we have here is a truly weird mélange of Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, and the Marching-Band Socialist/Realist clap-trap that composers had to crank out by the cubic decibel if they wanted to get their tickets punched for another year. Vassilenko was obviously no Shostakovich; hell, he makes Miaskovsky sound like Stockhausen! But…but…the whole greasy oil-slick of a score exerts a ghoulish fascination. How many ship-loads of this stuff did he write? What do his string quartets (if he composed any) sound like? And for what it’s worth, Yakov Zak – I know, I know, when you stop laughing I’ll continue. Zak was once a hot name for record collectors; kind of like Richter was before anybody in the West ever saw or heard him in the flesh. Only Zak was never allowed to perform outside of the USSR (he was head of piano studies at Moscow University for more than 25 years), and relatively few of his recordings emerged. He was regarded as a superb Chopin interpreter, but I don’t have any examples of his artistry with that composer. Instead, we have this bizarre but strangely captivating work by a musician who, even after composing at least 130 works, still remains a nonentity. A word of caution: this LP has to be rarer than an omelet made from pterodactyl eggs, so I have no hesitation about offering it; BUT, be forewarned that the disc has been, as we say in my part of the country, “rode hard & put up wet” – starting with a nasty bump on the very first lead-in grooves, which is followed by a veritable Rice Krispies feast of light scratches and record-plaque. It IS listenable, you can here 99% of whatever those Soviet engineers squeezed through their microphones back in 1948, but you have to be fairly tolerant about rarity-vs-condition. In this case, your chance of finding a copy in better condition is approximately the same as your chance of being knocked unconscious by a fish dropped from the beak of a passing condor, so you decide…]

VERMEULEN, Mathias (1888-1967):

VIERNE, Louis (1870-1937):

Triumphal March for the Coronation of Napoleon. Pierre Cochereau, organ; Lamoreux Orch. & Notre Dame Choir

Van VLIJMEN, Jan (1935- ):

Quintet for Winds. Ardito Wind Ensemble. [11:00]

Serie per Sei Instrumenti. The Danzi Quartet; Theo Bruins, piano. [3:45]. You can guess, from the “Punckt-Kontrapunckt” title exactly what this “avant garde” truffle’s going to sound like. There was so much of this kind of stuff written in Holland during the Sixties that the left-over scores were used to shore-up leviessea walls all over the North Sea. Finally, someone figured out a way to use this music for a good purpose!]

Sonata for Piano & Three Groups of Instruments. Theo Bruins, piano; Ernest Bour, conducting. [Uncompromisingly atonal, un-musical, repulsive, up-yours, twitter-squeak-thunk music; paradigmatic of all the reasons why audiences started hating “new music’; utterly indistinguishable from hundreds of other examples of mid-Sixties to late-Seventies “avant garde” slop. The Dutch government, Lord love ‘em, subsidized these guys handsomely AND made it semi-legal for them to smoke pot while they were composing. Which, come to think of it, is probably the best way to approach this kind of music: stoned half-way to oblivion. Nobody but the academics liked it then; nobody likes it now. But it’s useful to hear a sample now and then, to remind yourself of how God-awful “serious” music was at the same time “pop” music was attaining new heights of expressiveness (from which is quickly and gracelessly descended into Disco, the worst form of pop music ever…until hip-hop came along. I hasten to add that Van Vlijmen didn’t write in this style for more than a decade and I have heard other works by him that demonstrate real talent and good sense. In any case, the bloody thing only lasts 13 minutes or so.]

VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS:

Concerto for Two Pianos & Orch. Boult; Vroknsky & Babin, pianistst; London Philharmonic O. (T: 25:40)

“March” from “Somerset Folk Songs”. Douglas Gamley; National Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Old King Cole”. Sir Adrian Boult; London Promenade Orch.

Suite for Viola & Piano. Emanuel Vardi, vciolin; Frank Weinstock, piano.

Symphony No. 7. Barbirolli; Halle Orch. [mono; Sir John’s first version and excellent.]

Symphony No. 8. Barbirolli; Halle Orch. [Was the best, until Stokowski’s came out.]

