Word: chambers
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN: SYMPHONY FOR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA (London). On the heels of 1963's bestselling War Requiem comes another major new work by Britten, recorded by Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the English Chamber Orchestra under the composer's baton. A 35-minute symphony of gloomy grandeur, it opens with short, skittering, sometimes angry themes. They are like uneasy questions, finally answered in passages that are broadly melodic but nevertheless tentative and unsettling...
...leaders flocking to support him. To counter that, Yorty recently embarked on a whirlwind courtship of Los Angeles' minority groups. In the space of five days, he lunched with the Independent Orthodox Rabbis, had cocktails with leaders of the city's Mexican community, dined with the local Chamber of Commerce in Chinatown, introduced Martin Luther King Jr. at a World Affairs Council luncheon, attended a reception of Hungarian community leaders, and planned to appear at a dinner honoring Cardinal Mclntyre...
SHOSTAKOVICH PIANO QUINTET (L'Oiseau-Lyre). There is not much modern Russian chamber music to be heard, but probably its finest example and a credit to any age is this quintet, written in 1940 shortly after the Sixth Symphony and like it a resolution of the torment expressed in the Fifth. Its many lightly inflected moods flow peacefully together with classical clarity, interrupted in the middle by a short, funny honky-tonk of a Scherzo. The Melos Ensemble of London plays it with quiet understanding; it presents as well a sparkling, icy Prokofiev Quintet dated Paris...
...STRING QUARTET IN F MAJOR, OPUS 96 (London). Chamber music has a reputation for being cerebral, but Dvořák makes it heady. His "American" quartet, written in 1893 on a summer visit to Spillville, Iowa, is filled with song and catchy rhythm. The excellent Janacek Quartet plays it brightly, as well as the earlier, more conventional Quartet in D Minor dedicated to Brahms...
...STRING QUARTETS-VOLUME II (3 LPs; Vox). Convinced that Dvorak is the missing link between Brahms and Bartok in the history of chamber music, the Kohon Quartet of New York University is undertaking the first recording of all 15 of his string quartets. More interesting than Volume I. this package includes the three last quartets. Though the Kohon does not have the singing tone of the Janacek ensemble, the players know Dvořák in all his moods and are eloquent spokesmen...