CHECK FOR FIDELITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 802, 3 December 1954, Page 24

CHECK FOR FIDELITY

A Monthly Review by

OWEN

JENSEN

HEN it comes to listening to the gramophone or, for that matter, the radio, you may be able to believe most of what you hear, but you can’t bank on hearing all you believe. What I mean is that, even under optimum conditions, the reproduction of the machine is-no more faithful to the original sounds than the average colour print is to.a painting. And the ear is easier to!deceive than the eye. A large part of pedple’s listening is an attention to machines which are by no means the most efficient, and it is an appalling thought to any serious musician to realise that many may believe implicitly in the fidelity.of the sounds that are their daily musical exercise. But then, if you know to what extent you are being deceived, you can tone up your ears accordingly. That’s where the Nixa High Fidelity Demonstration Record comes in, This High Fidelity Picsncntsebion Record (Nixa ULP 9084) starts off with five tracks of test frequencies of 30, 40, 100, 1000 and 10,000 cycles respectively. You can put your ear and your machine through the hoops at one and the same time. Remember to try them out at different volume levels, too. Fol-

in ee et «> ~ ,. ¢ calle eos oth, 2, _ 2 eee Chee lowing this, the Demonstration Record provides checks on the fidelity of other recordings, with music introducing a wide variety of orchestration, and some vocal music. This includes excerpts from Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat ballet, Swan Lake, Ponchielli’'s Dance of the Hours, Dohnanyi’s Symphonic Minutes, Boito’s Mefistofele, and some Wagner. With this disc on hand, one should have sOme confidence in the ear, the machine and the record, High fidelity, however, is not only in the sotinds themselves, but in the music, too; in the interpretation. For a test of this, you could do no better than take the performance of Appalachia, by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with chorus (Columbia 33CX 1112)-that is, if your taste tuns to Delius. This is beautiful Delius playing. Beecham still remains the most convincing interpreter, That phenomenal _ ‘cellist, Janos Starker, is on disc again with the Brahms Sonatas No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38, and No. 2 in F Major, Op. 29 (Nixa PLP 593), and the Bach unaccompanied Suites for ‘Cellos No. 1 in G and No. 4

in E (Nixa PLP 582). In the Brahms Sonatas, Starker is associated with the pianist Abba Bogin. Together they give Brahms dignity and strength. Starker has the technique to add brilliance to what is not always a grateful ’cello part, but he can be lyrical, too. I am afraid that I do not share the enthusiasm of some of Starker’s admirers for his playing of the unaccompanied Bach, These suites need consummate technique but there could be such a thing as being too

good for Bach, in the sense that technique takes charge, which I feel it does somewhat with Janos Starker, Maybe it is just personal prejudice, but Starker's playing in these Bach Suites leaves me with an impression of tremendous virtuosity rather than the profound beauty of Bach’ phrases, At least there can be no complaint about the beauty of the ‘cello playing itself, Faure Rediscovered His music "accentuated the identity of the French spirit with that of civilised humanity,"’ wrote Martin Cooper of the works of Gabriel Fauré's old age. This is a little different from the flavour of faded romanticism which is often associated with Fauré. "He was the last great traditionalist in French music," says Cooper, "more human and fruitful than Ravel, more sane though less original than Debussy and more wholly, unequivocally French than either." Fauré has been receiving some attention lately on recordings, and I have been trying to find something of this spirit in the several discs that have come our way this month. The Ballade for Piano Orchestra, Op. 19, is an early work, pleasant but not particularly distinguished; but the Theme and Variations for Piano Solo, also Op. 19, is real piano music, as, too, is the Impromptu No, 3, Op. 34. Grant Johannesen is the pianist. He is a player worth keeping an eye and an ear on. First prize winner at an International Piano Festival in Belgium, his playing has the stamp of quality, In the Ballade

he is accompanied by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by. Walter Goehr. Nocturnes and Mouvements Perpetuels, by Poulenc, complete the recording (Nixa CLP 1181). Reproduction is a little "clangy" but performance is good. Fauré’s music to Pelléas et Mélisande has a fragile charm to which George Sebastien and L’Orchestre de l’Association des Concerts Colonne give renewed loveliness. What a contrast is this delicate music of Fauré’s to Paul ("Sorcerer’s Apprentice") Dukas’s La Peéri, the composer’s last orchestral work, written for the dancer Natacha Trouhanova. Dukas is by no means an apprentice in his orchestral writing, which comes out rich and colourful. The two works make interesting listening. Both are played by the Concerts Colonne Orchestra conducted by George Sebastien (Nixa ULP 9097). For an example of Fauré’s most mature writing, there is the song-cycle La Chanson d’Eve, sung by Irma Kolassi (mezzo-soprano), with André Collard, pianist (Decca LXT 2897). Both singing and accompanying are fine. The reverse side carries Milhaud’s Poémes Juits, songs dedicated to various of the composer’s friends, evanescent music without the astringency that sometimes comes from Milhaud’s pen. Songs and Singing I am not sure that I could comfortably sit through a whole LP of Roger Quilter’s sweet song writing. Taken in judicious doses, however, one can appreciate the perfection of the best of Quilter’s style. This disc introduces the cycle To Julia, three Blake songs, three Shelley songs and seven Elizabethan lyrics (Argo RG 36). Alexander Young, tenor, sings them very pleasantly with Gordon Watson as accompanist. From another direction altogether, sings Edric Connor. These are songs from Jamaica (Argo RG 33). Sung with chorus-the "Caribbeans"-they make very interesting listening; except that I found the use of piano an unnecessary anachronism. The Festival of Lessons and Carols by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge (Argo RG 39), needs

no recommendation. What a joy to hear carols sung with such verve. After a spate of singers, the spoken word falls very pleasantly on the ear, especially when the words are by John Donne and Wordsworth, and __ the speaker is Christopher Hassall (Argo RG 24). I didn’t quite get to the end of Richard Burton reading The Ancient Mariner with John Neville and Robert Harby (Argo RG 41), but what I did hear put new life into Coleridge. For your money you get, on the same disc, "Xanadu" and "Frost at Midnight." This is something quite worth looking into. ; Finally, some of the most moving music to come our way this month. It is, again, the music of the spoken word, Dylan Thomas’s play for voices, Under Milk Wood, a recording of the BBC production, with an all Welsh cast (Argo RG 21-22). It has been said that you need the book to follow the words, but after all, this is something to listen to more than once, and there is an especial pleasure in discovering at each hearing a little more of Dylan Thomas’s rich, fantastic imagery. CODA: I rather feel that if organists studied the playing of Flor Peters in his recording of Old Italian Masters (Nixa PLP 586) and profited from his imaginative registrations and immaculate phrasing, the organ might regain some of the esteem it has tended to lose in recent times.