The record changer (Mar-Dec 1947)

Farrago II By EDWARD HILL Of the fifteen discs presently available in Victor's Heritage Series, the coupling by Mattia Battistini ("The Glory of Italy") of A Tanto Amor and 77 Mio Lionelo is, without question, the one best likely to be employed to explain the art of bel canto and to demonstrate the height of pellucid purity to which operatic singing by a baritone has been known to rise. Battistini recorded for about twenty years and while some few of his records succeeded in bringing his intentions to almost full realization, many fell far short of the ideal. Here we are given the best possible choice of sides. The Marta song is enthrallingly delineated and, like the excerpt from La Favorita with which it is paired, gives ample evidence of subtleties such as very few of today's baritones dare investigate. No devotee of exquisite singing should willingly be without this record and its study might well be made a prerequisite of admission to any legitimate school of vocal art. In Charles Dalmores the realm of vocal music knew a tenor of surpassing refinement together with eloquent virility, and his recorded legacy is throbbing testimony for the statement. It is good to have two such splendid items available as his Romeo et Juliette and Carmen romances. The airs were sung by Dalmores for the Victor company twice : in 1907 and again in 1912, and it is from the second session that the present issue has been pressed. Incidentally, both sides have been available as society issues within the decade, and the Flower Song was included (erroneously dated as being the '07 version) in the Voices of the Golden Age of Opera album just a few years ago. The society copies were in limited supply and lately have been changing hands at fancy premium prices. It is not likely that this Heritage pressing will go begging for sales among those who require authoritative singing of favorite airs; and, if the proper commercial encouragement is forthcoming, we may one day have the ineffably lovely Aubade from Grisclidis and Tosti's Ninon with its vast laying-on of sublime tenderness. Musician, composer, attorney-at-law and singing actress : — such was Emmy Destinn. Her attainments in opera were most creditable and it is a pity that her voice never found the true expression of its glory on records, of which she made many. Noted for her characterizations of La Gioconda and Madama Butterfly, the big moments in these works now offered are effectively and affectingly set forth — from the interpretative standpoint. The Suicidio is the 1908 Berlin version, and Un bel di was done here in 1914. — o — Louise Homer sang the Page's Song from Lex Huguenots for the phonograph more than once and it is her first waxing, with piano, that we hear again. Mrs. Homer's singing in 1905 was remarkably beautiful and. while some of her discs of that year bring her out to good advantage, this one does not do her justice. (The vagaries of recording-quality in those days would make an interesting monograph.) 42 The selection of Schubert's Die Allmacht for the reverse side may have been influenced by the original's rarity — never a valid circumstance — but whatever the reason for the choice, the song is Class D Schubert, it is not sung in its entirety and the contralto's diction (almost always cloudy on records and frequently in personal recital) is befogged throughout. A "future release in this singer's memory might conceivably bring us the stupendously good Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse. The Schumann-Heink list of unhackneyed operatic material is lengthy and much of it must be available for reissue. The two items here described are inconsequential fodder, indeed. If the beloved contralto overwhelmed her first Metropolitan Opera House audience at a Sunday Night concert in 1899 with her delivery of the Trinklied from Lucrezia Borgia, this record (the first of two done for Victor, and dated 1906) tells us that the reasons were vaudevillian rather than otherwise. Arditi's Leggiero Invisible, another of the lady's sure-fire show-pieces (of which an electrical recording by her exists) offers no flattery to the listener's intellect and proves nothing much to a generation that cannot have heard a very great, very dear singer and personality in the years of her fullest flowering. By one of those satanic impulses so common to editors when advertising revenue comes stampeding toward the till, my judgment of a previous Heritage issue was booted out of the June issue just before the forms were closed. I hope you will read here that you ought to buy the record which couples the fourth act duets from Boheme and Traviata. The magnificent participants are Lucrezia