Records from Abroad and issues of limited availability

A Russian Sibelius cycle

Rozhdestvensky rightly enjoys a considerable reputation as a Sibelian, and the availability of his records of the seven symphonies is to be warmly welcomed. An earlier version issued in the early 1960s of the Seventh Symphony with the Moscow Radio orchestra coupled with Rakestava, called 'Love Song Suite' on both sleeve and label, and Finlandia, the latter conducted by the splendid Melik-Pashayev (MK D011339) left no doubts that he had the measure of this composer, an impression handsomely reaffirmed by the present discs, now available at C3 50 each. These readings are refreshingly free from eccentricity, and have a splendour and power that make them well worth investigation. At this stage, it may be as well to stress that both the surfaces and pressings of these Melodiya imports are altog.ther excellent, and withstand comparison with all but the very best modern discs. All seven symphonies are recorded with what is called the USSR Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra or the Moscow Radio Large Symphony Orchestra, whose brass are not the most subtle of players. Number 1 (ClO-05637-8), No. 2 (CM0I821-2) and No. 4 (CM03189-90) occupy a disc each, the numbers as usual with Soviet discs being different for each side; Nos. 3 and 5 are coupled together on one record (ClO-05639-40), and Nos. 6 and 7 on another (Cl0-05643-4). The fill-up with the Fourth Symphony is Rakastava, again called 'Love Song Suite'. With their fine Barbirolli cycle (SLS799, 12/71) and a new set from Berglund and the Bournemouth orchestra in quadraphony nearly complete, HMV are unlikely to issue these here on their Melodiya label, and though the conception in each case is magnificent, the execution is less than ideal so that some caution is in order.

Competition in the First and Second Symphonies is so strong that readers are unlikely to turn to these Melodiya discs in preference to Maazel, Berglund, Davis or Kamu in No. I, or Barbirolli, Szell, Davis and Collins in No. 2. Yet no one paces the first movement of No. 3 better than does Rozhdestvensky, nor has so fine a command of its structure. The climaxes are superbly controlled and phrases are articulated with unfailing authority and naturalness. Only the braying of the horns diminishes one's pleasure here but in other respects, this is the most classical and powerful version of the movement since Kajanus, and more commanding even than

Okko Kamu's on Deutsche Grammophon. I would not however, recommend the Rozhdestvensky in preference to the Kamu, for this young Finnish conductor brings a special authenticity of feeling to the slow movement where the great Russian conductor is a shade too brisk. Turning over this disc, the first movement of the Fifth is beautifully conceived but those who are troubled by horn vibrato will find the nobility and mystery of the very opening bars somewhat impaired. Not that vibrato is as ruinous as it was in Rbzhdestvensky's earlier record of the Seventh where the famous trombone theme fared disastrously at the hands of the Soviet player, but it is still sufficiently wanting in nobility to rob the reading of its full majesty. A pity, for make no mistake, Rozhdestvensky is among the greatest of Sibelius interpreters now before the public, and his Seventh has impressive sweep and grandeur. In the Sixth, too, he is unfailingly perceptive (occasionally a little too affectionate in his shaping of a phrase) and it is a pity that the recording tends to do less than full justice to the strings. The first desks of the first violins are all too prominent, though the cellos, I should add, have ample body and are in excellent focus. There is a want of real depth in these recordings though the acoustic itself is ample enough. I would be inclined to rate the Fourth as among the most thoughtful and deeply-felt now available; as a conception it must rank alongside the very finest (Maazel, Karajan and perhaps even Beecham). It is powerfully atmospheric and dark, tempi are sensible and generally spacious, though the orchestral playing is not quite in the same league as that of the Berlin Philharmonic for Karajan or the Vienna for Maazel. Yet despite less than ideal recording, I would turn to this in preference to Berglund, Tjeknavorian or the classic Anthony Collins account. R.L.

* * *

Twentieth Century

The balance of payments may be improving, but the import of recordings of twentiethcentury music seems to be on the increase. Their material is often not from the most exportable areas of a country's musical output, yet in the present batch there are enough occasions when the obscure turns Out to be exciting to justify their availability.

them composed between 1971 and 1974. The largest share rightly goes to two works by Richard Meale, Orenda and Coruscations, which, though separated by 12 years, both reveal a distinguished and distinctive blend of aggressive and reflective elements controlled and shaped to satisfying effect over a relatively large scale. Snowflake by Barry Conyngham is the other substantial work on the disc. The title implies a concern with crystallographic analogies, but, like so much partially electronic music, it strikes me as more concerned with diversification than with integration. Even so, the manipulation of four keyboards with occasional vocal interjections is persuasive, as is Roger Woodward's alertness and delicacy in the three shorter pieces by Alison Bauld, Anne Boyd and Peter Sculthorpe which complete this comprehensive survey of the very lively Australian scene.

