Word: lps
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BERLIOZ: REQUIEM (2 LPs; Columbia). This colossus of music honored the heroic dead of the July 1830 revolution. Inspired by St. Peter's in Rome, Berlioz wanted to match the grandeur of its architecture in sound. He nearly does so in this performance conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The Philadelphia Orchestra, augmented by extra horns, winds and percussion, and the Temple University Choirs of 250 voices are welded into an instrument of blockbusting power and variety: four brass bands blaze the summons to the Last Judgment, and the woodwinds whisper as Tenor Cesare Valletti sings the poetic Sanctus...
HANDEL: MESSIAH (3 LPs; Angel). Octogenarian Otto Klemperer has produced a Messiah that is spacious and well-ordered, yet moving and mysterious. He probes the emotional depths of Christ's story with perhaps more power than he uses to scale the jubilant heights. The Philharmonia...
...SONATA RECITAL (2 LPs; Vanguard). Bela Bartok wrote for the piano as though it were a percussion instrument, but when he played it, he could make it sing in the best romantic tradition. This historic album, made at a Library of Congress recital in 1940, is one of the few recordings that survive to attest to Bartok's virtuosity as a performer, long eclipsed by his fame as a composer. With Master Violinist Joseph Szigeti, Bartok gives a bold and dramatic rendition of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata and plays the Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano lightly...
BEETHOVEN: THE COMPLETE VIOLIN AND PIANO SONATAS (4 LPs; Columbia). Released separately over the past few years, these performances by Violinist Zino Francescatti and Pianist Robert Casadesus are now complete. The earlier sonatas are especially fine, for the French artists are marvelously attuned to the lyricism, elfin wit, and inventive refinements of the young Beethoven. Other violinists may play the works more romantically (David Oistrakh on Philips) or more brilliantly (Jascha Heifetz on RCA Victor), but their pianists do not always live up to them, and the understanding partnership of the two virtuosos in the new series is rewarding...
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ (2 LPs; Columbia) gave his first recital in a dozen years last May 9 at Carnegie Hall; this is a recording of that long-awaited performance. The program, which ranges from a Bach- Busoni toccata (Horowitz's good luck piece because it was the first selection on his debut program) through Chopin to Scriabin, shows a variety of technique and mood from lyric tranquillity to bravura virtuosity. The pianist is master of them all. Perhaps most beautiful is the inspired Schumann Fantasy in C Major; the final notes of the second movement float out as if played...