VERMEULEN, Matthias: [Urbane, civilized Dutch symphonist who claimed to have a “revolutionary” system of writing totally “independent lines” that would sweep serialism into the dustbin of history. It didn’t (and serialism managed to annihilate itself without any outside help, thank God), and although I easily follow Vermeulen’s argument on paper, I don’t think the audible result is especially daring or earth-shaking. His orchestral music is complex, but the ear easily follows the strands and the ultimate impression is of a cycle of tightly-argued neo-classical works that reward first-hearings and repeated hearings. A minor cult figure, perhaps, but they’re still playing his music in Scandinavia and it ought to export well, too. There’s nothing inherently “Dutch-sounding” about it, as there is in the beefy works of Hans Cheesewheel – it’s just highly cosmopolitan, brain-nourishing music.]

Symphony No. 1 (“Sinfonia Carmina”). Edo de Waart; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orch., date unk.

Symphony No. 2. Zinman; Rotterdam Philharmonic; live, mid-70s.

Symphony No. 3. Ferdinand Leitner; Hague Philharmonic

Symphony No. 7. Hioyuki Iwaki; Hague Residency Orchestra; live, date unknown; stereo.

VERRALL. John: (Favorite pupil of Mitropoulos):

String Quartet No. 4. U. of Washington String Quartet

VILLA-LOBOS:

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 for 8 Celli. Theodore Bloomfield; MGM Chamber O.

“ “ No. 4, solo piano version. Menahem Pressler, piano.

Bachianas Brazileiras No. 4. Isaac Karabtchevsky; Brazil S. O.

“ “ No. 5. Andre Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic

Choros No. 1. Irma Costanzo, guitar. (Superb guitarist; should be better known.)

Composer-conducted cycle with French National Broadcast Orchestra: (From June, 1954 to May, 1958, Villa-Lobos made an extensive series of recordings with the ORTF players and a host of distinguished soloists; he was a skilled conductor, knew just what effects he wanted, and usually cajoled or coaxed the French ensemble into playing with considerably more “swing” and flair than was its custom in those days. The sound is state-of-the-art mono; many of these performances were never available outside France; and several of the more interesting works have never been recorded again. Because of the unique musical and collectable value of these performances, I’m listing them as a separate bloc, so you can pick and choose more easily):

Bachiana Brasileira No. 1 for Ensemble of Violincellos.

“ “ No. 2 for Orchestra

“ “ No. 3, for Piano & Orchestra. Manoel Braune, piano.

“ “ No. 4 for Orchestra.

“ “ No. 5, for soprano & Violincello Ens. De LOS ANGELOS.

“ “ No. 6, for Flute & Bassoon.

“ “ No. 7, for Orchestra

“ “ No. 8, for Orchestra

“ “ No. 9, for String Orchestra

Two Choros, for Violin & Cello. Henri Bronschwak, violin; Jacques Neilz, cello.

Choros No. 2 for Flute & Clarinet. Fernand Dufrene; Maurice Cliquennois.

“ No. 5 for Piano. Aline van Barentzen, piano.

“ No. 10, for Orchestra & Mixed Chorus.

“ No. 11, for Piano & Orchestra. Aline van Barentzen, piano.

The Discovery of Brazil, Oratorio in Four Suites, for Orch. & Chorus

Invocation for the Defense of the Fatherland, for Orchestra & Chorus

Symphony No. 4 (“To Victory”)

Momoprecope: Fantasia for Piano & Orch. Magda Tagliaferro, piano.

Piano Concerto No. 5. Felicia Blumenthal, piano.

A Prole do Bebe (complete, includes both “Les Poupees” and “Les Petites Betes”. Aline van Barentzen, piano.

