Word: rca
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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BEETHOVEN: DIABELLI VARIATIONS (RCA Victor). Thirty-three variations on a waltz by the Austrian composer Anton Diabelli pose a formidable test for the virtuoso talents of 32-year-old John Browning. Much talked about but seldom performed, they strain the pianist's technical mastery and his emotional ambience. Browning, who is one of the best of the "percussive" school, passes the technical trials splendidly, but in the melancholy later variations, when he should be exploring Beethoven's darker nature, he appears to be marking time before the florid finale...
...KATE SMITH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM (RCA Victor). So well have Kate's last two albums done (How Great Thou Art is still on the Billboard charts after 22 weeks) that Victor has borrowed Peter Matz from Columbia to rearrange 24 of her biggest hits in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the day-May 1, 1931-when she started her first radio series. The result is nostalgic easy listening...
JEANETTE MACDONALD AND NELSON EDDY (RCA Victor). "Together again," as the previews of coming attractions used to say. Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, Indian Love Call, Rose-Marie-they're all here, the original recordings, most of them never before put on LP and one, Song of Love from Blossom Time, never released at all until now. Tramp, Tramp, Tramp to the nearest record store...
GLUCK: ORFEO ED EURIDICE (RCA Victor; 3 LPs). An opera for people who do not like singing, Orfeo is long on dances, and its best-known aria (in the Dance of the Blessed Spirits) is reserved for a flute. Renato Fasano and the Virtuosi di Roma give a pastel but translucent orchestral performance, almost otherworldly, as befits the score. Unfortunately, the singers are a bit too bloodless, even the promising young mezzo, Shirley Verrett, who sings Orfeo...
...married and struck out on his own. At first the going was tough: "I used to kid my wife that she married me for my money. Actually, she made more than I did, working in a 5 and 100 store." But then I Eddy began recording for RCA Victor in 1945 and was soon turning out hit records like flapjacks...