Word: lps
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...NUMBERS (MCA; $6.98). Following his disappointing rock opera Quadrophenia, The Who's chief composer, Peter Townshend, has his dropout muse back in residence. The British rock quartet, unsettled by internal squabbles and individual efforts at solo LPs and films, pulled together for some properly granitic music making this time. Though there is no formal story line, the album is nonetheless slyly conceptual. Townshend's nine songs, plus John Entwistle's Success Story, evoke a rock star's fight against time. Nicky Hopkins' vigorous keyboards, added to the band's own mix of acoustic...
...JANS: THE EYES OF AN ONLY CHILD (Columbia; $6.98). In the preholiday avalanche of LPs by major music acts, this attractive album might be overlooked. Using the standard country music themes of loneliness, moving around and adultery, Jans writes in the restless, romantic vein of a young man. Out of Hand, his tale of a hard-lovin' man who meets his match, unfolds against twanging guitars and the gentle percussion of a rural roadhouse band...
...engineers opted for a relatively simple turntable. A major innovation is the metal-coated record, which is covered with a spiral groove only 0.00018 in. wide-less than a tenth as thick as a human hair. In ordinary LPs, the groove encodes the sound; as the pickup needle runs over its "hills and dales," the needle is forced to vibrate at the same frequencies as the recorded sound. Translated into electrical pulses and amplified, the vibrations drive the loudspeaker. By contrast, RCA's SelectaVision does not depend on mechanical vibrations. The disc's groove serves only to guide...
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38-41, Overtures to Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro (London Philharmonic; Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor; Turnabout/Vox; 5 LPs; $19.95). In his later years, the doughty Sir Thomas sometimes conducted Mozart in a cantankerous, self-indulgent way. But during the 1930s, when most of these London Philharmonic recordings were made, he displayed superb poise, control and mastery of the peculiar blend of fire and ice that lie at the heart of Mozart's music. Beecham's recording then of the euphoniously ethereal No. 39 in E-Flat Major...
Schubert: Trios, Op. 99 in B-Flat and 100 in E-Flat (Henryk Szeryng, violin; Pierre Fournier, cello; Artur Rubinstein, piano; RCA; 2 LPs; $16.98). Corraling a collection of virtuosos to record chamber music is not always a good idea. Having spent years alone in the spotlight, too many of them lack the knack of bobbing and weaving in rhythm with other minds and hearts. Szeryng, Fournier and Rubinstein rank high among the successful exceptions to this individualistic rule. In these trios, each player retains his own particular musical fist yet manages to fit it into his neighbor...