New Records

New Records For more than a year, Haydn Society musicologists have been busy preparing the score of Haydn's last and never staged opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, for recording--with the society's energetic young (25) H. C. Robbins Landon promising that it would "hold its own alongside Mozart's Don Giovanni" (TIME, Dec. 25). Record buyers last week could judge Landon's estimate for themselves. The society's complete recording of Orfeo, with six soloists and the Vienna State Opera chorus and orchestra under Hans Swarowsky, made six fascinating LP sides.

Unlike Gluck's Orfeo, which is sung by a contralto, Haydn's hero is a tenor. Like Gluck, Haydn saves his most compelling music for Orfeo to sing in Hades, but neither of the lovers is allowed to return to earth. Altogether, Haydn's Orfeo is closer in style to Don Giovanni than to Gluck. It has some of the Don's power and beauty, if not its delightful variety. Performance and recording: good.

Other new records:

Bartok: Sonata No. 1 (Isaac Stern, violin; Alexander Zakin, piano; Columbia, 2 sides LP). Making his Bartok bow on records, Fiddler Stern gets forcefully to the heart of this difficult sonata (1921) without losing his beautiful tone. Recording: excellent.

Berg: Sonata, Op. 1 (Benjamin Tupas, pianist; Lyrichord, 1 side LP). This early work, composed a dozen years before Wozzeck, is full of powerful expressiveness without the contorted effects that came later. Well played by a young Filipino pianist. Recording: good.

Bizet: Carmen (Raoul Jobin, tenor; Solange Michel, soprano; Michel Dens, baritone; Marthe Angelici, soprano, and others; chorus and orchestra of the Paris Opera-Comique, with Andre Cluytens conducting; Columbia, 6 sides LP). Soprano Michel lacks the fire to make the title role burn as it should, but the performance as a whole is excellent and so is the recording.

Foss: The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Burton Trimble, tenor; Ruth Biller, soprano; Paul Ukena, bass-baritone, and others; Frederic Kurzweil, pianist; Lyrichord, 2 sides LP). Brilliant young (28) Lukas Foss's adaptation of Mark Twain makes Foss look like one of the brightest hopes of American opera. Well done by the enterprising After Dinner Opera Co. cast which gave the work its Manhattan premiere (TIME, June 19), The Frog even jumps smartly on records. Recording: good.

Hindemrrh: Symphony in E Flat (Janssen Symphony Orchestra, Werner Janssen conducting; Columbia, 2 sides LP). Composed in 1940, this symphony does not add much to what its composer said earlier in Mathis der Maler (1934), or to the way he said it. Performance and recording: good.

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (Rise Stevens, mezzo-soprano; Robert Merrill, baritone; the Robert Shaw Chorale, the RCA Victor Orchestra, Robert Russell Bennett conducting; Victor, 2 sides LP). Highlights, including Summertime, My Man's Gone Now, I Got Plenty o' Nuttin' and It Ain't Necessarily So. Performance and recording: good.

Mozart: Concerto in B Flat, K. 595 (Andor Foldes, pianist, with the Pro Musica Orchestra, Arthur Goldschmidt conducting; Vox, 2 sides LP). The last of Mozart's two dozen piano concertos, written in the year of his death (1791). Pianist Foldes plays it cleanly and with restraint. The orchestra is not quite so considerate. Recording: good.

Puccini: The Girl of the Golden West (Carla Gavazzi, soprano; Ugo Savarese, baritone; Vasco Campagnano, tenor, and others; chorus and orchestra of Radio Italiana, Arturo Basile conducting; Cetra-Soria, 6 sides LP). Puccini's "western" may have been rip-roaring stuff at its premiere at the Met in 1910, with Caruso singing and Toscanini conducting, but it sounds pretty flat now. Performance and recording: good.

Verdi: Nabucco (Paolo Silveri, baritone; Cabriella Gatti, soprano; Caterina Mancini, soprano; Mario Binci, tenor, and others; orchestra and chorus of Radio Italiana, Fernando Previtali conducting; Cetra-Soria, 6 sides LP). Verdi's third opera, but the first to win him international fame. Composed when he was 29, Nabucco (short for Nebuchadnezzar) has much of the rousing spirit and power of Aida and Otello. Performance and recording: excellent.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.