The Year's Best IPs

CLASSICAL

RAVEL: GASPARD DE LA NUIT; SONATINE; VALSES NOBLES ET SENTIMENTALES

(Deutsche Grammophon). In the finest piano album to result from the Ravel centenary, Argentina's Martha Argerich, 34, displays a mind that is as dexterous as her fingers.

BEETHOVEN: THE NINE SYMPHONIES (London, 9 LPs). Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra may have been made for each other, but they were also made to play Beethoven.

SCHOENBERG: PIANO MUSIC (Noncsuch). In these small pianistic jewels, which fall so easily on the ears today, Schoenberg did some of his most revolutionary writing. New York's Paul Jacobs is a master of the 20th century style.

STRAVINSKY: THE FIREBIRD (Columbia).

The complete 1910 version of this ravishing score, performed with bedazzling color and erudition by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic.

SCHUBERT: TRIOS, OP. 99 AND 100 (RCA, 2 LPs). Violinist Henryk Szeryng, Cellist Pierre Fournier and Pianist Artur Rubinstein put away their virtuoso ways to collaborate touchingly on two chamber music gems.

POP

JEFFERSON STARSHIP: RED OCTOPUS

(Grunt/RCA). A decade ago, when just a mere Airplane, the San Francisco trippers pioneered acid rock. Here is their best album in years, a free-flowing blend of rock, jazz and folk.

ART TATUM: THE TATUM SOLO MASTERPIECES (PABLO/RCA). 13 LPs, any one of which is enough to show why Tatum is called the Horowitz of jazz piano.

THE WHO: THE WHO BY NUMBERS (MCA).

The what of this album is seasoned rock mastery; the how has to do mostly with the way Drummer Keith Moon ignites Peter Townshend's wry melodies.

PAUL SIMON: STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE

YEARS (Columbia). In peak form, the noted pop balladeer comes up with tunes that are as ingratiating as ever, and introspective, melancholy lyrics.

KEITH JARRETT: THE KOeLN CONCERT

(ECM/Polydor, 2 LPs). Long, intricate piano solos give a new dimension to the old art of improvisation.

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