Geoffrey Douglas Madge is another distinguished Australian pianist who concentrates on the modern repertory. He has recently appeared as soloist in Xenakis's Synaphai (Decca Headline HEADI3, 9/76), and now a Dutch disc (BV Haast 007) presents him in the composer's earlier concertante work Eonta and the two solo pieces Herma and Evryali. Madge approaches this fearsomely difficult music with tremendous panache, and Eonta is over a minute faster than Takahashi's version on Chant du Monde (not available in the UK). Undoubtedly the result sounds rather a scramble at times, especially in Henna, but the music is always shaped, not merely punched out, and Evryali, an exhilarating toccata-like display, which is the most immediately approachable for the listener, is a particularly valuable addition to the catalogue. All these recordings were apparently made at concerts, but I could detect no audience noise.

Another recent Headline issue (HEAD 12, 8/76) included a polished performance of Ligeti's ravishing Double Concerto for flute, oboe and orchestra. Now a Swedish disc (CRD Bis LP53, 1J389) couples a somewhat restless but vividly coloured performance of the Concerto, taken from a public concert in Stockholm, with the first recording of Ligeti's later San Francisco Polyphony, an attempt to bring a more conventionally expressionistic dramatic character into contrast with his usual sinuous contrapuntal patterns. I can't feel that this attempt succeeds—the contrast is there, but no conclusions seem to be drawn from it. Both works are excellently played by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Elgar Howarth. The second side includes Ligeti's early String Quartet No. I—a powerful, though intermittently rambling development from Bartok's more sardonic, melancholic later manner, and the short harpsichord piece Continuum.

recital by Karl-Erik Welin on CRD Caprice CAP! 108 (f389). Welin is also a composer— his String Quartet No. 2 is in the catalogue— and the feeling for traditional tonal harmony which the Quartet apparently contains comes out here in his striking realization of Enrique Raxach's graphic piece The Looking Glass. Welin displays the Lund Cathedral organ to fine effect, but he is an uncompromising player, and attention to volume control is recommended if you want to avoid structural damage to your house. His recital also includes the rather scrappy Shogaku by Bengt Hambraeus and a fanciful Beethoven tribute, for Eliza, by SvenErik Back.

I enjoyed a rather close-focused but very persuasive performance of Jan Carlstedt's String Quartet No. 3 (1967) by the Fresk Quartet on CAP1052. Carlstedt, a Swedish composer new to me, was born in 1926. His music has a flowing yet muscular lyricism which recalls Janhaek more than Bartok or Nielsen, though usually quite distantly. I would have preferred another of his quartets as coupling, since the Fresk Quartet's interpretation of Shostakovich's Eighth is strong in motive force but lacks the essential degree of brooding self-questioning.

On CRD Bis LP59, the Malmö Brass Ensemble provides a miscellany in which five short modern works are offset by some Locke. Scheidt and Gabrieli. Most welcome is the brief but wholly characteristic Fanfare for St Edmondsbury by Britten—a miniature gem. Of the other composers—Hindemith, Gail Kubik, Christer Hermansson and Raymond Premru—I particularly welcome Premru's Tissingion Variations, though it is an unusually sober piece to come from an expert brass player. The Malmo Brass Ensemble, which includes the composer Bo Nilsson as one of the trumpeters, plays attractively throughout, and the recording is effectively spacious.

In general, I've found the American records in this batch a good deal less enjoyable than those from Europe. On Composers Recordings (Rediffusion CR1 SD35I, f3.75) we have two of Ernest Bloch's least successful later works, the Suite Syrnphonique and the Symphony for trombone and orchestra, both replete with the pompous posturirtgs of one who had apparently fallen back uncritically on a supposed tradition rather than genuinely rediscovering, and so recreating it. The Portland Junior Symphony is an excellent youth orchestra, and Jacob Avshalomov is a competent conductor, though an embarrassingly fulsome sleeve-note writer.

Bloch was a good deal more successful when giving musical expression to his Jewish faith, and Ralph Shapey's oratorio Praise (Rediffusion CR1 SD355) clearly has similar intentions, with its dedication "to all descendants of Abraham, Isaac,Jacob and Moses: past, present and future, unto all eternity". If the form of that dedication suggests an unwillingness to use words concisely, the same Criticism applies to notes. Shapey was a pupil of Stephan Wolpe, yet for all its stylistic invocations of Wolpe's teacher Webern and the later Stravinsky, his music never matches their functional economy. This is a style in which 'praise' and 'protest' can sound very similar, and in spite of the evident dedication of the baritone soloist Paul Geiger and the Contemporary Chamber Players and Chorus of Chicago University under the Composer's direction, I was never involved in either the letter or the spirit of this score.

