It's refreshing and invigorating to have a taut unyielding view of a fine score. This recording should win converts among those who still regard Puccini as merely soft and sentimental.

Rather as I expected, the reissue of Lorin Maazel's three recent recordings of Puccini's one-acters as a co-ordinated box of the Trittico sharply brings out the conductor's distinctive approach. It is an approach which is typified by the very start of Gianni Schicchi, where there is an almost Stravinskian sharpness in the ostinato rhythms. Generally Maazel's concessions to romantic expressiveness are calculated rather than obviously warm. This degree of severity has the merit of underlining the musical cogency of all three pieces, splendid examples of Puccini's mastery at his high maturity, and Suor Angelica—wrongly regarded for far too long as a limp piece of sentimentality —benefits just as much as either of the others with the succeeding climaxes spaced in carefully balanced relationship.

The snag is that particularly with CBS's somewhat close recording balance, the atmospheric qualities of each opera—which some Puccinians would regard as among their highest merits—are underplayed. When I first reviewed Il tabarro, this absence of essential atmosphere made me give a less charitable review than I would now. Hearing it in context with the other performances, it is refreshing and invigorating to have a taut and relatively unyielding view of a fine score, even while one misses the dark evocations of the scene under a bridge of the Seine in Paris, which other versions so vividly capture.

The other gain from hearing the performances together is to have the dominance of Renata Scotto reinforced in both It tabarro and Suor Angelica. In Il tabarro neither Placido Domingo as Luigi (not quite in his warmest voice) nor Ingvar Wixell as the bargemaster Michele (rather too gritty-toned as recorded) is exactly a cipher, but Renata Scotto consistently focuses the centre of involvement with her dramatic and finely detailed singing.

In Gianni Schicchi the central pivot is provided of course by the contribution of the veteran Tito Gobbi, and though there may be some signs of the voice not being as young as it was, it is a deeply satisfying performance, as fine in its way as the classic one he recorded for HMV 20 years earlier. That HMV version is included in the boxed reissue set of Il trittico which appeared two years ago (SLS5066, 10/76), with all three operas given marvellous performances but with very dated recording and only Schicchi in stereo. The Decca set under Gardelli (SET 236-8, 12/62) is more idiomatic in performance than this Maazel CBS issue, and the sixties recording is amazingly bright and full for its age. But the new issue, controversial as it may be in some ways, is certainly refreshing, and should in particular win converts among those who still regard Puccini as merely soft and sentimental.

-- Gramophone [8/1978, reviewing the LP release of Il Trittico]

WAGNER: LOHENGRIN NELSSON, HO

MOZART: DIVERTIMENTO FOR STRIN

ROBERT AND GABY CASADESUS - TW

TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 OVERTURE, ET

PAGANINI: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO 1

"Walter's glowingly radiant reading...orchestral textures are clear and yet warm. Desi Halban's contribution is refreshingly individual, dramatic as well as touching, and she is comparably impressive in the songs."

-- Penguin Guide [2003/4] Review of Sony 64450

SCHUBERT: STRING QUARTETS D 81

MOZART: STRING QUINTETS NO 3 &

DEBUSSY: PRELUDES FOR PIANO BO

The D major Quartet Op. 23 was Dvorák's first really characteristic chamber work involving the piano and it was his earliest use of this particular instrumentation. As such it is rather uneven, the song-like Andantino con variazioni being the strongest movement. However, both the Juilliard players with Rudolf Firkusny and the Beaux Arts Trio with Walter Trampler on Philips make out excellent cases for it, and here as in the Op. 87 Quartet it is hard to choose between them on purely musical grounds. Each ensemble gives admirably decisive performances, absolutely clear as to their intentions. This is emphasized by the CBS recording, which is closer, making the fortes louder, the pianos softer, the accents sharper; other details such as the viola's brief playing of the theme near the start of the finale of the E flat Quartet Op. 87 are more clearly focused.

Both ensembles achieve splendid internal balance, it being hard to imagine improvements in their teamwork, and the stereo separation is good on both CBS and Philips. In Op. 87 the Beaux Arts and Trampler produce a fine effect of calm beauty in sections of the Lento, but so also do Firkusny and the Juilliards, and there is lovely playing from both cellists here. The same work's Scherzo, with its cimbalom evocations from the piano, also receives charmingly piquant readings, although with the lines rather more distinctly etched on CBS.

-- Gramophone [6/1979, reviewing the Piano Quartets]

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[T]he Juilliard...version [of the Quintet], with Rudolf Firkusny, is a fine one... For Dvorák's curious Bagatelles the viola drops out and the piano is replaced by a harmonium. These pieces recall a line buried somewhere in Vol. I of Virginia Woolf's Letters: "We are mystical and dreamy, and perform fugues on the harmonium"... They date from May 1878, when Dvorák was working on his initial group of Slavonic Dances, and the slightly eccentric instrumentation was apparently due to their being written for a set of musicians who met regularly at the Prague flat of a music critic friend of Dvorák's who happened to have a harmonium. The Bagatelles do not allow much scope for interpretative subtleties, but the performances given here, as might be expected, are very efficient.

-- Gramophone [8/1977, reviewing the Quintet and the Bagatelles]

BRAHMS: STRING QUARTET NO 3, C

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO NO 2 B

SCHUMANN: FRAUENLIEBE UND LEBE

MOZART: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS 21