Cantata: The Forest of the Amazon. Composer conducting the Symphony of the Air & Chorus; Bidu Sayao, soprano. (T: 47:02) [Originally the soundtrack to a lavish but witless film version of Green Mansions, c. 1959, V-L later reworked the music into a full-over-blown cantata chock-full of Indian chants, soaring-bird themes, Yma-Sumac vocalaises for the soprano (this was one of Madam Sayao’s last recordings, I believe, and her impassioned timbres don’t hint at her age). The recording was a “sonic spectacular” for its day, part of the short-lived but excellent United Artists classical label (among its other glories, Stokowski’s wall-crushing account of the Shostakovich First Symphony along with his only commercial recording of The Pines of Rome – a disaster interpretively and sonically, alas; never understood why he approved it). For hire was Toscanini’s old outfit, the NBC Symphony, now desperately trying to claw out an identity as the “Symphony of the Air” – it failed, alas, largely because Toscanini refused to offer the slightest support for the venture; if he was retiring, then his orchestra should retire, too, was evidently his feeling; a rather callous stance for the old conductor to take, but as a multi-millionaire, one he could well afford. Oh, stop digressing, Bill! Anyway, this is prime V-L, a-flood with ripe, voluptuous melodies, high-calorie orchestration, boo-ga-loo-jungle-savages-music, all the rest of it. In anyone else’s hands, it would be a huge bowl of clichés; under the composer’s skilled baton, it’s an inspired bowl full of clichés, and although time has dimmed the impact of the engineering, it still sounds big, steamy, and gaudy with primal instrumental colors. A great wallow!]

Concerto for Piano & Orch No. 1. Arthur Moreira-Lima; Fedoseyev; Moscow R.S.O.

“ “ “ “ : Ellen Ballon; ANSERMET: Suisse-Romande O.

“The Emperor Jones”, music for the film. Laszlo Halasz; Orchestra of the Municipal Theater, Rio de Janiero. (T: 24:50)

Fantasia Concertante for Orchestra of Cellos. Composer; The Violincello Society.

Harmonica Concerto. John Sebastien, harmonica; Schweiger; Stuttgart Radio S. O.

“Little Train from Caipira”. Andre Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic

“Magdalana” Suite. Andre Kostelanetz; NY Philharmonic.

Modinha Preludio. Andre Kostelanetz; New York Philharmonic.

Preludes for Guitar (5). Irma Costanzo, guitar.

Quartet No. 17. Brazilian String Quartet

Rudepoema. David Bean, piano. (T: 17:45)

Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra. Laszlo Haslasz; Rio de Janeiro Municipal Theater Orchestra. (T: 24:12)

Symphony No. 2. Composer conducting unidentified orchestra; decent sound.

Van VLIJMEN, Jan:

Quaterni pour Orchestre. Lucas Vis/ Concertgebouw Orch., live, Holland Festival, 1966. (Time: 26:45). (Here’s the proverbial exception that proves the rule. It’s self-consciously “avant-garde” music…even worse, it’s Dutch avant-garde music, but it’s engagingly colorful, full of energy, often quite beautiful, and clearly driven by genuine self-expressive needs. Given the title and venue, I expected to hate it, but ended up rather liking it. Go ahead: Columbus took a chance!)

VLASOV, Vladimir:

Cello Concerto No. 1. w/ ROSTROPOVICH; Rozhdestvensky; Moscow R.S.O. (T: 24:00)

VOLPI, Adamo:

Preludio, Op. 31. Robert DAVANE, accordion; The Lamont String Quartet. (Time: 3:32)

De VRIES, Klaas:

“Moeilijkeden” (“Difficulties”). De Volharding Wind Ensemble, live, 1976. T. 9:50 [With an ensemble called “The Perseverance” and a piece called “Difficulties”, I’ll bet you, like me, already figured out what this would sound like. It does! Aren’t we both smart? THIS, people, is where and how the classical music audience began to answer Milton Babbitt’s “Who cares if you Listen?” question by simply no longer giving a damn – or a dime – for and to the whole cause.]

VYCPALEK, Ladislav (1882 - ?):

“The Last Things of Man”, Op. 16. Ancerl’ Czech Philharmonic & Chorus. (Some people think it’s windy and bombastic; others are moved to tears. Czech Late Romanticism with a vengeance, and Ancerl’s performance is fervent.)

