ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Records: Familiar Piano Names

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30886, 20 October 1965, Page 14

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Records: Familiar Piano Names

Names make news, the saying goes, and apparently names also make piano recordings for the new piano issues make a dazzling line-up of keyboard luminaries.

The Soviet pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy, who is now settled in Britain, is heard in Chopin's Four Ballades and three posthumous Nouvelles Etudes on Decca stereo SXLM.6I43 (12in, 42s 6d). Anyone not yet persuaded of his quality should be convinced by this. His strength is in his graceful, light and expressive touch and in his control. He is not overexpressive. He gives the impression of thoughtfulness and carefully reveals the music's tonal shadings and poetry.

The three big name pianists. Sviatoslav Richter, Artur Rubinstein, and Vladimir Horowitz, apparently chose their own recital programmes, each in his different manner.

Richter, who eschews the recording studios, chose tapes from his 1960 American tour. The piano is close-miked and one hardly notices the audiences until their occasional applause. Richter’s Chopin is miles away from Ashkenazy. In Scherzo No. 4 he persuades us to accept his liberties, slowing this way and then ripping through that. Like Rubinstein, he has recorded a fine account of Ravel’s “La Vallee des Cloches” though where Rubinstein is warmer and more sensuous, Richter’s tonal quality is slightly drier and transparent. Richter’s disc, R.C.A. Victor mono only LM.2611 (12in, 42s 6d), is rounded off by superb ac-

counts of Prokofiev’s “Vision Fugitives.” Nos. 6, 8. 9. 15 and 18. the lively “Cinderella” Gavotte, and three brooding Rachmaninoff Preludes, in F sharp minor, A major and B minor.

Rubinstein, a pianist who is as much at home in the studio as in front of an audience, plays a French programme on R.C.A. Victor mono only LM.2751 (12in, 42s 6d), works by composers he admired and. in the cases of Ravel and Poulenc, who were also his friends. The other works are Ravel’s “Vaises nobles et sentimentales,” Faure’s Nocturne in A Hat, Chahrier’s Scherzo-Valse, and Poulenc’s Mouvements perpetuels, Intermezzo No. 2 and 1944 A Hat. This is distinguished playing, elegant and polished, and every sure and subtle touch seems right. Horowitz, a pianist who was only accessible through records until his grand concert come-back this year, makes a happy return to Scarlatti’s Sonatas by playing a dozen on C.B.S. stereo 58R.475085 (12in, 42s 6d). Scarlatti was a composer for the harpsichord

matched only by Baeh and Handel, and wrote 550 of these miniatures which Horowitz describes as “great art in small forms.” It is not just fast music, the informative note says, but sometimes slow, poetic, nostalgic and even dreamy. The choice shows this variety. Horowitz, playing with a lean, steely brilliance of tone, in the slow ones shows his awareness of these aspects and, of course, in the fast parts shows his legendary dexterity. Piano, not harpsichord? The sleeve quotes Kirkpatrick: “Scarlatti’s harpsichord music is full of effects of colour conceived in extra-harpsi-chord terms. The player must be ready to think in terms of imaginary orchestration, of the voice, of the Spanish dance. . . .” The review copy squeaked a bit on side two.

FINE QUARTET The vocal splendours of its soloists make a pre-war recording of Verdi’s “Requiem” on World mono C0.417-1/2 (two 12in, 655) attractive still. Beniamino Gigli (t), Ezio Pinza (bs), Maria Caniglia (s) and Ebe Stignant

(ms) recorded this in 1939 with the Rome Opera House Chorus and Orchestra under Tullio Serafin.

In spite of its expected limitations in sound, the performance is a good one if not a great one for it lacks the scrupulousness of the recent Guilini approach. Perhaps modern recording encourages finish. Gigli sings with a soaring oppulent liquid tone, though with sobs too, Pinza with a noble sonority, Stignani effectively and Caniglia with style if not full tonal weight. The chorus is in particularly good form. The requiem was the basis of one of those Italian musical disputes only last week. When the Rome Opera House announced it would perform the requiem in both Rome and Berlin, with Guilini conducting, the Academy of St. Cecilia complained to the Italian Government that the opera house was trespassing on its grounds. But if the opera house is treading on sacred ground, on the next recording the musical forces of the academy are heard on the opera house’s

secular ground, in some rousing Verdi choruses. The disc is Decca stereo SXLM.6I39 (12in, 42s 6d) and Carlo Franci leading the academy’s big, well-trained choir and orchestra through stirring performances of the choral numbers from “11 Trovatore," “Nabucco,” “I Lombardi,” “Aida," “La Battaglia di Legano,” “Attila,” and “Otello.”

Slightly smaller in scale of performance is a disc of highlights from “11. Trovatore” from the Sadler s Wells Opera on World stereo STZ.26I (12ih 28s 6d). It has the doubtful blessing of English translation, but contains fine performances by choir and orchestra under Michael Moores as well as some sensitive singing from Charles Craig, Peter Glossop (apart from some minor lapses), Elizabeth Fretwell, Rita Hunter and Patricia Johnson. Those who would rather not follow an Italian version with an English libretto should consider it. RUSSIAN SINGERS A mixed bag of “Russian Songs”— favourites of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries —will be found on MK mono only D. 8471 (12in 39s 6d). The Russian Academic Choir has a pleasant almost muted style, and is heard on the first side in sections, bomm-bomming softly behind a soloist, and taking over refrains. The Voronezh and Piatnitsky Folk Choruses share the second side with four soloists of mixed quality. The Voronezh has a vigorous thrusting style and the Piatnitsky a sort of well-drilled musical shout. The review disc had noisy surfaces and slight treble distortion on the first side.