[Caballé's] alternations of tenderness and regal authority bring [the title character] to a more interesting kind of life than Sutherland manages to do, and when she is playing opposite Alfredo Kraus a genuinely mutual responsiveness does much to counteract the sense of a concert performance or merely "going through the score". With the proviso that there aren't any trills worth speaking of (and they are not a luxury in this role), Caballé sings the part beautifully, her voice at its loveliest, the tone completely steady and the breadth of phrasing a delight. Kraus is splendid; Flagello sonorous and preferable in the part to the baritone Ingvar Wixell; and as Orsini, Verrett has exactly the freshness that makes it just possible to think of her as Gennaro's young friend, which [Marilyn] Horne, for all the sumptousness of her voice, did not. On balance, then, I prefer this recording as far as the singing is concerned—and that is much... As to the musical value of the opera, if it were all up to the standard of the Prologue, with its intensely moving ensemble, it would be great indeed; as it is, I still find it yielding more, rather than less, as time goes by.

-- Gramophone [9/1980, comparing this recording with the Sutherland/Bonynge Decca recording]

DONIZETTI: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

Contains an illustrated booklet with an essay by Piero Rattalino titled "A Fresh Look At Don Pasquale's Comic Quality", performer and conductor biographical information, plot synopsis and a libretto in German, Italian, English and French.

Review:

This is a most attractive set and presents a serious challenge to the two versions [mentioned below]. Like the excellent Ferro, Roberto Abbado balances equably the witty and more serious sides of the score. If he and his orchestra don't quite achieve the brio of Ferro—for instance the lighter, faster Ferro touch in the famous ''Cheti, cheti immatinente'' duet is better at suggesting sotto voce plotting—Abbado finds a gratifying lightness in the ''A quel vecchio'' section of the Act 1 finale and creates a delightful sense of expectancy as Pasquale preens himself while awaiting his intended bride. Ferro Abbado and the slightly po-faced Muti on the older EMI version play the score complete and respect Donizetti's intentions, banishing the traditional emendations added by his interpreters over the years.

The new cast has many strengths and few weaknesses: indeed it would be hard to cast the piece more successfully today. Pasquale is usually assigned to a veteran singer. In the case of Bruscantini (Muti) and Bacquier (Ferro), allowances definitely have to be made for the singer's age: both men cleverly compensate with the vocal equivalent of guying for failing voices. With Burton you hear a voice hardly touched by time and a technique still in perfect repair. Apart from weak low notes (not surprising as this is a bass rather than a baritone part), he sings and acts the part with real face, and his vital diction, particularly in recitative (listen to this Pasquale reciting his chapter of complaints about ''Sofronia'' to Malatesta in the final scene), is a pleasure to hear. This portrayal is a fit partner for his Falstaff on the Giulini set of Verdi's opera (DG, 12/83), and just as ripely and intelligently sung. He works well with Thomas Allen's nimble, wily Malatesta, an unexpected piece of casting that proves to be inspired. Like Bruson, Allen sings every note truly and relishes his words, evincing a sense of comedy as he prepares, cruel to be kind, to gull his friend. Allen sings ''Bella siccome'' as suavely as Nucci (Muti) and acts with his voice just as keenly.

Eva Mei's Norina is an ebullient creature with a smile in her tone, much more pointed and pert than the accurate but lacklustre Hendricks (Erato) or the admittedly warmer-voiced Freni (Muti). The edge to Mei's voice seems to me just right for Norina though others may find it tends towards the acerbic under pressure. Her skills in coloratura are as exemplary as you would expect from a reigning Queen of Night. She is at her very best in ''Tornami a dir'', her pure line and refined phrasing ideally matching those of Lopardo as Ernesto. Lopardo is that rare thing, a tenor who can sing in an exquisite half-voice, as in ''Com' e gentil'', yet has the metal in his tone to suggest something heroic in ''E se fia'', the cabaletta to ''Cerchero lantern terra'', which in turn is sung in a plangent loving way, just right: I loved the pp cadenza into the second verse. Not even Schipa had all these accomplishments. Perhaps Canonici's timbre (Ferro) is the more Italianate, but Lopardo is the more accomplished singer, indeed on the way to becoming a great one.

As the recording here is exemplary as compared with the EMI (too reverberant) and the Erato (singers sometimes too backward), this version would now be my outright recommendation.

-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone [12/1994]

ELGAR: VIOLIN CONCERTO, ETC Z

Track Listing
1. Any Place I Hang My Hat / It's A Grand Night For Singing / Good Morning / It's A Lovely Day Today
2. I'm Shadowing You
3. Crazy Rhythm
4. Primrose Colour Blue
5. We Are the Music Makers
6. You Spotted Snakes
7. Methuselah
8. When I Was One and Twenty
9. Sing Me No Song
10. Triboro Fair
11. You've Got to Do What You've Got to Do
12. He Was Beautiful
13. Turkish Delight
14. Never Let Me Go
15. Hoagy Carmichael Medley: Georgia On My Mind / Lazy Bones / The Nearness Of You / I Get Along Without You Very Well / My Resistance Is Low / Stardust
16. I Want to Be Happy

Personnel includes: Cleo Laine (vocals); John Dankworth (alto saxophone).

