Word: lps
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Robert Shaw Chorale, NBC Symphony and soloists conducted by Arturo Toscanini; Victor, 2 LPs). Beethoven's most massive vocal work. Cruelly demanding on both singers and listeners, it was performed only once during his lifetime. It is no less demanding today, and some of the strain shows in this version. The Maestro gives it a feeling of magnificent urgency despite the fact that the soloists sound faint and distant...
...second year in a row, Columbia Records has dipped into the works of contemporary U.S. composers, filled six LPs with chamber music by a dozen of them. Columbia does not expect its Modern American Music Series to cause any stampedes at record counters, is issuing the series in a spirit of 1) adventure, and 2) duty to U.S. music. Nonetheless, a few of the scores in the new 1954 edition are first-class of their kind and well worth a hearing...
Gounod: Faust (Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda, Boris Christoff; Chorus and Orchestra of L'Opera, Paris, conducted by Andre Cluytens; Victor, 4 LPs). The third "complete" version of this tinseled old warhorse, notable for the properly terrifying Mephistopheles of Basso Christoff and the limpid-voiced Marguerite of Soprano de los Angeles. Contains the usually omitted ballet music for the Walpurgis Night...
Puccini: Tosco (Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi; Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala conducted by Victor de Sabata; Angel, 2 LPs). The seventh complete version of Puccini's old pulse-bumper, and one of the best. The name part is sung fervently and in high style by Brooklyn-born Soprano Callas...
Other notable new records: all five of Beethoven's adult Piano Concertos, played by Wilhelm Kempff and the Berlin Philharmonic under Paul van Kempen (Decca, 3 LPs); all of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas, played by Jascha Heifetz (Victor 5 LPs); Ernest Bloch's String Quartet No. 2, played by the Musical Arts Quartet (Vanguard...