Rediffusion CR1 SD347 offers two works by Samuel Jones—Lei Us Now Praise Famous Men and Elegy—played by the Houston Symphony Orchestra under the composer. These are very local pieces, the former quoting folk hymns, but with no Ivesian eccentricities. I found it all too naïve and unimaginative to justify such lengthy treatment. Yet the more 'radical' (i.e. semialeatoric) Symphony No. 4 by Paul Cooper on the second side is even less successful, its freedoms leading to a lack of focus and a languid rhapsodizing at odds with its ultimately tonal aspirations.

A miscellaneous collection of works by New York composers on Folkways FTS33903 conveys a good deal more vitality, especially William Bolcom's Whisper Moon—a freshly turned collage in which Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise coexists contentedly with the "Abschied" from Dna Lied son der Erde—and Frederic Rzewski's three songs of 1974, political pieces which exploit a disconcerting contentment with aspects of old, 'decadent' textures as well as an effective blend of simple repetitions with ornamental counterpoints. The recorded quality is not of the best, and the disc also contains less interesting pieces by Talib Rasul Hakim and Howard Swanson, but it is the most rewarding of this American bunch.

For my coda, Elgar Howarth returns as conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra with the American flautist Louise di Tullio on Crystal S503. The main work is Ibert's Flute Concerto, which successfully resists its few tendencies to earnestness only to founder in an over-long finale. The performance is attractive, but two other recordings of the work appeared last year. Nor do the couplings add very much. Frank Martin's Ballade seems pretty routine to me, but in any case this also appeared last year on HMV ASD3 185 (7/76) as part of a complete disc of that composer's works which RL described as 'outstanding". There is also a short concerto by Milhaud's pupil Pierre-Max Dubois, which pails even as light music, especially in its damp squib of a sub-Prokofiev Gavotte.

A.W.

* * *

New repertoire from Sweden

The Bis label (distributed by CRD) is nothing if not prolific and its latest releases are for the most part as distinguished as their predecessors from the technical point of view. Having been greatly impressed by the First and Third Symphonies of Aulis Sallincn (LP4I, 3/77), 1 turned expectantly to a new record of four of his pieces including Quattro per quattro (1976) for flute, violin cello and harpsichord. Incidentally, this is a superbly balanced recording where the harpsichord really sounds in truthful perspective instead of being blown up to oversize proportions. The music is of considerable interest though I cannot say I found it even in quality. Probably the best thing is the Chamber Music II for alto flute and strings, eloquently played by Gunilla von Bahr but the strings of the Stockholm Chamber Ensemble are somewhat lacklustre. Frans Helmerson gives a masterly account of an interesting cello piece, Elegy for Sebastian Knight, inspired by the Nabokov novel. Worth investigating but go for the symphonies first (LP64, £3.89).

Two distinguished singers, Margareta Jooth and Helge Brilioth, devote a whole record (LP42) to the songs of the composer/ critic, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, a far from negligible figure. Peterson-Berger had a genuine lyrical gift and though his art is firmly rooted in nineteenth-century German Romanticism and nco-Romantic nationalism, these songs well deserve a place in the sun. Given such advocacy and excellent support from the pianist, Sven Aim, this disc should find a sympathetic response among many collectors of fine singing. The Bis label also offers an oddly planned piano recital from Hans PIsson, a gifted player (LP36). He gives sober and intelligent readings of an early Haydn sonata and the Mozart C minor Fantasia, K396. His account of the Beethoven F major Sonata, Op. 54, is thoroughly musical if a shade too cautious. It would have benefited in the first movement from a slightly faster tempo which would have lent greater sparkle and momentum. The value of the disc is enhanced by Lars-Erik Larsson's piano Concertina, a slight but attractive piece which opens with a toccata not unlike the first movement of Rawstborne's No. I. An accomplished artist who will no doubt develop a reputation outside his native country in time. Two more Larssors 'concertinos' turn up on another disc (LP40), one for flute, nicely played by the ubiquitous Gunilla von Bahr, and the other for bassoon with Knot Sønstevold as soloist. The music is charming; the coupling on the other hand is odd (the Beethoven G major Trio for flute, bassoon and piano of 1786) and the cover is kitsch, but don't be put off as the disc is worth hearing.

