RECORDS Successor To Pinza ?

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29776, 20 March 1962, Page 18

RECORDS Successor To Pinza ?

MOZART: “Don Giovanni” —Deh vieni alia fines tra; Madamina. “Le Nozze di Figaro”—Non pin andrai: Be voul ballare. VERDI: “Don Carlo”—Ella giammai m’amo . . . Dormiro sol. “Simon* Boccanecra”—A te I’estrem* addlo . . n lacerate spirits. “I Vespri Sicilian!”—O patria ... O tn Palermo. “Ernani”—Che mai vegg'io . . . Infeliee. ‘‘Nabucodonosor”—Vieni, o Levita ... Tn *ul lahbro. Giorgi Tozzi (bass) with Jean Morel conducting Che Rome Opera House Orchestra. R.CA. mono RS L 337 8 (121 n 42* M).

Giorgi Tozzi is a Chicagoborn basso cantante, a pupil of Rosa Raisa and Giacomo Rimini, who has inherited many of the great Ezio Pinza’s Mozart and Verdi roles at the Metropolitan Opera—and Pinza’s part in “South Pacific” as well—so that the comparisons with Pinza which arise whenever a new singer undertakes these parts have considerable relevance. Indeed R.C.A.’s sleeve note invites the comparison by observing that Pinza also recorded all these arias—available here on RSL. 3536. There are points of similarity; Tozzi’s dark, strong voice at times sounds very like the Pinza and he shows similar nobility of style in the Verdi arias. He sings Verdi very well and his elegaic singing of the “Nabucco” prayer is quite superb.

His Mozart is distinctly less ; assured in style. His speeds > tend to be too fast and his phrasing clipped and jerky, and he is no more successful in suiting his bass voice to the baritone music of Don . Giovanni and Figaro than any , of the other basses who have , emulated Pinza by singing . these roles. Pinza's accomplishment in these parts was due to the sheer force of his ‘ personality and his grasp of . Mozart style, especially in . later years when he sometimes found the high tessi- , tura trying, as R5L.3536 shows. That record, it should be noted, was made when Pinza was in his late fifties; in his prime, in the 1920’s and 1930 s, his voice had a warm, rolling grandeur that Tozzi , only suggests. Tozzi is a very fine singer and he seems the most likely contender for Pinza's pre- , eminence in the Italian bass roles, but if it is simply a

question of buying a recording of these arias, Pinza must be preferred, for he is a great singer. His Verdi has even more fire and authority than Tozzi’s, and his Mozart is much finer. Also, Pinza’s record contains three additional Mozart arias and is more comfortably recorded.

ORFF: “Carmlna Bnrann.” Asnes Glebe] (soprano), Paul Knen (tenor), and Mareel Cordes (baritone) with Wolfgang Sawallicch conducting the West German Radio Chora* and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Record Society RZ.6022 (12tn, 30s). Admirer’s of Orff’s music (if such there be) will be thrilled by this recording. The recorded sound is first-class and the performance splendid. The chorus sings with unflagging vitality and Giebel is a wonderfully pure-toned soprano soloist. Only the male soloists are at all inadequate. But those who do not know Orff’s music should be warned: the chances are that they will find it overwhelmingly boring. Carl Orff is a Bavarian composer who has cultivated simplicity of style in his music, with rhythm and melody the main elements. There is nothing wrong with that: it is the repetitiousness and triviality of Orff’s music that makes it so tiresome. “Carmina Burana” is a setting of a collection of mediaeval poems in Latin and Law German, and there is much use of plain-chant-type melody. The work may make an impact on first hearing because of its kinetic excitement, but it is unlikely to repay repeated hearing. The Record Society’s luxurious packaging has now been replaced by a very austere standard sleeve, with an accompanying leaflet giving details of the wqrk. In this case neither text nor translation is given.

MUSIC OF INDIA: Ravi Shankar (sltar), Chatur Lal (tebla) aad N. C. MnlHck (tambura). Record Society mono RZ.SO2O (Irin, Sts.) The first thing to realise about this record is that it contains not folk music but classical music of the highest accomplishment. Indian music is almost the exact opposite at European music. It is improvised not composed, it stresses rhythm and melody rather than harmony and it inhabits a different dimension ot feeling and thought. Whereas Western music is concerned primarily with free, personal expression, Indian music is contemplative and meditative, more impersonal and passive in its expression. Yehudi Menuhin has written: “You must not expect unbridled passion or flame as in Spanish or Hungarian music. Indians know these, but their music speaks of a different realm, a dimension with which we are less conversant, a dimension beyond manifestation of personal emotions.”

Ravi Shankar and Pandit Chatur Lal are two of India’s finest musicians. Ravi Shankar—who made the music for the film, “Father Panchali”—plays the sitar, a stringed instrument with movable frets, six or seven playing strings and 13 sympathetic resonating strings. Chatur Lal plays the tabla, a two-piece drum, one end the bass and the other tuned. The third musician plays the tambura, a stringed instrument which provides a drone. Roughly, Indian music is built on two elements: a raga (a kind of mgl-l

ody-ocale with associations of mood and time of day) which is stated by the sitar, and a tala (a rhythmic cycle usually of great complexity) stated by the tabla. The players improvise cm these elements, building up complex sound patterns with hypnotic intensity. Ravi Shankar, who is also experienced .in Western music, sometimes uses his own themes, and this record contains a variety of styles. Noone interested in new musical experience should miss this record. Those who like it should then try to obtain what is probably the best LJ>. ot Indian classical music issued in the West—HM.V ALPC.2, which contains just two marvellous, long imnrovisations by Ali Akbar Khan and Chatur Lal.

COLIN DAVIS has Had his term as musical director of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company extended to WOT, and Glen Byam Shaw, formerly director of th* Royal Shakespear* Theatre at Stratford, has been appointed director of production* for five years, so that the two eon work topether to form and guide a Sadler’s Wells style.