New Records

Having covered and re-covered the standard operatic repertory on LPs, e.g., ten complete and currently available Pagliaccis, seven Aidas, five Butterflys, record companies have begun to dig for lesser known works. One of the happiest recent finds: Puccini's one-acter, II Tabarro, on an excellent RCA Victor LP. This somberly lyric tale of jealousy, betrayal and murder on a Seine River barge is sung with power and intensity by Baritone Tito Gobbi, Soprano Margaret Mas and Tenor Giacinto Prandelli, strongly backed by the Rome Opera's chorus and orchestra under Veteran Conductor Vincenzo Bellezza. As the betrayed husband, Gobbi magnificently defines--in a voice alternately liquid with longing and rough-edged with rage--the climate of mind that drives him to murder.

For the nostalgic, there is Gustave Charpentier's Louise (Epic, 3 LPs), infrequently heard in the U.S. It is a sentimental apotheosis of the Gallic spirit, dating from a turn-of-the-century Paris that had never heard of existentialism. The work is not only good opera but good soap opera, telling the torturous romance of a working girl and her artist lover. The scene is the same turbulent Paris where Boheme's Rodolfo and Mimi loved, but while Puccini's Bohemians are really passionate Italians, Charpentier's characters are really Parisians--frothy, but a little stylized for all the sugar-sweet music. Made famous overnight by Louise in 1900, Composer Charpentier spent the rest of his life vainly trying to imitate himself, died in 1956 without having produced another success. In this performance by the Paris Opera-Comique, an excellent cast is headed by Soprano Berthe Mommart, whose light-textured voice fits the title role like a sheer Dior gown.

Third item in this batch of operatic rarities: Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, newly recorded by RCA Victor on 2 LPs (with Boris Christoff, Giacinto Prandelli, Orietta Moscucci; Orchestra and Chorus of the Rome Opera conducted by Vittorio Gui). Known chiefly as a poet and mighty librettist (Verdi's Otello and Falstaff), Boito always remained an interesting oddity as a composer; he premiered his version of Goethe's Faust at La Scala in 1868 only to see it booed off the stage after two performances because of its experimentation with Wagnerian techniques. Intellectually more challenging than Gounod's lovely but un-Faustian version, more dramatic than Berlioz' rambling opera de concert, it suffers from a tendency to bombast. In this cut version the work gets a rather tame performance, but it still bears the mark of a fine musical-literary mind and is well worth the listening.

Other new records:

Verdi & Toscanini (NBC Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor, 2 LPs). Selections from Toscanini broadcasts and other performances given between 1942 and 1952, including a magnificent fourth act of Rigoletto (with Leonard Warren, Zinka Milanov and Jan Peerce) and selections from such seldom-heard Verdi works as I Lombardi, I Vespri Siciliani, Luisa Miller. This finely recorded testament bears witness to the fire, the subtle sense of gradation and the depth of purpose with which Toscanini played his favorite composer. Most striking item: the Hymn of the Nations, a potpourri of European national anthems which Verdi wrote in 1862 for the International Exhibition in London. In this World War II performance, Toscanini added the U.S. and Soviet national anthems, and it is startling in 1957 to hear the Internationale blare from the loudspeaker under the Maestro's driving beat. God Save the King and even the Marseillaise seem almost tame by comparison.

Milhaud: Soudades do Brasil (Concert Arts Orchestra, Milhaud conducting; Capitol). Composer Milhaud spent two years (1917-19) in Brazil and worked hard to master the intricately syncopated rhythms of South America's maxixes and tangos. How well he succeeded is demonstrated in this light-timbred work, which echoes Brazilian street carnivals.

Bloch: Suite for Viola; Suite Hebraique; Meditation & Processional (William Primrose, viola; David Stimer, piano; Capitol). A small but representative selection of Bloch's music displaying its sensuous oriental imagery and spastic rhythms. Performed by Primrose with feeling, fluency and fine tone.

Mozart: Concerto in E-Flat Major for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K. 365; Concerto No. 12 in A Major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 414 (Robert and Gaby Casadesus. pianists; Columbia Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Szell; Columbia). Mozart in sunny and antic mood played with impeccable tone and taste by husband and wife.

Cowell: Piano Music (Composers Recordings, Inc.). The onetime bad boy of U.S. music sits down to perform some of his once notorious piano pieces. The selections include Advertisement, played with forearms and fists in "tone clusters," The Banshee, Sinister Resonance and The Aeolian Harp, played in the vitals of the piano on stroked and plucked strings. If the once-daring innovations sound tame to modern ears, they nevertheless provide an intriguing reminder of the experiments that led Henry Cowell, 60, to some of the most vital U.S. symphonic work of his generation.

Other notable new releases: Brahms's A German Requiem, with Elizabeth Gruemmer, Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Kempe (RCA Victor); Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by the late Willem Mengelberg (RCA Camden); Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata and Mozart's Sonata in B Flat, K. 454, with David Oistrakh, violinist (Angel); Kirsten Flagstad in a Wagner Recital with the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Knappertsbusch (London).

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