A new label launched by a Stockholm record dealer, Sterling, price £375, brings to the catalogue the Fourth Symphony (Sinfonia piccolo) of Kurt Atterberg, which has not been recorded since the 1930s (Berlin Municipal Orchestra under Robert Heger on Polydor 57320-22). This comes together with some other rarities (a sinfonia by Agrell, a pupil ofJ. H. Roman, Larsson's four vignettes from A Winter's Tale and an overture by Albert Henneberg), all conducted by Sten Frykberg (S1003). The Atterberg Symphony is folksy but pleasing and its slow movement has genuine substance. Number 2 is now in the catalogue and this is a most welcome successor (let us hope World Records will release Beecham's famous disc of the Sixth which won the Schubert Prize in 1928). This is a well-planned disc and admirably recorded, and if the Norrkdping orchestra is not the Vienna or Boston, discs such as these which broaden the repertoire deserve support.

Although EMI have imported a floe modern recording of Larsson's Fhrklgda' Cud ("A God in Disguise") with Caterina Ligendza, Ingvar Wixel! and (as the narrator) Max von Sydow (Swedish HMV 4E 061 35149, 12/75), the older Swedish Society version made with the same conductor (Stig Westerberg) and the youthful Elisabeth Sdderströni is now back in circulation coupled with a Grieg rarity, Landkjenning, Op. 31 (Rediffusion Swedish Discofil SLT33146, f375). For all its debt to Nielsen and its moments of naivety, the Larsson work has a certain charm and though the recording is not as fresh or well-detailed as the EMI, the performance is full of personality. R.L.

* * *

Organ

Calliope (distributed by CRD) have issued a number of records featuring André Isoir in the French organ repertory, but this is the first time I have heard him playing Bach (CAL 1717 -18,/,3-89). Isoir, a laurea teof both the St Alban's and Haarlem Festivals (at which he was the only Frenchman to have won the Prix de Challenge for improvisation), is a Bach player of the highest order. He is not one of the contemporary speed merchants who rattle along at such a pace that one cannot hear the detail; every piece is perfectly shaped and the interplay of the counterpoint illuminated with brilliant clarity. His approach is so fresh that one hangs entranced on every note as if discovering Bach for the first time. Moreover, he can phrase with his feet.

His instrument is a classical-style two-manual in the church of Saint-Lambert d'Aursch rather reminiscent in layout to the new Phelps organ in Hexham Abbey. The two records under review are Nos. 17 and 18 in an evidently long-running series so that Isoir is well into the masterworks of the late Leipzig period—such as the great Preludes and Fugues in E minor and B minor (BWV548 and 544) and the two Preludes and Fugues in C (the Meistersinger, BWV547 and BWV545) as well as the earlier G minor Fantasy and Fugue. There are several rarities, however, that call for mention. Between the two movements of the C major Prelude and Fugue, the Largo of the Fifth Trio Sonata gives him an opportunity for some singing contrasting effects. His ability to distil Bach's chamber-music style on the organ is heard again in the nimble Trio in G major (BWV1027a) derived originally from the G major Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord and transcribed for two flutes and con tinuo before being recast for the organ. I do not know how many listeners will wish to pay Q.78 even for two records of such superlative quality, but in this case they need not be deterred by the dense undergrowth of French verbiage on the sleeve-note, since the works offered are for the most part well-known although rarely so splendidly played as by Isoir.

The remaining records in this mixed bag are not quite of this calibre although they include some interesting releases. Of more than regional appeal is an Exon Audio record by David Ponsford on the new organ in Wells Cathedral (EAS2I, /2.60). New mixtures, revoiced reeds, anew nine-stop positive organ, the addition of a cornet, and new sesquialtera and tierce ranks has made the instrument infinitely more responsive to the repertory of all schools of organ composition than its predecessor, and it is housed in a handsome new case donated by Friends of the Cathedral. Ponsford, who studied with Hurford, Rogg and Kee, and was given full rein by Anthony Crossland, the Cathedral organist, puts it through its paces in fine style. He shows it to be versatile enough to give bite to Buxtehude, Bach and Clérambault, bland and withdrawn in Howells's little masterpiece, Master Talus's Testament, and with ample fire and brilliance in reserve for Messiaen's Dieu parmi nous and the Langlais Te Dewn. An informative booklet comes with the record.

