This isn't music-making for the timid, used to the sanitized, faultless performances on your everyday CD. In its raw, unvarnished way, it is daring, fierce, mesmerizing, to be heard when you're feeling strong of spirit and mind. Toscanini views Fidelio and indeed Leonore No. 3 as stark drama, devoid of sentimentality. The winds leap from the speakers, the brass blare ferociously as the old wizard tells a story of the struggle for freedom in a year when, even in the United States, events far away in Europe must have felt very present. In achieving his end, he demands and mostly receives superhuman efforts from his charges: speeds are nervously fast, rhythms alert, as though the events were happening in the conductor's presence. The wind section is prominent in a way we have since heard from Norrington in Beethoven, indubitably influenced by his predecessor. An occasional untidiness is a price worth paying for such an edge-of-your-seat interpretation. Inevitably the epithet 'hard-driven' has been used about the performance: a visionary conductor, inclined to the dictatorial, demands much from his performers and listeners. No compromises can be made. We won't always want to hear the score done like this; once in a way, it is cleansing and salutary.

According to Harvey Sachs's notes, Rose Bampton once said that Toscanini declared ''the words came first and that the music was composed afterwards. So we had to understand the deepest significance of the words in order to be expressive.'' Certainly all the singers enunciate with the utmost clarity, to a fault in the case of the inadequate Rocco, whose German is poor. Bampton herself, although no Lehmann (Toscanini's Salzburg interpreter) in matters of voice or diction, is a determined and dedicated Leonore, whose ''Abscheulicher'' comes from a later session and is the best part of her performance—elsewhere she is sometimes off form vocally. The young Steber is a lovely Marzelline. Although not one's ideal Florestan, Peerce sings with his customary honesty and technical security. Janssen may not have the incisive bass-baritone for Pizarro, but he projects his part with biting venom. Nobody else makes much of an impression and the chorus is no more than adequate—Robert Shaw hadn't yet arrived on the scene—but the sum is greater than the parts.

Much as one may regret the break for Leonore No. 3, the performance is so electrifying as to silence criticism, but exception has to be taken to the complete absence of dialogue, an essential part of this score. The digital tapes, made from NBC acetates rather than RCA originals, have a little more breadth and reliability than previous transfers to LP. In any case, reservations about sound should deter nobody from sampling this unique experience.

-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 1 -

VIVALDI: FOUR SEASONS, ETC SP

Jascha Heifetz was larger than life, but was he too big for Mozart? The stern patrician of the violin, with his intense, laser-beam intonation and diamond-hard tone, would seem ideally suited for the big romantic concertos for which he was famous, but any fears that he would be mismatched with Mozart will be allayed immediately upon hearing his serene entry in the first movement of the "Turkish" Concerto, not to mention the delicate interplay that follows, by turns witty and sensuous. For the only time in his career, Heifetz is both conductor and soloist, making this the most involving of his recordings of the work.
Unlike many virtuosos of his time, Heifetz had no qualms about appearing publicly in chamber ensembles. And, with violist William Primrose and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, he formed a sort of permanent yet flexible supergroup that gave regular concerts in Los Angeles throughout the 1960s. These players, along with violist Virginia Majewski and legendary Hollywood session violinist Israel Baker, are heard in the G minor String Quintet, a work with intimations of the 19th century, here given a taut, urgent, almost Beethovenesque performance.

VERDI: REQUIEM DAVIS, VANESS,

Personnel: Maureen McGovern (vocals); Jeff Mironov (acoustic & electric guitars); Mark Feldman (electric violin); William Galison (harmonica); Lou Marini (saxophone, flute); Jeff Harris (keyboards); Mike Rienzi (keyboards); Anthony Jackson (electric bass); Allan Schwartzberg (drums, percussion); Jamie Lawrence (synthesizer programming); Sheryl Alexander, Megan Barron, Rob Fisher, Troy Halderson, Jeff Harris, Susan H. Schulman (background vocals).

Rhythm Song

ROMANTIC PIANO

DVORÁK: VIOLIN CONCERTO, ROMAN

MARILYN HORNE - ROSSINI RECITA

BIZET: L'ARLESIENNE SUITES, CA

SCHNITTKE: VIOLA CONCERTO, TRI

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 18 -

DEBUSSY: LE MARTYR DE SAINT-SE

Vladimir Spivakov abandons his violin for the podium and conducts the Moscow Virtuosi in performances which acknowledge many of the stylistic developments which have taken place in baroque performance over the past 25 years or so. Repeats—and that includes those related to each of the two parts of the French overtures—are scrupulously observed, tempos are lively, continuo support light-footed... Spivakov's sensibility to the music is unmistakable- he never tramples over it and never over-inflates it. The menuets and bourrees of the C major Suite are articulated with great delicacy and played with finesse. The Forlane, too, is poised and agreeably leisurely making one feel inclined to take to the floor... Tobias Carron (flute) gives an engaging account of the B minor Suite and the brass and timpani in the Third and Fourth Suites are splendidly resonant... Good recorded sound and interesting notes. Well worth considering.

-- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone [5/1991]