New Records

One of the strangest operas ever put on vinyl is Atonalist Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (Columbia, 3 LPs), which is partly a music drama based on Exodus, partly a musical essay on the nature of God. The opera's fascinating conflict develops between Moses, whose heart knows the Word his tongue cannot utter, and his brother Aron, who speaks glibly but substitutes for Moses' harsh and humble vision of God the opiate of a comforting father figure. To Aron, God is joy, to Moses He is awe. Moses' anguished faith can admit only of a God who is "omnipresent, unperceived and inconceivable.'' Aron seeks only "a vision of highest fantasy" and his quest leads to the abomination of the Golden Calf.

Schoenberg's music, at times hideously difficult, underscores the contrast: it is at its sweetest and most melodic in Act II when the people of Israel prostrate themselves before the Calf, at its harshest when Moses struggles with his hard faith. In the arguments of Moses and Aron, the brasses snarl, the chiseled strings shriek in a web of complicated polyphony. The score is made more difficult by Schoenberg's technique of interlocking choral and solo parts in an almost unintelligible cacophony. The Columbia recording (conducted by Germany's Hans Rosbaud) demonstrates that Composer Schoenberg may have been right when he noted that his opera was 50 years ahead of its time. But it also introduces listeners to a work of raw, flogging emotional power.

Other new records:

Guido Cantelli (Philharmonia Orchestra; Angel). Five months before he was killed in a plane crash in 1956, young Conductor Cantelli, No. 1 protege of the great Toscanini, spent several days recording in London. This posthumous disk presents Cantelli's remarkably fresh reading of a couple of concert cliches: Debussy's L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe Suite #2. Strained through Cantelli's clear musical consciousness, the lush music flows out simply, movingly, and with none of the sudsy emotional film that so often clouds it.

Ponchielli: La Gioconda (Anita Cerquetti, Franca Sacchi, Mario del Monaco, Cesare Siepi, Giulietta Simionato, Ettore Bastianini; conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni; London, 3 LPs). A first-rate cast gives a racy reading to Amilcare Ponchielli's old campaigner from Venice, proves that there is a lot more to it than its pop-concert Dance of the Hours. Mellow-voiced Soprano Cerquetti gives a superb performance as "the joyous female" of the title role who loses her blind mother and her lover before she plunges a dagger in her heart. Tenor del Monaco sings so gustily that he conceals the fact his Grimaldo is the most hagridden hero in opera.

Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kije (Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner; RCA Victor). The most durable of modern movie scores gets a chiseled performance by Conductor Reiner's fine orchestra, which admirably illuminates all of the music's dry wit without detracting from its romping exuberance.

Beethoven: Fidelio (Leonie Rysanek, Irmgard Seefried, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ernst Haefliger, with the Bavarian State Orchestra and Opera Chorus, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay; Decca, 2 LPs). Beethoven's only opera, which he polished and honed for nearly a dozen years ("Of all my children," he said on his deathbed, "it cost me the worst birth pangs") benefits from an artfully shaped, low-throttled performance by Conductor Fricsay and from Baritone FischerDieskau's powerfully poisonous performance as Pizzaro. Viennese Soprano Rysanek as Leonora is less successful, rarely projects the steely image of a girl prepared to beard a vengeful tyrant to save the man she loves. The recording includes the spoken dialogue, but suffers a dramatic dislocation: it is handled by actors whose characterizations often contradict those of the singers.

Goeb: Symphony #3 (Leopold Stokowski and his Orchestra; Composers Recordings, Inc.). A brisk, dissonant, polyrhythmic excursion by one of the least predictable of contemporary U.S. composers. Splashed with instrumental color, pricked by syncopation, the piece has all the bracing effect of a Finnish bath.

Puccini: Turandot (Maria Callas, Giuseppe Nessi, Nicola Zaccaria, Eugenio Fernandi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, with the La Scala Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Tullio Serafin; Angel, 3 LPs). Soprano Callas kindles Puccini's ice-edged heroine to a white-hot flame, and Tenor Fernandi cleaves the uneasy air with a voice like a broadsword. Conductor Serafin works spacious, shimmering wonders in a stunning reading of Puccini's last score.

Ives: Symphony #3 and Three Places in New England (Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Howard Hanson; Mercury). Insuranceman-Composer Charles Ives's Third Symphony lay for 35 years in his Connecticut barn before it was performed and belated" ly awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1947, seven years before he died. Shot through with snatches of Presbyterian hymns out of Ives's church-organist background, it sings with broad melody, resolves quietly and movingly in the fading sound of "distant church bells." By contrast, Three Places displays most of the characteristics--the cantankerous rhythms, log-cabin rude dissonances, bristling harmonies--that made Ives the most revolutionary and least performed American composer of his time.

Rossini: Petite Messe Solennelle (Soloists and chorus, conducted by Renato Fasano; Angel, 2 LPs). On the final page of the composition he called "the last mortal Sin of my old age," Rossini addressed his Lord: "I was born for opera buffa, as Thou knowest. Little skill and some heart, that about sums it up. Blessed be Thou and grant me Paradise." His two-hour Petite Messe often smacks more of opera stage than altar, contains some rich choral climaxes and rousing solo parts, shows more than a little skill on the part of composer and performers.

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