WAGENAAR, Johan (1894-1971):

Cyrano de Bergerac Overture. Mengelberg/ C.o.A., 1940 (T: 13:25)

WAGNER, Siegfried (Yep – Richard’s son and primary heir to the empire of Bayreuth. Poor bastard never had a chance, really, between Dad’s towering stature & Cosima’s domineering presence. Still…under any other circumstances, his music would have been judged fairly for what it was: skillfully wrought, sometimes inspired, Late Romanticism. Try it – you’ll be pleasantly surprised.):

“Gleuck” Tone Poem. Peter Eros; Aalborg Symphony O. (T: 25:18)

Scherzo from “Und Wenn die Welt voll Teufel Waer…” Eros; Aalborg Sym. (T: 9:19)

“Sehnsucht” (umm…Longing, I think) Tone Poem. Peter Eros; Aalborg S.O. (T: 16:30)

Symphony No. 1. Peter Eros; Aalborg S. O. (T: approx 48:00)

WALKER, George Theophilus:

Trombone Concerto. Dennis Wicks, trombone; Paul Freeman; London Symphony. (T:17:15)

WALTON – BACH:

“The Wise Virgins” Ballet Suite. Sir Adrian Boult; London Philharmonic Orch. [A most interesting pastiche of Walton orchestrations, using excerpts from Bach’s cantatas, for an allegorical ballet being mounted at Sadler’s Wells in the spring of 1939. Many were surprised when Walton agreed to take on the task – no one had ever suspected he harbored an affinity, or even much of an interest, in Bach’s music. Well, either he did or he just needed to make a few quid in a hurry, because he set to work enthusiastically, deploying a medium-sized orchestra and hewing faithfully to the original material’s proportions and restrained style. The concert suite is a real rarity; I can think of only one rival recording, and it too was by Boult, many years after this 1948 or 1949 version was waxed by London. Boult is the perfect conductor for this kind of thing, able to imbue sparkle ans rhythmic precision to an essentially modest and emotionally cool work. I’m reminded at times of Stravinsky’s Apollo, one of the few of that composer’s post-war works I really find pleasure in – and it reveals a rather gentle side of Walton. It would make a very pleasant make-weight for an unbalanced concert program. It lasts, I suspect, about 20 minutes.]

WALTON:

Bach Orchestration. “The Wise Virgins”. Sir Adrian Bould. London P.O.

Belshazzar’s Feast. James Loughran; Halle Orchestra & Choir

“ “ : Roger Wagner: His Chorale; Royal Philharmonic

“Hamlet”, Funeral March: Composer; Philharmonia Orch. (T: 4:17)

“Henry V”: Suite and Battle of Agincourt. Composer’ Philharmonia Orch. (T: 15:01)

Orb & Sceptre March. Rupert Mandell; New Symphony Orchestra of London

“Richard III”, Prelude & Suite. Composer; Philharmonia Orch. (T: 17:41)

Symphony No. 1. Composer/ Philharmonia Orch. (Mono; his first recording; splendid).

Symphony No. 1: Sir Hamilton HARTY; London S.O. (1935) (T: 39:54)

Symphony No. 2. Szell; Cleveland. (T:27:20)

Variations on a Theme by Hindemith. Szell; Cleveland S.O. (T: 22:42)

WATSON, Anthony (New Zealand)

Prelude and Allegro. Brain Priestman; New Zealand Symphony Orch.

WEBER, Ben (1916- ):

String Quartet No. 2. The New Music Quartet. [10:25] [Stokowski recorded his Blake songs and more or less put Ben Weber on the map. Kind of like the British composer Humphrey Searle, Weber used 12-tone techniques because that was the only way to get your academic-career’s ticket punched in those days (mid-Fifties), but you get the impression he didn’t like it much, because he keeps subverting it with elements that sound suspiciously like real melodies and real moments of self-expression. The same holds true for this quartet; it’s not Easy Listening, but it’s certainly music that commands respect and rewards the patient listener. I wonder what else he composed, things that haven’t been recorded… Now that CRI is defunct, who’ll be issuing this kind of music? Naxos, maybe. But as of this writing (7/17/05), Ben Weber’s music has vanished from the radar. Except here, in The Attic, where all types of music are welcome (except Rap/Hip-Hop, which isn’t worth my dog’s up-chuck and don’t let anybody con you with excuses about social and political self-expression; to paraphrase Duke Ellington, “If it sounds like obnoxious crap, it IS obnoxious crap!”)]

WEBERN:

Bach Orchestration: Ricercare from The Musical Offering. Abravanel; Utah S.O.