Cathedral Recordings (distributed by CRD, price 325 per disc) have come back into the lists with two reissues (admittedly available previously for a very short time) and one new disc. I have a particular affection for Brian Runnett's playing the Reger Seven Pieces, Op. 145 in Norwich Cathedral in 1968 (CRMS857), his last record I think. Reger, who died in 1916, wrongly assumed that the Germans would win the 1914-18 war, and wrote a Siegesfeier as a premature victory celebration, which for some years was deleted from the series. The juxtaposition of Nun danket and the Austrian National Anthem (Haydn's tune) is straightforward in concept but electrifying when played with the panache Runnett brings to it. I visited his organ loft a few months before he was killed in a car crash and he amiably dug Out the Siegesfeier in photostat manuscript and 'bashed through it' (as he put it) after Evensong. Characteristically, he then left me alone to explore the large organ for myself.

Of the same vintage is Nicolas Kynaston playing Alain and Langlais at Buckfast Abbey (CRMS858). By 1968 the remodelling of the organ by Ralph Downes had been completed and it gives a good account of itself. All the Alain has been previously recorded, mostly by his sister Marie-Claire, but it is convenient to have all the pieces on one disc, particularly with o sympathetic a player as Kynaston at work. I snjoyed particularly the exotic and oriental facets of Alain's musical personality in Dear danses a Agni rarih,a (the Hindu god of fire).

The new Cathedral disc features Alastair Sampson playing Vierne's Third Symphony on the Hill organ in Eton College Chapel (CRMS863). Since John Stainer and Frederick Bridge were his great grandfathers, Sampson can hardly avoid being a good organist. With its dense English sound and a 32-foot front, the Eton instrument is not the easiest one on which to play and record Vierne, but Sampson gives an admirable performance, particularly of the middle Intermezzo, which requires three-part (and even one four-part) chords on the pedals and a speed slow enough to let the detail be heard without losing the lilt of the dance. In order to get the best sound, David Woodford took one of the slabs out of the chapel roof and suspended a microphone 20-feet down. The result justifies his ingenuity. All three records include a detailed description and photographs of each organ. S.W.

Choral

Back again in the West Country, Dudley Holroyd directs an agreeable programme of choral and organ music from Bath Abbey, with Marcus Scaly as accompanist (Crescent ARS 107, £280). The choir deploys a wide repertory, ranging from Palestrina and Byrd to canticle settings by Ireland and Murrill, with romantic music represented by Bruckner's dramatic Christus factus est. Holroyd plays organ solos by Murrill and Andriessen, and the recital ends with some fine singing in the hymn Fill Thou my life to the famous tune Richmond (written by Thomas Haweis, who is buried in the Abbey). S.W.

* * * Piano and chamber music

Was Saint-Saens, to reverse Gerald Abraham's pert dictum, the Benjamin Britten of the nineteenth-century? I am willing to rate him somewhat higher myself; and certainly two new ORD imports suggest that we should not be too off-hand. On Calliope CAL 1858 (3.89) Annie d'Arco, who has already placed us in her debt by recording much neglected French piano music for this adventurous label, performs the Etudes Opp. 52 and Ill, which date respectively from 1877 and 1899. Saint-Saeris was a brilliant pianist, and these dozen pieces presumably reflect the character of his own playing, the music being well-bred, charming, of faultless workmanship—qualities that are not always appreciated at their true worth now. Indeed, only the last number of Op. 52, an "Etude en forme de valse", is ever heard at recitals, although these two sets, along with the Op. 135 Etudes for left hand, are worthy forebears of Debussy's great Etudes.

In the two Cello Sonatas Opp. 32 and 123, which date from 1872 and 1905, Miss d'Arco is joined by André Navarra (CAL 1818), and these pieces also, if rarely met in British concert halls, prove to be very much alive. Excellently recorded, like the other Calliope discs considered here, this music shows the facility, unflagging invention, and sense of instrumental style that were customary with Saint-Saëns but had comparatively few parallels in the French music of his time. Sonata No. 2 is the more impressive, yet is it possible that Brahms had the slow movement of No. I at the back of his mind when he wrote the Adagio of his own Op. 99 Sonata? The resemblance is clear but it seems unlikely this music's remoteness from Germanic turgidity is not the least of its attractions.

Obviously the same is true of Debussy's work, though, with the selection of chamber music played by young Scandinavi%n artists on CRD Bis LP28 (3.89) we are back on familiar ground. In fact the catalogue already lists several fine versions of the Violin and Cello Sonatas, of Syrinx, and even of En blanc et noir. Debussy collectors should note, however, that this disc carries the only current recording of his remarkable Trois Ballades tie Frangois Villon (1910), sensitively interpreted by Erik Saeden accompanied by Hans Palsson. Very different from his settings of, say, Verlaine or Baudelaire, these are spare, archaic, dramatic, and the second, "Ballade que Villon feit a la requeste de sa mere pour prier Notre-Dame", has always seemed to me especially moving; it catches what James Harding has called "the bleak midwinter of medieval poverty", echoing the desolate atmosphere of Satie's early piano music.

