Word: lps
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sampler of classical LPs to keep the stereo glowing...
Mozart: The Six Viola Quintets (Juilliard Quartet with John Graham, second viola, Columbia; 3 LPs). The best complete set of these masterpieces since the recording by the Budapest Quartet with Walter Trampler. The playing is supple and urgent, fully equal to the symphonic sweep of the great C major quintet as well as the tragic stoicism of the G minor. What it sometimes misses is the mystery of Mozart's luminous, godlike simplicity. But then that is the quality in Mozart that Artur Schnabel described as "too easy for children and too difficult for artists...
Beethoven: The Five Middle Quartets (Cleveland Quartet, RCA; 4 LPs). As if to mark its artistic coming of age, this ten-year-old group is moving impressively through that phonographic rite of passage for string quartets, a Beethoven cycle. The dramatic works in this installment burst the molds of classicism and prepare the way for the somber spirituality of the last quartets. The performances-strong and probing-capture the paradox of the quartet form: a cohesive ensemble but seemingly spontaneous individual voices...
Berlioz: Béatrice et Bénédict (Mezzo Janet Baker, Tenor Robert Tear, Soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre, John Alldis Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis conductor, Philips; 2 LPs). In his final work, the ailing Berlioz took Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and made it into his own Tempest, a blend of wit, ardor and gentle sadness bathed in the amber light of a late Parisian afternoon. The opera may be better heard than seen, since its extended passages of French dialogue make it problematical to stage; certainly it is a pleasure in this buoyant...
Mozart: Don Giovanni (Baritone Bernd Weikl and Bass-Baritone Gabriel Bacquier, Sopranos Margaret Price and Sylvia Sass, London Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti conductor, London; 4 LPs). "Summer lightning made audible" was Shaw's metaphor for this miraculous score, and it serves well to describe Solti's performance-swift, dramatic, deft. The tragic hints in the work are systematically underplayed; the elegant comic surface remains unbroken. Colin Davis' 1974 recording, with its darker moods and more muscular texture, still provides a compelling alternative reading. But the splendid cast and Solti's conducting make this...