Bori, John McCormack and G. Mario Sammarco and the disc is a joy forever. To Whom It May Concern: Sears, Roebuck markets a high-quality twelve-inch Vinylite concert record for One Dollar. — o — RECENT RELEASES CHOPIN: Les Sylphides. Fiedler-Boston Pops. Victor M/DM 1119. Six sides. Although at least a decade has gone by since Victor gave domestic release to the Lambert-LPO edition of this ballet music, the need for a new version at this time is debatable. The older set has an affable patina not present in the rather strident instrumentation of Leroy Anderson and Robert Bodge, used in the current issue. The music, per se, always is pleasant to hear and has been waxed here in a manner above reproach — but DM-306 remains the preferable set. — o — MENDELSSOHN: Piano Music, played by Vladimir Horowitz. Victor M/DM 1121. Six sides. We are enriched by Horowitz's stunningly performed and expertly transcribed recrrds of the theme and seventeen variations comprising the Variations Seriuses (Op. 54), an ingratiating work not frequently encountered in the concert hall. Continuing through the album, we find two of the Songs Without Words (67-5 and 62-1) dubbed, respectively (and not by the composer) The Shepherd's Complaint and May Breezes. The two final sides are given over to a Horowitz rat-race called Mendelssohn's Wedding March and Variations After Liszt — the sort of tiling Alec Templeton does with tongue deep in cheek. RACHMANINOFF: Concerto No. 3 f Piano and Orchestra. Cyril Smil Weldon, City of Birmingham Symj Columbia M/MM 671. Ten sides. The existence of a completely satisfactr recording of this work with the composer soloist at once challenges any other versu Of course, it is not always that a compo; can be accepted as the infallibly best p( former of his own creation but as to t concerto discussed here, the answer is Y Yes and again, Yes — for however proficie Cyril Smith may be (and he is regard most highly abroad) his playing is not to thought or spoken of as even remotely 2 proaching the supreme lyricism of Sen Rachmaninoff. Much of Smith's work he is noisome, choppy and, worse, overpedall and the results are not rendered happy some obvious lapses of zeal at the enginee monitor panel. — o — SIBELIUS is represented in the Victor 1 (11-9568) with two excerpts from 1 early Karelia Suite, waxed probably se eral years ago by Beecham and the BB It's nice, minor Sibelius and will progr; well in a "pops" evening at home as will splendid Columbia rough-house (12543-1 of entertaining small potatoes from f Strauss Family Farm. Eduard, Johann a Junior roil things up' with such tidbits the Race Track Galop, Radetzky Man" Perpetual Motion and Donner und Bli Erich Leinsdorf and his Cleveland Nin<' give themselves and you a jolly good if with this . . . Robert Merrill adds to fast-lengthening list a seven-minute cou: in alumni nostalgia as he gives all to r< derings of The Whiffenpoof Song and If Sweetheart of Sigma Chi. The Victor recc (10-1313) is a sellout at this writing. — o — Instrumental chamber music never 1 been a favored release activity of our Am ican recording companies. It has been fi and not without well reasoned justificatithat this branch of the literature is "p cious" and therefore limited in sales appe How true this contention is easily can j ascertained by scanning rlmost any seaso! list of concert attractions and marking the pitifully few offerings by small groi of instrumentalists such as trios, quartc quintets, etc. One of the most lamenta blots on the escutcheon of musical taste our land is that we do not provide deo subsistence for a single full-career stri quartet and, by our remission, force e' nobly intentioned small-ensemble players derive their sustenance elsewhere ; — with suits disastrous to the complete mastery ■ the chamber player's intimate, introspect art. Our most recent endeavor to presej that oh so necessary intimacy was the si sidy granted by Elizabeth Sprague Coolie to the quartet which carries her name as identifying symbol. The Coolielges have been much hearel from eluring these past f war-torn years anel the progress that tl had maele may have been lost. A sterl opportunity for public benefit and the t to honoreel gratituele awaits some gooel s who, having the means and the aesth<r compulsion, is willing to carry on in spirit of de Coppet anel establish the whe withal for one or more groups to revive glories known to our elelers in the elays the Kneisel anel Flonzalay quartets. It is unthinkable that the Budapest Quai. shoulel be welded into a permanently sec organization through the good eifhces say, the Book-of-the-Mejnth Club, or tha chamher orchestra be establisheel and s tained by a Guggenheim endowment. THE RECORD CHANG]