The Year's Best

Among the surfeit of phonograph records that were put on the market last year, a few merit special attention. An even smaller number seem especially appropriate as Christmas gifts of music. A selective list of the year's best: Beethoven:

The Complete Piano Sonatas (Angel). Artur Schnabel's death in 1951 did not slow the growth of his reputation as a pianist. In his time, he was considered the world's only true interpreter of Beethoven, and a matchless player of Mozart, Schubert and Brahms as well. But in the age of pianistic wizardry that has followed him, he seems even more--a musician among pianists, an artist among musicians. Of his many great recordings, the chef-d'oeuvre is his collection of all 32 Beethoven sonatas, here handsomely presented in a handsomely annotated edition of 13 LPs for the handsome price of $77.98. The original recordings were made between January 1932 and November 1935, and though there are occasional lapses in pitch and sound level, Schnabel's performances are a superbly lucid treatise on grace and good humor, on dedication and scholarship.

Bach: The Six Partitas (Columbia). Glenn Gould has more love of the living than respect for the dead, and if his wry understanding of Bach is occasionally impish, it is also inspired. Here his genius conspires with his artistry, matching a deep rapport with the spirit of the sublime master's music with a lofty regard for the voice of the piano.

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (RCA Victor). Were it not for the likes of Strauss, there would be no proper use for an orchestra as mighty and glorious as the Boston Symphony Orchestra can become when Conductor Erich Leinsdorf is in a heroic mood. Here, in a beautifully recorded performance, Leinsdorf, Strauss and the B.S.O. are all at their impressive best.

Benjamin Britten: War Requiem (London). Britten conducts the Bach and Highgate school choirs and the London Symphony Orchestra (Vishnevskaya, Pears and Fischer-Dieskau, soloists) in a reverent performance.

Puccini: Tosca (RCA Victor). With Leontyne Price, Giuseppe di Stefano and Giuseppe Taddei, Conductor Herbert von Karajan has the finest Tosca cast that can be assembled today. Price surpasses Callas as the reigning Tosca, and Di Stefano and Taddei match their best past performances as Cavaradossi and Scarpia.

Wagner: Siegfried (London). Georg Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and a near-perfect cast (Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen and Joan Sutherland) in the first complete and uncut version of Wagner's magical vision of Teutonic lore.

Monk's Dream and Criss-Cross (Columbia) present Jazz Pianist Thelonious Monk and his quartet in the finest of fettle, reconsidering works from his collection of private standards. (Crepuscule with Nellie, Rhythm-a-ning, Monk's Dream) in performances that prove the immense vitality of his Monkish imagination.

Americans in Europe Vols. I and II (Impulse), is a superbly recorded account of the goings on in Koblenz, Germany, last January when 25 American jazz expatriates got together for some home cooking.

Bill Evans: Conversations with Myself (Verve) presents the most articulate and beautiful brooder in jazz, playing his inner-ear music without eavesdropping sidemen. By means of three piano sound tracks spliced together, Evans converses only with himself, and in the unique trio for jazz pianos that results, his icy musical intelligence gets a Proustian exposition.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse) is the work of anguished and angry Bassist Charlie Mingus. The music attains peaks of beauty and intrigue seldom found in jazz, and if fretful Charlie's conceptions are sometimes too obscure, the album comes complete with helpful liner notes written by his analyst.

A Kurt Weill Cabaret (MGM) faithfully captures the spirit of the-year's best tribute to Weill and his collaborators. Folk Singer Will Holt is passable, but Soprano Martha Schlamme is passionately aware of each song's message, and her singing is a dulcet expression of irony, grief and joy.

The Second Barbra Streisand Album (Columbia) is just as good as the first, which is saying plenty. Occasional wanderings over to Lena Home's turf may be quickly forgiven in eleven unusual interpretations by the most intelligent young singer around.

Bach's Greatest Hits (Philips) is a mirthful and really quite pretty collection of fugues and preludes sung in scat ("dooby-do, papa-dah") by Ward Swingle and his anything-goes chorus.

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