Word: lps
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HENZE: DER JUNGE LORD (Deutsche-Grammophon; 3 LPs). While most aficionados consider Violetta, or Sigmund, or even the sadistic Turandot a familiar acquaintance, or even a friend, few can cozy up to Hans Werner Henze's heroes and heroines. In The Young Lord, the hero turns out to be an extremely well-trained monkey, and the moral of the tale seems to be that the modern world is so fad-conscious that people will imitate practically anyone with a social passport, even if he is an ape in disguise. It might sound like comedy, but the work is filled...
MAHLER: THE NINE SYMPHONIES (Columbia; 15 LPs). Even at a price of $100 for the handsomely leather-bound set, this blockbuster has for weeks been listed as one of Billboard's bestselling classical albums. As the apotheosis of romanticism, Gustav Mahler is very much in vogue, and the most flamboyant of his latter-day champions is Leonard Bernstein, who has been building up this treasury of recordings with the New York Philharmonic for seven years. No one can argue with the power and variety of Bernstein's interpretations, but his gifts are most appropriate to the later symphonies...
BEETHOVEN: THE NINE SYMPHONIES (RCA Victrola; 8 LPs). Another big package, but at the bargain price of $20. Not everyone agrees with Arturo Toscanini's distinctly brisk, no-nonsense approach to Beethoven. About the heroic first movement of the Third Symphony, the maestro once dryly commented: "Some say this is Napoleon, some Hitler, some Mussolini. For me it is simply allegro con brio." Still, Toscanini's brio was like no one else's, and the NBC Symphony strikes sparks as it builds to one peak of excitement after another, and then softly and precisely casts long incandescent...
Today, two LPs later (on the ATCO label) the Bee Gees' brand of straight-forward sentimentality is winning a surprising response from listeners who are either too young or too bored to investigate the rolling, stoned Beatles' milieu. The older boys smoke cigarettes, try a little wine now and then, nothing more. With a bit of luck, it might become a trend...
BORODIN: PRINCE IGOR (3 LPs; Angel). A nation's music can reflect a nation's soul, and Igor performs an exposé of Mother Russia's near-seduction by terrifying but awfully stylish barbarians from the East. Igor, as a P.O.W., must resist the charms of the Khan's slave girls singing Borodin's most popular themes, The Polovtsian Dances, not to mention a suave invitation from the Khan to join up and "together feed on the blood of our enemies." Boris Christoff sings two major roles boomingly: the comparatively noble Khan Konchak...