Word: lps
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...work through the whole literature of LP-recorded sound (as far as generally available in the U.S.) in roughly 3½ years. To keep him up to date, he would want a 204-page catalog published monthly by William Schwann of Boston. In the ten years since LPs started flooding the market, the Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog has become a fascinating indication of music consumption in the vinyl era. Last week, as his 100th catalog was being mailed out to 4,000 record shops in the U.S. and 37 foreign countries, Cataloger Schwann took a statistical look...
...Voice sound engineers had called on Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf to dub in two high Cs that Flagstad was unable to hit in Tristan und Isolde, Flagstad could not be lured before a microphone for nearly two years. But since then she has signed up with London Records, made 23 LPs, including a complete Götter-dämmerung, lieder by Richard Strauss, Schubert, Schumann, Hugo Wolf. The latest : an excellent third act of Die Walk...
...strangest operas ever put on vinyl is Atonalist Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (Columbia, 3 LPs), which is partly a music drama based on Exodus, partly a musical essay on the nature of God. The opera's fascinating conflict develops between Moses, whose heart knows the Word his tongue cannot utter, and his brother Aron, who speaks glibly but substitutes for Moses' harsh and humble vision of God the opiate of a comforting father figure. To Aron, God is joy, to Moses He is awe. Moses' anguished faith can admit only...
Ponchielli: La Gioconda (Anita Cerquetti, Franca Sacchi, Mario del Monaco, Cesare Siepi, Giulietta Simionato, Ettore Bastianini; conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni; London, 3 LPs). A first-rate cast gives a racy reading to Amilcare Ponchielli's old campaigner from Venice, proves that there is a lot more to it than its pop-concert Dance of the Hours. Mellow-voiced Soprano Cerquetti gives a superb performance as "the joyous female" of the title role who loses her blind mother and her lover before she plunges a dagger in her heart. Tenor del Monaco sings so gustily that he conceals the fact...
...Mabel Mercer (Atlantic; 2 LPs). In a triumph of mind over voice, Songstress Mercer runs through 20-odd songs she made famous in small cafés. Her voice, never sumptuous, wobbles badly in such numbers as Let Me Love You and You Will Wear Velvet, but the phrasing is impeccable, and she can still infuse songs like Some Fine Day and The End of a Love Affair with an emotional charge that other singers never guessed was there...