Double Nutcracker

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1049, 2 October 1959, Page 15

Double Nutcracker

by

DISCOBOLUS

2VERYBODY knows Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, but the music of the complete ballet from which it is taken is not nearly so well known. Decca have issued now a two-record set of the music by Ansermet and the Swiss Romande Orchestra SXLM 2092-3 stereo and LXTM 5493-4 mono with a full account of the ballet, including photographs, and _ delightful they both are. Ansermet has a delicate touch and the full ballet proves to have some of Tchaikovsky’s most delightful music, The recording is very fine indeed combining clarity with power. Another record in which the conductor’s reading is as powerful as the recording is Fontana 699 504 CL where George Szell conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in two of Haydn’s finest symphonies, No. 88 in G and No. 104 (the London). Szell has obviously no use for a weak-kneed interpretation of* Haydn and this one is masculine and bold, Sometimes one might ask for a little more Beecham-like delicacy but the strings’ reply is to sweep one along. Beecham himself appears on MALP 1633 in Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. When I used to hear Beecham at concerts I always used to think, "How does he do it?" and I feel the same thing about this record. Beecham has a judgment that seems almost unerring and he is particularly at home with Berlioz for whom he seems to have a warm spot. It is not easy to make this work completely convincing, but Beecham makes the French Radio Orchestra do it. There are two delightful records ‘of singers who were recently in New Zealand. Mary O’Hara’s singing of Irish songs to her own harp accompaniment has always enchanted me and on LBWM 20 she sings sixteen songs as "Love Songs of Ireland." They are completely delightful. Some are Moore’s Irish Melodies, some arrangements by Herbert Hughes and others by Miss O’Hara herself. If you love singing don’t miss

hearing this record. Jan Peerce too has a way with him (and a voice too) and on RSL 3555 he sings ten arias from opera, which is his forte. Some are very well known, "La Donna e mobile," the two tenor arias from Don Giovanni, the Flower Song from Carmen, but others from La Forza del Destino, The Masked Ball, and Lucia di Lammermoor as less well known. Mr Peerce’s singing is full-blooded and heartfelt. His performance of the "Il mio tesoro" from Don Giovanni in particular is magnificent. An unusuel locally-produced record is the Sims record TS 101 of items from the concert given by the girls of St Mary’s College in Wellington in November last year. St Mary’s has always been famous for its singing and here 19 items are recorded, some by the full school of 500, some by the choir of 130 and some by the special Schola of 24 voices. The songs are fresh and delightfully sung, and if sometimes the singers lose pitch one must make allowances for an actual performance. The record will give much pleasure to lovers of young | * people’s music. , There are two orchestral records of some quality issued: Sir Adrian Boult conducts the London Philharmonic in the Suite from Prokofiev’s "Love of | Three Oranges" on LW 5296. The bril- | liant brittle score is sharply played (1 don’t mean to refer to intonation) and very well recorded. It is a good buy on a ten-inch disc. Erich Leinsdorf on P. 8446 conducts the Concert Arts Orchestra in "Portraits in Sound" (when | will they run out of names for short orchestral concerts?), the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian’ Easter Festival Overture, the Moldau, and Chabrier’s Espana. This is playing | that is solid to the point of being a little stolid; one Would like a little more imagination sometimes, but the recording is very forward and @ffective; and the record will please you until you start to make comparisons. But as Shakespeare said "comparisons are odorous."