Spinning Statistics

Just ten years ago, 340 singers of classical song were pleased to find their names in the roomy pages of a catalogue called the Schwann Artist Listing, which named all available LP phonograph records according to performer, from Licia Albanese to Silvana Zanolli. Many of the 340 have long since been weeded away, but in the new Artist Issue out this month, 97 squinty-type pages are devoted to the recordings of 2,330 singers, from Bruce Abel to Erich Zur Eck.

The vinyl age that has produced such a blossoming has as its sole historians Cataloguer William Schwann and his three assistants. The earnest list makers also publish a monthly catalogue of recorded music; most issues contain about 500 new releases, and record buyers feel understandably anachronistic if they own anything older than last month's book. But the nature and scope of the revolution in musical taste are best seen in the Artist Issue, which Schwann first published in 1953 and has put out five times since. It is a revolution of expanded taste as much as refined taste and the musicians' accomplishments, so far as Schwann is concerned, have strictly numerical value. A good recording gets the same credit a bad one does, just as an entire opera is accorded no more space than Great Themes from Old Vienna. Comparisons between the last two issues show:

sbSINGERS. Joan Sutherland, Birgit Nilsson and Leontyne Price had only twelve listings among them three years ago; now they have 53, one less than Renata Tebaldi has all to herself. Tebaldi is still the most recorded soprano, but Elisabeth Schwarzkopf is gaining fast and will soon pass her. Maria Callas, who has not done much singing from opera house stages in the past three years, has had eight new recordings issued anyway. Rudolf Schock made the biggest gain among tenors (14 to 38), but it must give him an edgy feeling to see that Enrico Caruso, silent these many years, is right behind him, having posthumously grown in popularity from 20 to 36, thanks to reissues of old recordings. Mario Del Monaco is the most recorded tenor with 39, Fernando Corena the most recorded basso (38), and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with an astonishing jump from 46 to 82 recordings, the busiest baritone.

sbINSTRUMENTALISTS. Of the 1,213 instrumental soloists Schwann lists, most are pianists (452), but curiosity seekers may dig out the name of Bruno Hoffman--the one and only glass harmonica virtuoso. Along with lonely exponents of the virginal, the psaltery and the oboe d'amore, there are 166 violinists, 88 organists, 73 harpsichordists, 64 flautists and 56 cellists listed, each count a statistical gain over 1960. Walter Gieseking and Sviatoslav Richter are the leading pianists, with 46 recordings each; Richter had only 19 three years ago, and, having made the biggest jump of any instrumentalist, he is now being denounced as a musical prostitute for turning out such a long and uneven list of recordings. David Oistrakh is beginning to slip from record shelves, but with 70 of his recordings available, he still has nearly twice as many as Jascha Heifetz, the next most popular fiddler. E. Power Biggs leads the organists, and the cellist with the largest recorded repertory is Janos Starker.

sbCONDUCTORS. In 1953, 468 conductors could be heard directing 304 orchestras; now there are 903 conductors for 590 orchestras. Eugene Ormandy, with 144 recordings (mostly with his own Philadelphia Orchestra), is the leading conductor, but Antal Dorati, with 48 recordings in the last three years, is coming up fast and now has 126. Other conductors who have added appreciably to their recorded repertory are Leonard Bernstein, Otto Klemperer, George Szell and Robert Whitney, whose Louisville Orchestra is the most devoted recorder of contemporary music in the U.S.

sbORCHESTRAS. Despite the new prominence of American symphony orchestras, the groups with the longest string of recordings are all European--more of a testament to the economic attraction of making records in Europe than to a demand for European excellence. The Vienna State Opera Orchestra and London's Philharmonia Orchestra have nearly 400 recordings between them, almost as many as the top four American orchestras together. In the U.S., the leading recording orchestra is the Philadelphia with 148; New York has 132, Minneapolis 83, Chicago 67, Detroit 60, Boston 52, and Cleveland 49. All this adds up to good news for music, but the most meaningful statistic of all is strictly for businessmen. The first Schwann catalogue listed eleven record-company labels devoted to classical music. The new one lists 733.

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