CORONATION PAGEANT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 743, 9 October 1953, Page 20

CORONATION PAGEANT

A monthly -réeview by

OWEN

JENSEN

4c NGLISH composer — no composer" is an old jibe that now seems to be a thing of the past; but so for that matter is the new English musical renaissance. The English composer, today, must stand on his own feet. Decca has given him a further opportunity to strengthen his reputation with an issue of Coronation discs. None of the music is new, but some of it is unfamiliar. At the ‘head of the list comes Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony. Written in 1922, this is its ‘first recording. The playing of the Longor Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult is fine and the singing of Margaret Ritchie in the last movement very charming (Decca LXT 2787). This symphony represents the Vaughan Williams of The Lark Ascending. A different aspect of his work comes in the long overdue recording of the Mass in G Minor, sung by the Fleet Street Choir under T. B. Lawrence (Decca LXT 2794). This is strangely magnificent "music that does not woo the ear but nevertheless reaches: down to the depths of. the heart. Paired with the Vaughan Williams Mass is Missa in Honorem Sancti Dominici, by Edmund Rubbra. I find Rubbra more convincing here than ‘in the symphony recently recorded, yet his tendency to shift his ground from astringent austere harmonies to a Brahmsian conservatism without apparent provocation can be, for me at least, somewhat irritating. Both works are sensitively sung. No Coronation pageant would be com: plete, of course, without a slice of Elgar served with just a little sugar. Sir Malcolm Sargent, with the London SympHony Orchestra presents the Enigma Variations (Decca LXT 2786) without the sugar, a:little stolidly and seemingly reluctarit .to yield wholeheartedly to Elgar’s romantic’ sentiments, Nevertheless. this Enigma has moments of real beauty. The recording is technically good. The Suite of Dramatic Music of Purcell, which fills up what remains of the second side, includes the air made famous by Benjamin Britten in his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Even after Albert Coates’s editing, Purcell, weight for weight, comes off best beside Elgar. The Cofonation issue is topped off with a brilliant performance of Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, and Warlock’s Capriol Suite, both played by the Boyd Neel Orchestra (Decca LXT 2790). While this Coronation music includes nothing new or startling, the high standard of both playing and recording of music that comprises far more than period pieces, makes oné or all of the discs present and future collector’s items. By the way. if you want a Coronation souvenir, Oriole records (MG 20003) have a disc which: includes the main points of the ceremony. Passages from the 18th Century The light that glistens on the horizons of the 18th Century is not always a golden one. One of the duller patches is to be found on a disc of instrumental music which includes concertos (18th Century type) by Alessandro Scarlatti, Tartini.. Vivaldi and a Sonata fot Strings by Albinoni (Brunswick AXTL 1004). The playing of the Virtuosi di

Roma conducted by Renato Fasano tends to be dry and prim, and is not always rhythmically precise enough to bring this music (some of it a trifle desiccated) alive. A conicetto for ‘cello, strings and harpsichord by Vivaldi is the pick of the bunch. Turn, however, to Gerard Souzay (baritone) singing atias by Mozart, A. Scarlatti, Lully, Gluck and Rameau’ (Decca LX 3112) and you have some of the best of the 18th €entury. The accompaniment of L’Orchestre dé la Sociétié des Concerts du Conservatoire dé Paris enhances the sifiging. The rediscovered music of Vivaldi is treasufe trove indeed. The Red Priest is always irrepressibly the livé spark. His setting of the Gloria for chorus, soli, orchestra and organ is one of the month’s most. exciting performances. Pierrette Alarie (soprano), MarieTherese Cahn (contralto), with the Ensemble Voca| de Paris conducted by André Jouve (Ducretet-Thomson LPG 8556) recapture the lively spirit of’ the music. The well-known Exultate jJubilate, of Mozart, which occupies the reverse side seems, despite some bright singing by PierretteAlarie, quite sedate beside the Vivaldi. Altogether different from the Mozart and Vivaldi is Haydn’s Missa Cellensis in C-and a different matter from the Vaughan Williams and Rubbra Masses, too. It is performed by the Kademie Chorus of Vienna, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and soloists conducted by Dr. Hans Gillesberger (Nixa HLP 2011). This is a virile interpretation of vigorous and beautiful music-a little too consistently virile perhaps. What may be tape flutter imparts a wobble to some of the singing. Joyous Music When you're tired ‘of listening with your head or your heart you can always listen with your. feet. Music, not for thinking about or wallowing fh, but for sheer joy, is hard to write, usually hard to perform, and quite hard to come by. Schubert’s Trout Quintet surely. comes in this category. The performance by Members of the Vienna Octet with Walter Panhoffer (piatio) (Decca LXT 2533) does not realise all the furi of this music but, despite a sometimes overmodulated bass part, this is pleasant playing. Some of my friends tell me that Brahms’s © Liebeslieder Waltzes should come utider this heading, too. Personally, I find Brahms’s somewhat heavyhanded good humour a little soggy. This is no fault of the Roger agnet Chorale, and ‘pianists Elaine Heckman and Beryl Lee, who make the best’ of the music 7028). The erg Tears g Chorale. meld, F nb abes side, sing some unaccomr erman folk songs) A™~ pares Celebrated Louis Spohr (1784-1859) is described on the record cover as to its last movement, as coming "as near to farce as instrumental music can," =e indulging in "riotous humour." Maybe, but don’t expect it to be Laurel and Hardy. stuff. This is sedate 19th Century humour, innocuous .and inoffensive-but some really smart wind playing by members of the Vienna Octet, with J. Nieder-

mayr (flute) and Karl Mayrhofer (oboe) (Decca LXT 2782). e If you want the tops in joyous music, acquire for yourself the first and second New Year’s Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Clemens Krauss (Decca LXT 2645 and 2755). On these two discs Johann and Joseph Strauss with their waltzes and polkas present music whose rhythmic verve is the very essence of the Viennese spirit. This music will get you by the short hairs. oda A bunch of little LPs has just come to hand. They run about eight minutes a side and are put out by DucretetThomson. Chansons de Bilitis and Ariettes Cubilées, by Debussy, sung by Hoshiko Furusawa (LPP 8718), Russian and Yiddish folksongs sung by Sarah Gorby (LAP 1002), and Chansons d’Amour et de Misére, sung by Denise and Jean-Christophe Benoit (LPP 8719) are all very ingratiating and pleasant indeed. Two Schubert pieces played on the piano by Edouard Darsky (LAP 1004) suffer from extraordinarily bad recording. Finally, look out for Symphony No. 1, by Carl Nielsen, the Danish composer, whose stocks have been rising sharply lately, As played by the Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra (Decca LXT 2748) it makes most interesting listening. At its first performance in 1894 it must have startled the natives. It may even astonish you now. If you like Nielsen, you may be a Sibelius fan, in which case you will want to hear his En Saga and Tapiola performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eduard van Beinum (Decca LXT 2776). It’s superb.