Passacaglia, Op. 1. Stokowski, w/ Philadelphia Orch., Live, 1962

WEILL, Kurt:

“Down in the Valley” Original cast; Alfred Drake, tenor; Unidentified Orchestra. [Weill died while working on this score & apparently was deeply fond of it, The vapid cocktail-party Socialist attitude is vitiated now, thin, tepid, disillusioned; nowhere the venom, clenched-fists, and throw-up-a-barricade passion that infused “The Three Penny Opera” The plot is, well…”folksy” if you can abide it, “simple-minded” if you can’t. I can’t; this is the work of a burned-out artist whose once-blazing imagination was barely guttering. Having said that, however, this recording makes for an oddly compelling listen, and TBOMK (“To The Best of My Knowledge”, for you new-comers to this web site) no subsequent Weill compilation offers this much of the music. Drake – smooth and appealing as always -- does what he can to elevate his thankless part and so does Jane Wilson, the now-forgotten actress who plays the hillbilly ingénue. Weill’s use of Appalachian folk songs is about as “authentic” as the Kingston’s Trio’s version of “Tom Dooley”, but this 1951 Decca 10-incher is fascinating, even though all 23-odd minutes of it don’t equal one chorus of “Mack The Knife”…]

Symphony No. 1. Gary Bertini; BBC Symphony Orch. (Time: 25:37)

Symphony No. 2. “ “ “ “ “ (Time: 25:41)

Three-Penny Opera Suite. Klemperer; Berlin State Opera Orchestra, 1936. [See comment under CONDUCTORS]

WEISGALL, Hugo (1912 - ):

The End of Summer. Charles Bressler, tenor; New York Chamber Soloists (instrumentals). [A mature, deeply thoughtful song-cycle by one of American’s most respected composers for the human voice.[

WHEAR, Paul W.:

Catharsis Suite. Composer/ London Symphony Orch. (T: 16:10)

“Decade” Overture. Composer/ London Symphony Orch. (T: 6:46)

“Joyful, Jubilate”. Composer/ London Symphony & Chorus. (Time: 5:05)

Psalms of Celebration. Composer/ London Symphony O & Chorus. (T: 15:37)

WHITE, Jose:

Violin Concerto. Aaron ROSAND; Paul Freeman; London S. O. (Time: 20:41)

WIDOR:

Lord, Save Thy People. E. Power Biggs, organ; Brass & Percussion Ensemble. [5:16]

WILLAN, Henry:

Symphony No. 2. Ancerl/ Toronto S.O. (T: 39:47)

WILLIAMS, Grace (1907 -- ?) [Welsh composer with a ruggedly personal style; she never resorts to quoting “Men of Harlech”, but sometimes come close. Well worth getting to know; her string quartets are especially fine.]:

Carillons for Oboe & Orchestra. Anthony Camden, oboe; Sir Charles Groves; London Symphony Orchestra.

Concerto for Trumpet & Orch. Howard Snell, trumpet; Groves; London Symphony

“Fairest of Stars”, Concert Aria for Soprano & Orch. Janet Price, sop.; Sir Charles Groves; London Symphony Orchestra

Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes. Sir Charles Groves; London Symphony Orch.

WILSON, Olly Woodrow:

“Akwan” for Piano & Orchestra, Amplified Strings, & Electronic Keyboard. Richard Bunger, keyboards; Paul Freeman; Baltimore Symphony Orch. (Time: 16:25)

WIREN, Dag:

Serenade for Strings. Sitg Westerberg; Stockholm Philharmonic O.

WILDER, Alec:

Air for Bassoon. Harold GOLTZER, bassoon; Frank Sinatra; Columbia Chamber O. (T: 4:09)

Air for English Horn. Mitch Miller; Frank Sinatra; Columbia Chamber Ens. (T: 3:55)

Air for Flute. Julius BAKER; Frank Sinatra; Columbia Chamber Ens. (T: 4:30)

Air for Oboe. Mitch MILLER; Frank Sinatra; Columbia Chamber Ens. (T: 3:34)

“Her Old Man was Suspicious”. Frank Sinatra; Wilder Octet. (Time: 2:26)

“His First Long Pants”. Frank Sinatra; Wilder Octet. (Time: 2:37)

“It’s Silk – Feel it!” Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (T: 2:33)

Pieces of Eight. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (T: 2:35)

“Seldom the Sun”. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (Time: 3:19)

