OPERA FANTASIES ENSEMBLE WIEN

Track Listing
1. Pinebluff, Arkansas
2. Shake 'Em on Down
3. Black Train Blues
4. Strange Place Blues
5. When Can I Change My Clothes?
6. Sleepy Man Blues
7. Parchman Farm Blues
8. Good Gin Blues
9. High Fever Blues
10. District Attorney Blues
11. Fixin' to Die Blues
12. Aberdeen Mississippi Blues
13. Bukka's Jitterbug Swing
14. Special Streamline

Personnel includes: Bukka White (vocals, guitar); Washboard Sam (washboard).

Compilation producer: Lawrence Cohn.

Recorded in Chicago, Illinois between September, 1937 and March, 1940. Originally reissued as a Columbia LP. Includes liner notes by Mark Humphrey.

All songs written by Bukka White.

This is part of Legacy "Roots N' Blues" series.

The artist's face fills the front cover, with a look of quiet and desperation. Sure, he looks like he has the blues, but furthermore, he seems to be secretly begging the listener not to judge this release as his best. That's because the recordings included here date from the late '30s and early '40s, while the photography of the artist is all from the '60s, when he was rediscovered and began performing again for the blues and folk revival audience. A man of pride, White surely wanted to feel that he was doing his best work artistically in the present, not back in his younger days. Records certainly sounded better in the '60s than they did decades earlier, and some blues fans will prefer the later recordings of this artist just because of the lack of surface noise, as well as the more fully developed recorded sound of his characteristic national steel resophonic guitar. White tried very hard in his later years and made some excellent new recordings, but he was often at a loss to fulfill expectations, especially in front of live audiences. He didn't seem to have enough different variations on his song material, went off on too many weird tangents, and sometimes seemed to be in a rotten mood, which certainly seems to be a strange thing for anyone to complain about when it comes to the blues genre. Out of sympathy for this elder statesman of the Delta blues, several of whose songs provide a textbook example of the style, one wants to pick a later recording as his best, but too many chips fall on the side of these old Vocalion sides, which, despite some surface mess, have been remastered beautifully. The tracks in which White is accompanied by Washboard Sam are really fantastic, representing some of the best country blues one can find, rhythmically snappy and melodically clear. In terms of the musical styles that White employed, they are all here: The basis for every single song he ever recorded, if not the song itself, is included among these 14 tracks. "Where Can I Change My Clothes," one of the best songs about prison, is included along with White's unique version of "Parchman Farm." The former song was one he re-recorded in the '60s, releasing it under the latter title: Neither song is the same as the "Parchman Farm" blues standard that was later satirized by Mose Allison and obliterated by Blue Cheer. One of the great things about White's style is his vocals. His pronunciation and accent are fascinating. Take the way he pronounces the title of "district attorney" in the song of the same name. As well, he could be the only blues singer to deliver the following couplet and make it sound like it actually rhymes: "Doctor, put that temperature gauge under my tongue/And tell me, all I need is my baby's lovin' arms." The use of photographs of White as an old man to accompany music he recorded when he was young may not be completely inappropriate, but it is a bit misleading. The lengthy liner notes are superb.

MOZARTIANA- PIANO TRANSCRIPTIO

HENZE: REQUIEM METZMACHER, WI

CASALS EDITION - MOZART: PIANO

VERDI: FALSTAFF MUTI, PONS, F

Glenn Gould & Chamber Music

Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne

This is playing of distinction. With all 13 players being of the highest quality and Mehta at his sympathetic best, everything unfolds impressively, with a sense of joy in the music-making.

A big work, this, written for the kind of wind ensemble that became popular during the 1780s at the Austrian imperial court and its aristocratic imitators. In fact, the usual combination was of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, but here Mozart adds two more horns, a pair of bassett horns and a double-bass; the effect is thus even more massive, although his mastery of texture is such that it never feels overblown and a contemporary described this piece as "herrlich und gross, trefflich und her", which the insert-note here translates as "glorious and grand, excellent and sublime".

Since the 13 players here are of the highest quality and Mehta is a sympathetic conductor, everything unfolds impressively, and there is a sense of joy in the music-making. Over and over, I find this playing natural, easy without slickness and expressive (sometimes even passionate) without mannerism. To experience the blend of weight and grace that the music and performance offer, listen to the first Minuet, the second of the five movements. The tempo is just right and the shaping of phrases (not least in the delicately scored first trio and the bouncy secondone) elegant. Altogether, this is playing of distinction. As for the sound of the Adagio which follows, the music which awed Salieri in Shaffer's play Amadeus, this is no less poised. Indeed, here is an excellent performance that is complemented by a clear and atmospheric recording made in the Berlin Philharmonie. Strongly recommended and earning first place among current versions.

