Word: lps
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Stravinsky Conducts-1960(Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky conducting; Columbia, 3 LPs). This labor of love and profit offers Stravinsky's own readings of Le Sacre du Printemps and Petroushka, plus his recorded commentary on the composition of Le Sacre ("The idea of Le Sacre du Printemps came to me while I was still composing ze Firebird"). The performances have his expectable tautness and clarity. The accompanying text and pictures make the album a fitting tribute to one of modern music's living monuments...
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Birgit Nilsson, Fritz Uhl, Regina Resnik, Tom Krause; the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Georg Sold; London, 5 LPs). This first complete recording of the opera in stereo comes close to equaling London's celebrated stereo recording of Das Rheingold. The sound of the orchestra is glowing and massive, and Nilsson's voice soaring through it and over it is a delight. For those anxious to peek behind the scenes, London has included a bonus recording of a rehearsal explaining how it was done...
Rossini: The Barber of Seville (Gianna d'Angelo, Renato Capecchi, Carlo Cava, Nicola Monti, Giorgio Tadeo; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Bartoletti; Deutsche Grammophon, 3 LPs). As an effervescent Rosina, Soprano d'Angelo confirms the promise of her recent Metropolitan opera debut, but the honors here belong to Baritone Capecchi, whose Figaro is vibrant-voiced, flamboyant and believable...
Schumann: The Four Symphonies and The Piano Concerto (Leon Fleisher, pianist; the Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell conducting; Epic, 4 LPs). Szell's readings are blazing or majestic as the occasion demands, and they may even temporarily lay to rest the old debate about whether Schumann knew how to write for any instrument other than the piano...
Wagner: The Complete Piano Works (Bruce Hungerford, pianist; The Bayreuth Festival Master Classes, Inc., 2 LPs). All that survives of Wagner's small output for solo piano is seven pieces, three of them written during his Leipzig student days, when he was 18. Although the early exercises in this first recording reveal a Wagner with an ear still attuned to Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, the later pieces-Arrival at the Black Swans (1861), Album Leaf for Betty Schott (1875)-sound intriguing, Tristan-like echoes of the curving melody that surges through his operas...