Records: Haydn Organ In Action

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30820, 4 August 1965, Page 10

Records: Haydn Organ In Action

A new summit in the quest for authenticity is reached on a recording on which E. Power Biggs plays the three Haydn Organ Concertos in C major on location in Austria. The recording (CBS stereo 58R.475089, 42s 6d) was made in the parish church at Eisenstadt, where Haydn rehearsed his choir and orchestra when he was Kapellmeister for the Prince Esterhazy, and Biggs plays a cool, light-toned baroque organ built in 1770 and first played by Haydn himself.

The concertos were written before Haydn's Eisenstadt days, probably between 1756 and 1760. No. 3 was found only a few years ago. The works have considerable charm and the organ has a double role as solo instrument and part of the basso continue. Biggs produces some delightful gurgles and trills and Zoltan Rozsnyai conducts a band called the Columbia Symphony Orchestra which is made up of Vienna Symphony players. The church has a good acoustic and the recording is excellent. No. 1, incidentally, was on a World Record Club disc reviewed earlier this month which had a deeper-toned chamber organ. Two recordings in the HMV Great Recordings of the Century series claim the attention of vocal collectors. On C0LH.136 (42s 6d) Luisa Tetrazzini is heard in 12 operatic arias and songs recorded between 1908 and 1913, and on C0LH.125 (42s 6d) Nellie Melba is heard in 15 arias and songs recorded between 1904 and 1906.

Tetrazzini was an Italian soprano who had modest success touring in Italy and South America and then made a sensational debut at Covent Garden in 1907. Het* first house was poorly attended and largely papered, but the others were packed for she became the rage of London, and, soon afterwards, the rage of New York. In a booklet which accompanied the English pressing (but not, alas, the New Zealand edition), Desmond Shawe-Taylor says, “In fine

points of detail and phrasing she had not the solid musicianship of a Melba ... yet the essence of the matter, a spontaneous love of lyrical melody and a natural feeling for its flow, never failed her.” As many of these arias show, her florid singing and full high notes were her strength. The “Traviata" arias have some notes cut short, but the decorated parts of “Ah fors’e lui” are dazzling and the overall result charming. She is fascinating as she plays with her shadow (a flute) in “Ombra leggiera” from Meyerbeer’s “Dinorah,” and sparkles as Oscar in “Saper vorreste.” The other arias include “Una voce,” “Regnava nel silenzio,”

and from “La Sonnambula" “Ah! non credea mirarti.” Melba made her Covent Garden debut in 1888 and her recordings were made towards the end of her career, though she was still in good voice. The transfer is fairly good, but the listening is more demanding and the voice surrounded with a little more surface blast than the Tetrazzini disc. Still , patience will be rewarded with such delights as Lucia’s cadenzas in the Mad Scene and the swaggering virtuosity of “Ah fors’e lui,” not to mention the famous trills and shakes. But again the informative booklet one expects with records in this series was left out.

Handel’s “Dettingen Te Deum” is soundly performed on World stereo STZ74O (28s 6d). Handel wrote it to celebrate a victory at Dettingen during the War of Austrian Succession in 1743, but he was in a hurry and pinched some of the music from a composer named Urio. But Urio is now forgotten and the music, with Handelian touches such as trumpets and drums, is quite stirring. The South German Madrigal Choir is bigger than its name suggests and the South-west German Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Wolfgang Gonnenwein. The soloists are Ruth-Margaret Putz (s), Theo Altmeyer (t), Emmy Lisken (c), and Franz Crass (bs). It was, by the way, an English victory, but this version is sung in German.

Collectors of Mozart operas should not overlook some highlights from the first 25 years of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1934-59, on the World Connoisseur label (mono C 0.418, 32s 6d). Appropriately the items are arias and ensembles from Mozart operas, for although Glyndebourne these days is also associated with such names as Cimarosa, Monteverdi and Richard Strauss, the country opera house made its name through its Mozart festivals and, from its earliest days, its Mozart recordings. Of the items, which are all clearly recorded, the opening trio from “Cosi fan tutte” sung by Heddle Nash, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender and John Brownlee deserves special mention.