-- Gramophone [9/1995]

GULDA NON-STOP FRIEDRICH GULD

Selections recorded October 31-November 2, 1991.

SIBELIUS: SYMPHONIES NO 1 & 5,

Riccardo Muti is, of course, a noted Tchaikovskian, and this admirable performance of The Fairy's Kiss approximates the tone and lustre of The Sleeping Beauty ballet.

Tchaikovsky was as much a part of Stravinsky's creative consciousness as Mozart was of Tchaikovsky's. All three composers meet in Le baiser de la fée ("The Fairy's Kiss"; 1928), where Tchaikovsky is at his most overtly Mozartian and Stravinsky at his most elegantly balletic. The score is based largely on Tchaikovsky piano pieces and songs; it was commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubinstein, while sections of it were later selected for a separate work, Divertimento, that went on to achieve rather more popularity than the complete ballet. More recordings, too; some of them of exceptional quality.

Riccardo Muti is, of course, himself a noted Tchaikovskian, and this admirable performance approximates the tone and lustre of, say, The Sleeping Beauty ballet. The very opening has lovingly stressed string accents and a feeling of 'miracles in the offing'. The ensuing Allegro sostenuto is more playful than biting, and while I would have welcomed a keener edge in the third section of Scene I (track 3) and a rather less. sedate approach to the ensuing Vivace agitato, the "Village Fête" is properly buoyant, the third scene's "By the Mill" nicely atmospheric (how utterly Tchaikovskian those oboes and clarinets) and the penultimate "Scene", with its painfully nostalgic references to None but the lonely heart, is played with appealing restraint. Still, it is at that point in particular that memories of Mravinsky's searing 1983 broadcast prompt a quick rush to the shelves, even though imperfect sound and the occasional technical slip-up preclude total rapture. Stravinsky, too, is memorable, a tighter, drier and occasionally more incisive option, while Järvi's characterization and superior sound serve to bolster a third option - and that is about the limit of the competition, at least for the moment. Muti's La Scala strings are sweetly expressive, whereas his winds and brass are not quite in the top league.

The sound is warm, enclosed and scrupulously balanced, a fairly intimate experience, quite appropriate to the music. Ultimately, I would place Muti more or less on a par with Järvi, but not quite the equal either of Mravinsky or of the composer himself.

As to the BartOk Two Pictures, Muti's performance of "In full flower" traces a romantic strain to contrast with Boulez's Debussian axis (see above). Bluebeard is obviously close to hand while the "Village dance" is sleek, witty and very well played, with not much in the way of a native Hungarian accent. It is a good performance and makes for an attractive, if somewhat unexpected, coupling for a worthy Baiser de la fée.

-- Robert Cowan, Gramophone [9/1995]

ROMANTIC HARP CONCERTOS NORDM

It makes an apt coupling having the long-buried pieces by Ponchielli (Puccini’s teacher) and Catalani (his contemporary from the same city, Lucca) alongside the three most impressive examples of Puccini’s early orchestral writing. Like Puccini’s Preludio and Capriccio the works by Ponchielli and Catalani have been resurrected by the Italian musicologist, Pietro Spada, and similarly offer easily lyrical invention from composers who, like Puccini, were concentrating on opera.

The Ponchielli Elegia sustains its length well up to passionate climaxes, rather like film music. The two Catalani items were both arranged from piano pieces, the Scherzo a charming dance, Contemplazione much more ambitious, leading to a tender and hushed reprise of the opening theme (track 3, 8'32''). The orchestration was evidently made for the Scala orchestra’s appearance at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

Welcome as those compositions are, it is striking that the Puccini pieces are markedly more memorable, above all in their melodic writing. That is immediately apparent in the free-flowing Preludio sinfonico, and “La tregenda” (“Witches’ Sabbath”), the dance interlude from Puccini’s first opera, Le villi, is the most brilliant of his early inspirations.

The Capriccio sinfonico, the longest piece here, was written as a graduation exercise, very well orchestrated, with structure well controlled. A moment of revelation comes when the Allegro opens on the theme which Puccini later used for the opening of La boheme. Muti brings out the emotional warmth in all these works.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [9/1998]