And just as Debussyites may want to get the Villon Ballades on to their shelves, so Dvoltmák collectors should note the Talich Quartet's recording of the Quartet Op. 61, the only one available, backed with the more familiar Op. 96 (Calliope CAL] 617). The earlier work is among the most 'classical'—as opposed to nationalist—of DvoMk's scores, although there is just a hint of Wagner in the opening theme. This melody in turn relates to the Scherzo's main idea, and another kind of cross-reference appears in the Poco adagio, which employs a superior variant of the chief melody from the slow movement of Dvoi'ák's Violin Concerto. Both Opp. 61 and 96 receive fine performances from an ensemble previously unknown to me.

The latter work is usually dubbed the American Quartet, but real American chamber music, though of low quality, is found on a Composers' Recordings disc (Rediffusion CR1 SD353, 3.75). The players—Rosemary Catanese, Berl Senofiky and others—are expert though, again, unknown to me, and the recording is superb. But Richard Franko Goldman's Sonata for two clarinets (1945) is nothing more than acceptable practice material, his Violin Sonata (1952) more strenuous yet just as impersonal. Vincent Persichetti's Parable (1969) engages one's attention a little more because music for solo bassoon is rare (but am I the only person who remembers Arcady Dubensky's Fugue for eight bassoons?). M.H.

* * * Strauss v. the publishers

The most important of six imported and other records available only to special order contains Richard Strauss's ICramerspiegel, Op. 66, written in 1918 in a fit ofpique against music publishers, to the texts by the satirical critic Alfred Kerr. In his indispensable and definitive three-volume biography of the composer, Norman Del Mar describes it as "one of the most extraordinary works in the field of song" and describes its genesis in detail far too involved to repeat here. Suffice it to say that while it is not among the composer's most inspired pieces, it is one that has much to commend it in the way of selfparody—many appropriate quotations from the tone poems and from Rosenkavalier in the lampooning of the publishers—and several passages, in particular the long, Schumannesque interlude before the eighth (of twelve) song, that add something to our knowledge of Strauss's abilities.

So hats off to the Norwegian baritone Knut Skram (known to Glyndebourne audiences for his lively Figaro and Guglielmo) for introducing it to the catalogue. He sings it with a good deal of wit, though not enough vocal colouring, and is keenly partnered by Eva Knardahl on CRD Bis LP49 (3.89) There is also room on the disc for several Grieg songs, some of them also new to the UK catalogue, all worth hearing. These include Den Bergtekne, a short cantata for baritone, two horns and strings. Skram naturally enough, sounds even more at home here, and his performances of the beautiful "Ragna" from Op. 44 and the haunting "By a river" from Op. 33 are sensitive to every nuance of text and music. There are just a few signs of his tone becoming tight when he exerts pressure on it.

That is also a fault in the singing of a very different kind of baritone Jacques Herbillon, a typical baryton-martin with a tenor timbre but baritone range. FA didn't care much for his singing in Calliope's set of all Fauré's songs (CAL1844-6, 5/76). 1 much enjoyed his disc of Ravel songs (CRD CAL 1856, 3.89), where his account of Histoires naturelles surpasses any I have heard in its subtle response to these most subtle of songs. Also admirable is his suggestion of inebriation in the last of the Don quichotte songs, but it is true to say that he hardly has the depth of tone for "Chanson épique" or the intensity for the Dear melodies hdbraiques. In some lesser-known songs, particularly "Sur l'herbe" and "Rêves", his sympathetic and idiomatic approach can hardly be faulted, nor can that of his excellent pianist, Theodore Paraskivesco.

In a Duparc recital, Herbillon's deficiencies are more obvious. He nearly always observes the gospel according to Bernac in his book on the interpretation of French song, recently reissued by Victor Gollancz, but the vocal warmth and sensuousness are lacking. Still his performances of Phydilé and Soupir, two of the greatest of Duparc's meagre but treasurable opus, are really remarkable, intelligence and artistry triumphing over the lack of a really beautiful tone. The first begins objectively, then rises to its sensual climax, the other is all sighing sadness. I see Bernard Kruysen's versions of the same songs have just appeared (Telefunken AS6 42113, 5/77) and been acclaimed by FA. They are probably the safer recommendation. What is certain is that these melodies should be in everyone's collection. Au pays ofs sefait la guerre is anonymously sung by Jacqueline Sternotte. Chantal Debuchy is Herbillon's sympathetic and perceptive partner (CALI80I).

