Classical Records

Toshiro Mayuzumi: Nirvana Symphonie (Time Records). A 1958 composition in which avant-garde Japanese Composer Mayuzumi mixes orchestra and male chorus with purely electronic beeps, whistles and growls as a means of "creating my own musical Nirvana." Whatever he created (he also refers to the piece as "a sort of Buddhistic cantata"), the music is fascinating-full of swelling sonorities and eerie spatial sounds.

Moreno-Torroba: Sonatina, Nocturne, Suite Castellana (John Williams, guitar; Westminster). A remarkable young (20) Australian guitarist in three nice pieces by Spanish Composer Federico Moreno. The tones are water clear, the style one of caressing delicacy, and the whole reminiscent of a precocious Segovia, who in fact taught Williams at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana of Siena.

Victoria de los Angeles and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Duets (Gerald Moore, piano; Angel). A beautiful introduction to a part of the vocal repertory now only rarely heard in the concert hall. Purcell, Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz and Tchaikovsky are among the composers visited, and Soprano de los Angeles and Baritone Fischer-Dieskau do well by them. Pianist Moore is pictured on the album cover with his two singers, a recognition he deserves but one that he and his fellow accompanists rarely receive.

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera (Birgit Nilsson, Carlo Bergonzi, Cornell MacNeil, Giulietta Simionato, Sylvia Stahlman, Fernando Corena; Chorus and Orchestra of L'Accademia di Santa Cecilia conducted by Georg Solti; London). A rather studied approach and over-resonant sound take some of the flash out of this performance, but Soprano Nilsson and Mezzo Simionato remain joys to the ear, and Tenor Bergonzi sings with distinction.

Daniel Pollack: Piano Recital (Artia).

Another U.S. pianist who got his first big boost in Russia--a prizewinner at the 1958 competition won by Van Cliburn, followed by two generously acclaimed tours in 1959 and 1961. In his second album (recorded in Moscow), Los Angeles-born Pianist Pollack dips into Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, shows a ringing tone, a fleet touch, and a natural temper for the romantics. At 27, one of the most gifted--and least appreciated--talents around.

Gunther Schuller: Music for Brass Quintet and Fantasy Quartet for Four Celli (Composers Recordings Inc.). Composer Schuller, a onetime first-chair hornist for the Metropolitan Opera, explores the potential of brasses in a fragmented Quintet that is by turns haunted, anguished or raucously jeering. The fine Fantasy Quartet, with its dynamic rhythms and attenuated lines, finds the composer in a less ruffled but consistently moving frame of mind.

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Eileen Farrell, soprano; Carol Smith, contralto; Richard Lewis, tenor; Kim Borg, bass; the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting; Columbia, 2 LPs).

An admirable balanced reading of the Beethoven masterpiece, less densely dramatic than most, more cohesive in feeling.

Bernstein keeps orchestra, soloists and the Westminster Choir working in effort less agreement, and Soprano Farrell is in the kind of form that can melt a listener.

Maria Callas: Great Arias from French Operas (Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Franc,aise, conducted by Georges Pretre; Angel). Callas deserts the Italian roles in which she became famous for the heroines of Gluck, Bizet, Gounod, Charpentier. The voice is predictably wobbly in spots, but the interpretations are uniformly superb, suggesting that Callas may still have a new repertory to explore.

Schubert: Piano Sonata in D Major (Artur Schnabel, piano; Angel). Schnabel's Schubert was like nobody else's, and as this reissue of a 1939 recording recalls, no other reading is likely to seem right beside it.

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