New Records

Francis Hopkinson (1737-91) was a Philadelphia lawyer ("One of your pretty, little, curious, ingenious men," wrote John Adams), inventor of an improved method of quilling the harpsichord, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the first native American composer. He wrote several English-flavored songs, a quantity of church music and an "oratorial entertainment" entitled The Temple of Minerva, which his scattered fans claim as the first American opera. His most ambitious work was Seven Songs, dedicated to his old friend George Washington, who confessed that "I can neither sing one of the songs, nor raise a single note on any instrument to convince the unbelieving." Composer Hopkinson now appears on a Concord album entitled American Anthology, which takes the listener on a rambling and revealing excursion into the American musical past. Hopkinson's deferential A Toast to Washington was written to commemorate his appointment as commander in chief of the Continental Army. A watery, hymnlike piece reminiscent of O Worship the King, it is chiefly remarkable for its naive but hearty lyrics, also supplied by Hopkinson, e.g., " 'Tis Washington's health / Fill a bumper all round / For he is our glory and pride."

The album also includes such little-known 19th century works as Hans Gram's The Death Song of An Indian Chief (words by "Philenia, a lady of Boston"), John Knowles Paine's Overture to As You Like It and Overture to Mac beth by Henry Fry, who claimed that his mammoth Santa Claus symphony was the longest "unified" instrumental piece on a single subject ever written. Fascinating history, modest music.

Other new records:

Schumann: March No. 2, Op. 76; Waldszenen, Op. 82; Six Pieces from Fantasiestuecke, Op. 12 (Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Decca). Famed Russian Pianist Richter, 42, plays with an elegant cut-crystal touch that rarely blurs even in the breakneck passages. At full volume and speed, the piano geysers a language as distinctive as it is richly hued.

Schubert: The Death of Lazarus (soloists, the NDR Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra of Hamburg. Arthur Winograd conducting; M-G-M). A fine first recording of Schubert's fragmentary oratorio based on the Biblical account of the dead brother of Mary and Martha. Schubert started the work in 1820 when he was 23, abandoned it after barely starting Part II to work on The Magic Harp. Schubert's hushed, haunting melancholy shimmers in this moving performance, illuminated by the powerful NDR Chorus and the rich singing of Soprano Barbara Troxell fas Mary).

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater; Westminster, 3 LPs). Pushkin's sentimental tale of a St. Petersburg blade and his Unbeloved, given a skilled and rousing reading by Russia's leading opera group. The score displays Tchaikovsky at the top of his meltingly melancholy form. Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya is particularly fine as the lofty-souled heroine whose real-life prototype became Tchaikovsky's wife in a marriage that almost drove him to suicide.

The Restoration Sophisticate (Roger Lewis and Syd Alexander, tenors, Sanford Walker, baritone, Peter Warms, bass; Concord). A bawdy collection of the "catches" or rounds popular in 17th and 18th century England, the most famous of which was the collection called Catch That Catch Can. The melodies are meadow-fresh, the voices accurate but blurred, the lyrics explicit, e.g., "Here on his back doth lie St. Andrew keeling/ And at his feet his mournful, mournful lady kneeling / But when he was alive and had his feeling / She lay upon her back and he was kneeling."

Kathleen Ferrier: Broadcast Recital from Norway (with Phyllis Spurr, piano; London). A newly unearthed recording of a recital given by Contralto Ferrier in an Oslo radio studio before an invited audience of 250 four years before her death in 1953. The record includes English, German and Norwegian songs, all sung with restrained passion, transcribed in sumptuous sound.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Hugo Wolf Lieder (with Gerald Moore, piano; Angel). A collection of some of Wolf's most moving songs, reminiscent occasionally of Schubert, occasionally of Wagner. All of them display to perfection 32-year-old Fischer-Dieskau's dry, husky baritone and his brilliant ability to modulate the voice to moods both tragic and boisterous.

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