A third Calliope disc (CAL 1850) brings us another baritone, Bruno Laplante, in a group of Gounod songs that partially overlaps with Souzay's recent disc (HMV ASD3083, 9/75). Laplante, a French-Canadian, has a timbre remarkably similar to Souzay's, but he is not half so imaginative an interpreter with the result that Gounod's in any case not very varied style is made to seem even more monotonous. But specialists will want the few songs new to the catalogue, and they will find Laplante, as FA described him in the companion disc of Massenet songs (CAL 1830, 12176), a warm and expressive singer. The recorded sound on all these Calliope discs is forward and immediate. Surfaces are exemplary in their quietness.

I wish I could say some similarly flattering things about a record by a British artists. Paul Wade's tenor sounds like a pale reflection of Pears's. His intonation and control are wayward, and he makes little of an imaginatively planned recital of Shakespeare settings by Quilter, (whose centenary it is this year) Finzi and Korngold, whose songs from Twelfth Night are rewardingly lyrical. This is the first issue of a company called Look Records (LK/LP7-6125). A.B.

Fritz Neumeyer collection of keyboard instruments

My first six records are all played on 'historic' instruments, and the first four come from the German firm Toccata and cost L399 each. Renate Hildebrand (FSM53 615) sounds equally at home in Handel's fine C minor Oboe Sonata (Op. 1 No. 8) as in a charming one for recorder by Barsanti, another foreigner who spent his working life in Britain (he became interested in Scottish songs). She shows good technique in Telemann's Trio No. 12 for oboe, harpsichord obbligato and continuo, and she also plays a not-too-interesting Oboe Duo by Christoff Schaifrath who worked for Frederick the Great.

Rolf Junghanns plays Bach on a clavichord made in 1772 by C. G. Hubert, a Pole who worked in Bayreuth and Anspach (FSM53 619). In the French Suite in G he shows charm and some animation, but seems rather plodding in the Capriccio on the departure of a dear brother (though the Lament is nicely expressive) and is much too slow in the B flat Prelude and Fugue from Book 1 of the 48 which surely demands some brilliance even on the clavichord. He also plays the C major Prelude and Fugue from the same book.

On FSM53 622 Junghanns is joined by Bradford Tracey (Miss Hildebrand's harpsichordist) and on harpsichords made recently in Paris in the style of Blanchet instruments of around 1730 they play Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's Concerto a duoi cembali concertanti in F (a fine vigorous finale), four pieces by C. P. E. Bach (W 115), and J. C. Bach's Sonata in G, Op. 15 No. 5 (good but probably meant for pianos; the sleeve-note never mentions England and implies it was written in Italy). You cannot distinguish the players stereophonically but quality and playing are excellent, and there is an unexpected bonus: 14 half-minute canons by Johann Sebastian. They've only just come to light, all on one page at the back of his own copy of the published Goldberg Variations, and the page is reproduced usefully though not clearly on the sleeve. Only two were known before (see The Bach Reader pp. 177 and 180). All are built on the bass of the Goldberg "Aria" or its inversion. You would expect ingenuity; it's the delightful prettiness that astonishes.

Youthful Junghanns is joined by elderly Fritz Neumeyer himself in Mozart's Sonatas in D and C major (K381 and 521) and Variations (K501) for piano duet (FSM53 611). Each work is recorded on a different fortepiano, all strong in the middle and lower registers, with a soft pedal used for echo effects and a rather jangling but agreeable quality. The unsigned instrument used for the marvellous C major has an unpleasant resonance around D in the middle of the bass stave. The Variations, K50 1, are played on a Stein piano of 1785 (they include a deeply emotional variation in G minor) and the early sonata on a Fichtl of about 1795. A most enjoyable record. R.F.

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Metropolitan Museum of Art 'Historic' instruments from America on two Pleiades discs costing $795. The first, numbered P104, offers three Mozart violin sonatas (K376 in F major, K304 in E minor and K380 in E flat major) played by Sonya Monosoff on a Stradivarius daringly restored with gut strings anda short neck and Malcolm Bilson on a fortepiano by Johann Schmidt or his master Andreas Stein. It sounds quite different from the Stein used on the previous disc; the tone is cleaner and rather tinkling and there is no jangling, yet somehow the Neumeyer piano has more quality. Perhaps I was influenced by the players' not fully projecting the music; they sound rather dull.