Good set celebrating the 10th anniversary of the sensational 1973 Carnegie Hall concert that was an acclaimed two-album set. Laine is a dynamic, versatile entertainer who isn't a jazz singer in strictest sense, but does possess incredible timing and a remarkable ear. Her diction and enunication are admirable, and her stylistic range includes theatrical songs, pre-rock pop, English and Scottish folk tunes, and more. ~ Ron Wynn

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

Track Listing
1. Apple Honey
2. Four Brothers
3. Early Autumn
4. Cousins
5. Blue Getz Blues
6. Finale: Caladonia (What Makes Your Big Head So Hard?)

Personnel includes: Woody Herman (alto saxophone, clarinet, vocals), Stan Getz, Flip Phillips, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Giuffre, Sam Markowitz, Gary Anderson, Joe Lovano, John Oslawski (saxophone), Pete Candoli, Nelson Hatt (piccolo trumpet), John Hoffman, Dennis Dotson, Bill Byrne, Danny Styles (trumpet), Phil Wilson, Jim Pugh, Dale Kirkland, Jim Daniels (bass trombone), Billy Bauer (guitar), Jimmy Rowles, Nat Pierce (keyboards), Chubby Jackson, Rusty Holloway (bass), Don Lamond, Dan D'Imperio (drums).

Engineers: Keith Grant, Dale Ashby, Billy Ashby, Mike Moran, Pat Martin.

Recorded at Carnegie Hall, New York City on November 20, 1976.

Wonderful sessions. A youthful, stunning Stan Getz (ts).

DVORÁK: CELLO CONCERTO SCHUBE

I have an old HMV LP with a youthful looking Andre Previn on the sleeve (9/74 - nla) and coupling the Ravel Trio and Shostakovich E minor Trio, and very good it is; the other artists were Young Uck Kim and Ralph Kirshbaum. Now an older Previn returns to the Ravel, and with new colleagues brings to it the same affection, together with a chaste quality wholly appropriate to this composer who evinced an honourable bashfulness yet whose passion is unfailingly genuine and moving - surely one reason for his immense popularity today. The Trio is one of the largest and grandest of chamber works, yet its rhetoric is without hollowness (and how rare that is in French music!) and it somehow just stays within the bounds of chamber music: oddly enough, one of the most shattering climaxes comes in the slow movement. A rich yet un-glitzy recording helps this intensely felt yet refined performance, and altogether the artists offer a memorable musical experience.

Debussy's long lost piano trio is a youthful work that I'm certain he would have hated to have played at all, but scholars don't always mind about that sort of thing. Having come to light fairly recently, this jejune piece now has several performances on disc. Undoubtedly it needs skilful playing to avoid seeming embarrassingly weak alongside the Ravel, and the present artists do a very decent job, presenting its naIvety without apology. Their disc is not generous at 48 minutes, but the performance of the Ravel above all makes it value for money.

-- Gramophone [11/1995]

DVORAK: PIANO CONCERTO JANAC

"The unique item on the Starker disc is the first ever recording of the Bartok Viola Concerto in the cello version prepared by the man who originally completed Bartok's sketches of this work, Tibor Serly. I am surprised to find that—according to the notes accompanying the disc—it was published some 30 years ago, but never taken up until Starker started playing it. There is a strong case for preferring the cello version, when the lower register gives extra warmth to the melodic writing, notably in the Adagio religioso slow movement. If Starker shows a degree of emotional restraint in the Dvorak—almost as though he no longer finds the piece quite so fresh—his performance of the Bartok is stirringly expressive, very idiomatically Hungarian in the rhythmic pointing and linking of contrasted sections. He is brilliantly backed up by Slatkin and the St Louis orchestra who offer some alert playing. I hope now that cellists may take up this version more widely, both in concert and on disc, even though that would be hard luck on viola players, whose repertory is even sparser."

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [3/1992]

Vesselina Kasarova brings her rich mezzo-soprano and strong personality to the role of Leonore, while Ramón Vargas is stylish and fluent in his two arias with their dauntingly high range.

Though it contains a couple of often-recorded arias, this four-act grand opéra written for the Paris Opera, where it had its premiere in 1840, is one of Donizetti’s less frequently performed works (except in Italy, where an unsatisfactory Italian version, La favorita, continues to be staged). Most of its music was, in fact, written for L’ange de Nisida (The Angel of Nisida), an opera he had been composing the previous year for another Paris theatre which had, however, been forced to close. (L’ange de Nisida itself contained music he had written five years earlier for Adelaide, which he abandoned incomplete.)

Though it is hardly one of Donizetti’s most finely wrought scores, the opera can still prove successful when performed with a proper appreciation of its style, as on this recording. Vesselina Kasarova brings her rich mezzo-soprano and strong personality to the role of Leonore, mistress of Alphonse XI, King of Castile, singing her great Act III aria, ‘O mon Fernand’, most beautifully. As Fernand, whom she loves and who finally has to choose between her and a monastery, Ramón Vargas is stylish and fluent in his two arias with their dauntingly high range, and Anthony Michaels-Moore is a strong Alphonse. Marcello Viotti conducts authoritatively.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- Charles Osborne, BBC Music Magazine

CEREMONIES OF CAROLS- BRITTEN,

DAVID RAKSIN CONDUCTS HIS GREA

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH ROY HARG