“She’ll Be Seven in May”. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (Time 3:00)

Slow Dance. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (Time: 4:06)

Such a Tender Night. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (Time: 3:06)

Theme and Variations. Frank Sinatra; Alec Wilder Octet. (T: 4:09)

WOLF, Christian (1934 - ):

“Accompaniments”. Frederick Rzewski, piano [21:10]. [With the formidable Rzewski as an advocate, one must assume Something Serious is being addressed in this composer’s lean, ascetic, pointillist style. I’m reminded of Morton Feldman, only much shorter, and that’s not a bad thing. If you feel the same way (about Feldman, that is), you might find Wolf’s elusive but strangely tantalizing music to your liking. I won’t go that far, not yet, but I didn’t find it instantaneously odious and meretricious as I did “Bridgeforms”, for instance (see above) or those repellant phony-mystical-philosophical con-jobs by Felciano I listed in the last update.]

“Lines”. Composer at piano. [22:45] [Are “Lines” and “Accompaniments” supposed to be related? If you superimposed them would something new and different emerge? I haven’t a clue and the composer’s notes, as usual for this style and genre, obfuscate more than illuminate, but it’s an intriguing idea, isn’t it? They used to call it “counterpoint”, I think…]

WORDSWORTH, William:

Ballade, Op. 41. Margaret Kitchin, piano

Cheesecombe Suite, Op. 27. Margaret Kitchin, piano

Piano Sonata in D minor, Op. 13. Margaret Kitchin, piano

WUORINEN, Charles:

Symphony in Two Parts. Davies; American composers Orchestra (T. 23:24) [It should be apparent from reading my lists that I’m a very tolerant fellow, who enjoys an enormous range of musical styles and forms, from Gothic chants to Elliott Carter – I can tolerate, even appreciate, music that most folks would find repulsive. But there are two composers whose music I actively and passionately despise: Ralph Shapey (whom Oliver Daniel, during his days at BMI, described as “the most disagreeable man in American music”) and Charles Wuorinen, who takes masochistic pride in hewing to the serialist credo long after everybody else stopped manning that barricade. Wuorinen writes some of the ugliest, nastiest, most indigestible music of our time, and that’s saying a lot. Moreover, he’s proud of it. His presumed stance proclaims: I am a brilliant academic sort, and if I wanted to, I could write a big schlocky tune that would make Korngold weep with envy. I just don’t want to. That would be compromising the purity of my aesthetic creed.

Oh, please – give me a break!

I’ll call your bluff, dude. Write something half-way as appealing as Appalachian Spring and I’ll eat my words. Because I don’t think you can do it. I think you write this kind of knotty, tuneless, algebraic, dehumanized, antagonistic, codswallop because 30 years ago it was all the rage and you knew how to play the political Grant Money games to carve out a career so unassailable by now that it no longer matters whether anybody listens to your crap or not. You’ve got tenure; clout; influence-to-peddle – hell, you’re the Last Dinosaur of atonality; the one composer still hacking it who makes Milton Babbitt sound like Rachmaninoff!

So here’s something you choose to call a “symphony”. Championed by one of the best specialist conductors in the land; expertly performed (in so far as ordinary mortals can tell), and who knows? If I listen to it another 30-40 times, I might find something in it I actually like. But life’s too short, so I won’t waste even a half-hour of it re-listening. For those of you who actually give a damn what Wuorinen’s up to, here’s a major addition to his oeuvre, in a presumably definitive performance, which I will gladly dub for you (but please, no aesthetic arguments; just send a check. Like I said, there are only two composers whose music I actively loathe and detest, and later on I’ll be listing some of Ralph Shapey’s abominations, too – I’ve given them both a fair chance to persuade me, but I think Shapey has a lead ear and couldn’t orchestrate his way out of a pay toilet and I think Wuorinen’s trapped by his own dogmatism. Secretly, he might like to BE Rachmaninoff… and if he didn’t take himself so bloody seriously (as opposed to, say, the way Stockhausen always has a twinkle in his eyes) I might cut him some slack. But I confidently predict that if his music shows up on a concert program fifty years from now, the same percentage of people will walk out, or boo and hiss, as they do now. Nevertheless, I’m happy to offer this…ahem… “symphony” for anyone who feels differently about Wuorinen than I do. More power to you, friend; and if you’d like to write me an email telling me WHY you like this turgid, crypto-Fascist muck, I’d be delighted to read it. I’m always open to suggestion…and to a well-argued challenge!]