On exactly the same fortepiano James Bonn projects C. P. E. Bach's Sonata in A major, W48, very well indeed (P105). On a Kirkman harpsichord he also accompanies David Hart in two flute 'solos' by the same composer (W124 and 134) and, astonishingly, plays on the oldest surviving fortepiano, a Cristofori of 1720, a sonata of 1732 by Giustini, the first man ever to write for this instrument. Alas, you cannot believe your ears. The instrument has been rebuilt many times and it is very hard to accept that it started life with so smooth a tone; if it had, it would have caught on quicker. Even so, it's something. to think about. R.F.

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Modern instruments

Ingo Goritzki plays two dubious and overrecorded oboe concertos attributed to Mozart and Haydn accompanied by Paul Angerer and the South-West German Chamber Orchestra of Pforzheim on CRD Claves D606 (3.89) The Mozart, discovered in 1920, is a transposed arrangement of the D major Flute Concerto with emendations in the solo part that can hardly be Mozart's. The gimmick here is that the oboist plays the genuine flute part a tone down. Well, perhaps it was worth it. Certainly the playing is good and the 'Haydn' pretty.

Two young Swedes, Solveig and Bertil Wikman, offer "Four Centuries Of Keyboard Music", hardly any of it in the British catalogue, on Sterling S1001-2 (two records, nas, L598). They share the piano solos and unite for the two piano duets. I did not miss the harpsichord in Sweelinck's lovely Mein junges Leben hat ein End but the Scarlatti Sonatas Kk27 and 491 really don't work on a piano, especially as played here with Romantic rubato. Solveig Wikman makes Beethoven's maligned Fantasie,

Op. 77, sound convincing for once, and her husband mounts a brave attack on three Liszt transcriptions, including his last of Saint-Saens's Dance macabre (1876). This must be a devil to play. The other transcriptions are of Paganini's La Campanella and Mendelssohn's Wings of Song. Solveig Wikman fills the fourth side with eight thoughtful Preludes Frank Martin wrote for Dinu Lipatti in 1948; he died before he could play them publicly. For me the most interesting item was Hummel's Piano Duet Sonata in A flat, Op. 92, the first movement splendidly serious and Beethoven-ish, the short slow one a bit sanctimonious and the last a charmer. Difficult music but played with panache and understanding. The other piano duet is a set of Quadrilles that sound as though they'd dropped Out of some ballet of the Giselle period; they were written in his early days by Bruckner, and he'd have burnt them had it ever crossed his mind that they might ever be revived. Recording quality fair (some crackles and one bit of background hum) to excellent. R. F.

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National Trust "Music For The Vyne" (National Trust, NT002, 230—available from shops at the Trust's major properties) is not strictly accurate as none of the music can be connected with the lovely early Tudor country house named in the title, and the recording was not made there. The record is the first in a series supposedly appropriate to various houses in the Trust's possession and the programme is more or less the same as one given at The Vyne in July last year. The King's Musick perform extremely well throughout the record with particularly fine violin playing from Catherine Mackintosh and Duncan Druce, keyboard playing from Nicholas Kraemer and singing from Paul Elliott. Covering an easily palatable selection of music, mostly English, stretching over some 250 years, the programme is perhaps more appropriate to a concert than a record: the first side, devoted largely to sixteenthcentury music, seems particularly well suited to the arguments of those who consider all Renaissance music to comprise a series of unrelated trivial snippets; the second side fares better, including fine songs by the two Lawes brothers and Arne, together with more substantial pieces by Jenkins and Boyce. The recording quality and particularly the performances are excellent throughout. DAVID FALLOWS.

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Details of availability

BV Haast—BV Haast, Tweede Osterparkstraat 243, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

CRD—Continental Record Distributors Ltd., Lyon Way, Rockware Avenue, Greenford, Middx. UB6 OBN.

Crescent—Avon Recording Services, 6 Camden Crescent, Bath, BA1 5HY.

Crystal—Crystal Record Company, P0 Box 65661, Los Angeles, California 90065, USA. Folkways—Folkways Records, 43 West 61st Street, New York, N.Y. 10023, USA.

Look—Look Records, 209 Denby Dale Road, Wakefield, Yorks, WF2 7AJ.

MK—Collet's International, 129-131 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H OEQ.

Pleiades—Southern Illinois University Press, P0 Box 3697, Illinois 62901, USA.

RCA VRL1—No UK distributor; enquiries should be directed to Australian Broadcasting Commission, 54 Portland Place, London Wi. Rediffusion—Rediffuslon Records Ltd., 19 RamIlles

Place, London Wi.

Sterling—Henry Stave and Co., 11 Great Marlborough Street, London Wi.

Swedish HMV—EMI Import dealers. Toccata—Cambridge Music Shop, All Saints' Passage, Cambridge, C132 3LT.