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...roots. On the Firm's languid first album, Page sounded like a sessionman rather than the guitar deity he was labeled during Zep's reign--not surprising since Page began his career as a sessionman for half of Britain, including the early Who. But on the Firm's new LP, Mean Business (Atlantic) Page begins to build up the band into more than just a mishmash of misfiring musicianship...
LISZT: Sonata in B Minor; Two Legends; The Blessing of God in Solitude. Francois-Rene Duchable, piano (Erato; LP or CD). Franz Liszt, the archetypal piano virtuoso, wrote only one sonata for his instrument, but what a sonata it is! Bril liant, bombastic, tender, devilishly diffi cult, structurally innovative, the nearly half-hour work is the summa of romantic piano technique, and every modern pianist must test his mettle with it to claim Liszt's mantle. Most opt for a straightforward, flashy approach, hoping to conquer the piece by sheer dexterity. Duchable, a young Frenchman with an especially rich tone...
LALO: Symphonie Espagnole; SARASATE: Zigeunerweisen. Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin, with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Orchestre National de France (Angel; LP or CD). The Symphonie Espagnole is a puzzlement. Neither a symphony nor a concerto, and no more authentically Spanish than Chabrier's Espana or Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole, Lalo's five-movement showpiece for violin and orchestra has never won a firm place in the standard repertory. Sometimes in performance, it even has its third movement omitted, for unfathomable reasons. But a high-spirited, sensitive soloist can make it effective, and Mutter, 22, is that ideal performer. A German whose...
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Sinfonia Antartica. Bernard Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Angel; LP only). Many of Ralph Vaughan Williams' nine symphonies evoke a specific place or mood, among them the choral "Sea" Symphony, the matchless "London" Symphony and the gentle "Pastoral" Symphony. Others, like the exquisite Fifth Symphony, quote from the British composer's other works (in this case, the opera The Pilgrim's Progress). His Seventh Symphony, the "Antartica," does both. It began as music for the 1948 movie Scott of the Antarctic, and a few years later was transformed into a five-movement work. However suspect its origins...
Simon F, a London native, has been interested in music since he was young. His debut LP, Gun, is the fruit of his 1984-85 songwriting done in collaboration with semi-namesake and London doppelgang Simon G. His material is claimed to represent an attempt to describe his past by relating what he considers to be both "the two biggest concerns in pop music" and "two of the key things in life": sex and violence...