XENAKIS, Iannis: (Okay, maybe he WAS the Anti-Christ-After-Schoenberg, but I’ve always responded to his mathematically-derived pieces with more enthusiasm than I have to Milton Babbitt’s more smug, intentionally-impenetrable scores. At least, when I’m in a modernist mood; when I’m not, Xenakis’s music just sounds as ugly and cacophonic as it does to most people. Still, there’s integrity here – numbers can’t, by their nature, be pretentious and arrogant. The verdict is not in on this dude; maybe it never will be…)

“Achorripsis”for 21 Instruments. Konstantin Simonovitch; Paris Contemporary Instrumental Ensemble. (Time: 9:14)

“Akrata”, for 16 Wind Instruments. Konstantin Simonovich; Paris Contemporary Ensemble. (T: 9:50)

“Polla ta Dhina” for Orch & Children’s Chorus. Konstantin Simonovich; Paris Contemporary Ensemble. (T: 7:35)

“ST/10 = 1.080262” for 10 Instruments. Simonovich; Paris Contempoarary Instrument Ensemble. (Time: 12:01) (You know – the one that goes “de-DUM-DUM-de-de-de-DUM…?)

YAMADA, Kohsaku:

“Mandara no Hana”. Shigenobu Yamaoka; Yomuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. [Yamada brought Western ideas & theories to Japan in the years following World War One, after taking advanced compositional studies under Max Bruch and “hanging out” with Busoni, Strauss. Pfitzner and Zemlinsky. This 12-minute tone poem, based on a popular literary poem by Rofu Miki entitled “Der Rotdurn” – The Hawthorn Tree, took the musical sophisticates of Tokyo by storm, became in fact so ubiquitous that it might be likened to “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Copland! Both poem and tone-poem are mood pieces, evoking sunset on the shore, a gathering mist rendering the trees spectral…the sudden fall of night, like a shower of dark petals blocking the moon. Usual sort of Sensitive Samurai stuff. All delineated with exquisite sureness of hand by this otherwise obscure composer. Yamada’s mastery of timbre is helped by the superb sound he’s been blessed with on this occasion. A gorgeous selection, from any angle.]

YARDUMIAN, Richard (Or, as I like to think of him, “Hovhaness Lite”]:

Armenian Suite. w/ Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra

Armenian Suite. Anshel Brushilow; Bournemouth S. O.

Cantus Animae et Cordis. Brushiow; Bournemouth S. O.

“Come, Creator Spiritus” Mass. Anshel Brushlow; Lili Cookasian, mezzo; Philadephia Chorale; Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia (T: 45:16)

Chorale-Prelude. Ormandy; Philadelphia Orch. (Time: 8:43)

Passacaglia, Recitative, & Fugue, for Piano & Orchestra. w/ John Penninick, piano; Philadelphia Orch.

Symphony No. 1. Eugene Ormandy; Philadelphia Orch. (T: 22:50)

“ “ . Ansel Brushilow; Bournemouth S. O. (T: 23:19)

Symphony No. 2 (“Psalms”). Lili Chookasian, contralto; Ormandy; Philadelphia Orchestra. (Time: 18:06)

Violin Concerto. Anshel Brushilow, violin; Ormandy; Philadelphia O. (T: 25.40)

YSAYE:

Sonata-Ballad, Op. 27 – 3. w/ Oistrakh. [From antediluvian Soviet Melodiya on which the sonics are cold, cavernous, and processed through the audio equivalent of a Vaseline-smeared lens. Yet the performance has enough fire and gorgeousness-of-tone that it would sound super on an Edison Cylinder. Time is approx. 7:00. NOTE: This is a different performance than the one listed below, recorded 25 years earlier. Despite the sonic fog, it has a special élan that the more modern recording doesn’t quite catch – although it has a sharper focus and more razor-sharp intonation to compensate. Oistrakh fans will want both.]

ZUCKERMAN, Mark:

Paraphrases for Flute. James Winn, flute.