The Other Side of the Record

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 899, 26 October 1956, Page 20

The Other Side of the Record

By

OWEN

JENSEN

\V HEN you acquire an L.P. you commit yourself to upwards of forty minutes of music. But then, not every piece of music you want to hear runs this long, Half the purchase money goes for what’s on the other side of the record, What’s your choice? Some more of the same please? Or something different? I have come by three versions of Stravinsky’s Les Noces, not because of any special affection for this work, but merely an interest in the music on the reverse side. Maybe, in time, for better or worse, we'll find composers writing music to fit an L.P., just as a good deal of popular music was tailored for the standard "78" time of three or four minutes. In the meantime, the music on the other side of the record is a not inconsiderable factor in the selection of a disc. Of course, if it’s Brahms’s Sextet in G Major, Op. 36, which fills up both sides, you have no _ worries on the matter. Even although the Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet with Wilhelm Hubner (second viola) and Guntner Weiss (second cello) could have given a little more "oomph" to their performance of the work and the technicians might have done the listener

iin, Mitatinde ot we Gi, oe, Cie oe Oe eR en prouder in the matter of reproduction, this is still heart-warming music (Nixa WLP 5263). Nor can you go far wrong with An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (Columbia ML 5051), which is a two-sided recital of Elizabethan madrigals sung charmingly by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua. As, once these madriga! singers get submerged in their verses, you sometimes can’t hear the words for the music, the compilers of this programme arranged for W. H. Auden to read the words before each song. Mr. Auden is by no means the best reader in the world, but altogether this makes a pleasant bit of listening. As the record is one of the Columbia Masterworks series, it might not be easy to come by hereabouts, but the music will repay the trouble of fossicking it out, You should have no trouble in finding Motets of the Venetian School (16th Century) Series II, sung by the Choir of the Capella di Treviso, Italy (Vox APL’ 8610), and you will be glad of the discovery. The singing is fine and this music from an age so remote that we can hardly be nostalgic about it has a fascination all its own. But what are you going to do about two Mendelssohn piano trios in one fell L.P. swoop? Don’t be put off by this surfeit of romantic sweetness. If Trio No, 1 in,D Minor is the one you know, you will be even more won over by No. 2 in C Minor. And if you know them both, you should be glad to hear them played again by the Trio di Bolzano (Vox PL 9160), as grand playing as you could wish to hear. These three Italians give a fresh look to Mendels4 The recording matches the playng. Mozart and Haydn together at least give unity to a long-playing recital. Symphony No. 80 in D Minor is an excellent revelation of Haydn the craftsman and the adventurer in musical ideas. And nothing in Haydn’s music is more enchanting than Notturno No. 5 in C Major, which is coupled very happily with Mozart’s Serenata Notturna on the second sice of the disc. The Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by

John Pritchard, helped by. expert recording, give a good account of the music (H.M.V, CLP 1061). Brahms .and Hindemith would hardly seem to be the best of sparring partners; but a link between them lies in a certain restraint in the music of each, Hindemith is represented by a suite from his ballet, Nobilissima Visione; Brahms by his Variations on a Theme by Haydn. (It doesn’t matter that it is generally conceded’ now that Haydn borrowed the theme in the first place. Hindemith’s, music is quite easy on the ears and warmer than he sometimes gives it. Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra lend conviction to the Hindemith, nad both warmth and brilliance to the Brahms (Columbia 33CX 1241). East and West meet on the L.P. campus with Shostakovich’s Golden Age Ballet Suite and American Samuel Barber’s ballet music Souvenirs. One would like to feel that perhaps a little sly humour had gone into the mating of these two works, for the Russian’s "Golden Age" is a satire on capitalism and Barber’s musical memories are of the golden days and greener fields of 1914 and before. Neither work would set either the Thames on fire or the Volga or New York Harbour, but the Philharmonia are again on the job with some first-class playing. The conductor is Efrem Kurtz (H.M.V. BLP 1080). "Pop" Corner Satchmo Session introduces. Louis Armstrong who, like Beethoven and Picasso, has his periods. This is period 1932-33 (H.M.V. DLP 1105), and Armstrong at his most brilliant. Two sides won't be any too many for his fans. As for the fans of the late Gertrude Lawrence they will no doubt derive much reminiscent enjoyment from her singing in numbers from Lady in the Dark and Nymph Errant (H.M.V. DLP 1099), shadow though this may be of "Gertie’s" vibrant personality. Over to jazz for something a little off the too-well-beaten track with the Modern Jazz Quartet (Esquire 20-038). Vibes (Milt Jackson), piano (John Lewis), bass (Percy Heath) and drums (Kenny Clarke) make quiet music that has, nevertheless, an ofiginal sparkle. Well worth your tracking down. For something more exotic there’s Kenny Graham’s Afro-Cubists playing excerpts from Caribbean Suite (Esquire E.P, 34). And this is perhaps the answer to two sides of a good thing on L,P., for it’s a pocket-size 45 r.p.m.