Two New Records And a New Book
JAMES, HIBBARD
MUSIC By Hibbard James Two New Records And a New Book After spending the better part of a season listening to new music, it is something of a pleasure to get back to some of the old war horses of...
...Menuhin seems at his peak in this piece, combining just the right amounts of romanticism, bravura and technical excellence to make the concerto sparkle with new life...
...One contemporary critic described it as a "concerto against rather than for the violin...
...But the new recording by Ernest Ansermet conducting L'orchestre de la Suisse Romana (London ffrr LL 1730) seems to capture the elemental savagery of the score...
...Tchaikovsky, for instance, said of the Brahms violin concerto: "In the music of this master there is something dry and cold which repulses me...
...In the new release, the playing is crisper, the orchestration is clearer, and Ansermet tears into the score in a way that does a lot to recreate the atmosphere that set the teeth of the musical world on edge back in 1913...
...There is a wealth of detail about the Brahms concerto, and many other musical matters in Irving Kolodin's recently published The Composer as Listener (Horizon Press, $5.75...
...He never speaks out his musical ideas to the end...
...He has very little melodic invention...
...Most of us have grown so used to Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps that it is difficult to imagine that it caused a near-riot at its premiere forty-five years ago...
...For some time, I have admired the New York Philharmonic recording made under the composer's direction (Columbia 4ML 4882), but it seems strangely pallid in comparison to Anserrnet's version...
...We find Berlioz (who is so frequently fond of romantic, fullblown orchestrations) arguing for a smaller orchestra in a performance of one of Bach's Passions, and ending with the flat statement: "Bach is Bach, as God is God...
...Scarcely do we hear an enjoyable melody, than it is engulfed in a whirlpool of unimportant harmonic progressions and modulations, as though the special aim of the composer was to be unintelligible...
...He skims through the difficult passages as easily as lesser violinists do practice scales, and is profoundly moving in parts of the first movement—particularly in the "Kreisler" cadenza...
...There is little left to be said, of course, about the music itself, but particular performances often point the way to hitherto unrealized facets of the works...
...Although the Brahms Violin Concerto in D has become even more of a standard piece than the Stravinsky work, it also caused a mild sensation in its day...
...There are a dozen reliable recordings on the market, but the new one by Yehudi Menuhin with Rudolph Kempe and the Berlin Philharmonic (Capitol PAO 8410) is one of the best...
...Kolodin's book is not for reading at one sitting, but it makes delightful dipping into to give some extra perspective to the works of some of the great composers...
...Mr...
...In compiling his book, Mr...
...Kolo-din produces other comments by composers that are both interesting and surprising...
...All in all, it is a superb recording—a must for the music lover's library...
...And, just to show that a musician's ego can warp his judgment, we find Mahler referring to Brahms as "a puny little dwarf with a rather narrow chest" and Tchaikovsky commenting on Aida: "I would not compose an opera on a similar subject for all the wealth of the world...
...Clara Schumann's predilection for Brahms is well known, but I was surprised to find her beating the drum for Richard Strauss (a symphony of his "surprised one by its cleverness and talent") and Verdi's Aida ("It is extraordinary to see a composer striking out on a new path in his old age, and what talent he shows in it...
...These comments would be less surprising from anyone than from the composer so often accused of making facile melody all-important...
...The Berlin Philharmonic under Kempe's direction brings extra depth to the interpretation without in any way overpowering the soloist...
...MUSIC By Hibbard James Two New Records And a New Book After spending the better part of a season listening to new music, it is something of a pleasure to get back to some of the old war horses of the repertoire...
Vol. 41 • June 1958 • No. 22
