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RECORDS
dante, is actually jaunty in the quickened
trot to which Sir John spurs it. An odd
production which leaves the Furtwängler,
Walter, and Mengelberg editions, all with
less effective sound, still well out in front.
C. G. B.
SCHUMANN
Humoreske, op. 20 - see Liszt: Consolation
No. I; La Lugubre Gondole No.
2; Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude.
SHOSTAKOVICH
Quartets: No. 4, Op. 83; No. 5, Op. 92
Tchaikovsky Quartet (in No. 4); Beethoven
Quartet (in No. 5).
VANGUARD VAS 602I. 12 -in. $4.98.
The Fourth Quartet may be Shostakovich's
finest work in this form; it employs the
medium in a beautifully plastic and subtle
fashion, is full of delectable tunes and
coloristic devices, and handles the tradi-
tional forms in distinctive, untraditional
style. The Fifth Quartet is somewhat
showier and strains a little in the direction
of orchestral sonority, but it has one of
those gorgeously lyrical slow movements,
like those of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies,
which are among the most distinguished
specialties of the house. The
performances are very good, the recordings
mediocre. A. F.
SIBELIUS
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D
minor, Op. 47 - see Matchavariani:
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.
SIBELIUS
Finlandia - see Brahms: Academic Festival
Overture.
SIBELIUS
Symphony No. 7, in C major, Op. ros
- see Bruckner: Symphony No. 4.
Giant Scarlatti Sampler
.A. MAJOR release, from every point of
view. Kirkpatrick, probably the greatest
living authority on Scarlatti's lite and
works, here presents sixty representative
sonatas of the more than 500 that Scarlatti
wrote. To those listeners who know only
the handful of sonatas that are played for
warming -up purposes at piano recitals -
usually in a mutilated or prettified arrangement
by Tausig or Bülow - these remarkable
pieces should come as a revelation.
For they display, within a fairly stereotyped
two- section pattern, an astonishing variety
of moods and textures. Here are wild
Spanish dances, rhapsodic improvisations,
romantic serenades, passionate outbursts,
solemn processions, joyous hunting scenes,
lyric poems, all sublimated in a pure and
disciplined style. Here are toccata -like constructions
demanding the utmost in virtuosity
from the player, as well as simple
two- and three -part "inventions." In the
works from the middle and late periods, a
single "affection" does not govern a whole
piece, as in most baroque music. Instead,
there are often sudden changes of mood
within a piece. The most open diatonicism
may suddenly shift to a tight chromaticism.
As was to be expected, Kirkpatrick plays
these masterpieces with profound understanding
and impeccable technique. His
instrument, a modern one, has a lovely
tone and is capable of much more color
than those of Scarlatti's time. Sometimes,
writes Kirkpatrick, "I have followed what
seemed to me the spirit rather than the
letter, especially in those sonatas in which
it seemed that no contrast could be too
violently exaggerated, in which no poetic
suggestion seemed capable of over -realization."
The harshness and noisiness of some
left -hand forte chords are therefore probably
deliberate: in such passages Kirkpatrick
sees an imitation of the drums of
a Spanish band.
The Columbia engineers turn in a practically
perfect job of reproduction, and
there is very little surface noise. The annotations,
by the performer, which is a
guarantee of their quality, are spread over
seven sides of the four sleeves.
52
NORMAN DRISCOLL
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Many of these works (something like
one -third of them) may be found also on
the seven disks of Scarlatti sonatas recorded
by Fernando Valenti for Westminster.
Valenti, too, plays them with understanding,
sensitive musicality, and excellent
technique. I prefer the Kirkpatrick, however,
for several reasons - the Valenti style
is somewhat heavier, probably because of
his fondness for octave couplings, while
Kirkpatrick's lines are cleaner, sharper,
closer to the genius of the harpsichord; the
pairwise arrangement discovered by Kirkpatrick
is not observed by Valenti, who
almost always separates a sonata from its
partner; in two or three of the sonatas
Valenti's text differs somewhat from Kirk -
patrick's authoritative edition; and finally
I like the tone of Kirkpatrick's instrument
better than Valenti's wirier -sounding one.
This is a set you can dip into, and derive
pleasure from, for a long time to come.
NATHAN BRODER
SCARLATTI, DOMENICO
Sixty Sonatas
Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichord.
COLUMBIA SL 22I. Four I2 -in. $15.92.
SMETANA
Dalibor
tFibich: The Bride of Messina (excerpts)
Soloists, orchestra, and chorus of the Prague
National Theater, Jaroslav Kromholc, cond.
COLOSSEUM CRLP 181/3. Three 12 -in. $12.94.
This is the same performance as the Dalibor
issued by Supraphon and already reviewed
(HIGH FIDELITY, February 1955). The distinction
between the two sets is that in the
Colosseum, Dalibor has been squeezed onto
five sides, with the sixth given over to a
highlights -type excerption from Fibich's
The Bride of Messina. The previous comment
on Dalibor as a work, and as a performance,
stands; the technical variation between the
two sets is not enough to be defining.
Zdenek Fibich was born in 185o and composed
a tremendous quantity of music before
his death in 1900. Regarded as a less
significant figure in the Bohemian revival
than either Smetana or Dvofák, he was
nevertheless a gifted man and the music recorded
here, if not timeless, is not by any
means negligible. Fibich had a special interest
in the setting of words, and in this
text - based on Schiller's tragedy of fate -
he had words that called for a kind of
formal melodic setting that has at once an
almost classic purity of shape and the power
and lowering darkness of free high- tragic
declamation. The performance is one of
real drive and urgency; the singers, unnamed,
are thoroughly competent, especially the
tenor (he may be Beno Blachut, who sings
the title role in Dalibor.) The engineering,
as with the run of East- European recordings,
suffers from distortion at both ends of the
scale, but the solo voices come through
decently and the orchestra can be heard
well enough to give a good idea of the score.
There is a libretto booklet, with translation,
for Dalibor: only a synopsis, and not a
very good one, for the Fibich work. J. H., Jr.
STEIN, LEON
Three Hassidic Dances - see Ward: Symphony
No. 3.
SZYMANOWSKI
Sonata for Violin and Piano, in D minor,
Op. 9 - see Karlowitz: Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra.
TURINA
Sinfonia Serillaña - see Falla: El Sombrero
de Tres Picos(Suite of Dances)
V I V ALDI
Il Cimento dell' Armonia e dell' Invenzione,
Op. 8
Reinhold Barchet, violin; Pro Musica String
Orchestra (Stuttgart), Rolf Reinhardt, cond.
Vox DL 173. Three 12 -in. $17.85.
The stately procession of collective works
by important baroque composers recorded
by Vox continues. The twelve violin concertos
of Opus 8, published by Vivaldi
under the fanciful title The Trial of Harmony
and Invention, are, like the other sets in the
series, handsomely housed and provided
with comprehensive notes by Joseph Braunstein.
The first four of these concertos comprise
the group called The Seasons, discussed
in these pages (HIGH FIDELITY, June 1955)
HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE