Before Christmas, I thought it might be helpful to talk about some of the
BMG discs I've bought.  The BMG club, of course, has some of the cheapest
prices I've seen.  Raves mingle with pans here, so be careful.  I don't
know whether I will be able to do more before Christmas, probably not.
Therefore, I'd recommend as well

*Ponce's neoclassic Violin Concerto with Szeryng (D128467),
*a wonderful Kiss Me, Kate led by John McGlinn (contains as well wonderful
songs that never made the final show - D230278),
*zippy readings of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante and Miaskovsky's Cello
Concerto by Maisky and Pletnev (D118659),
*and a delightful bunch of 20th-century wind concerti, including Vaughan
Williams's Tuba Concerto and Martin's Ballade for Flute (D130466).

Steve Schwartz

===========================
Korngold: Violin Concerto.
Weill: Violin Concerto.
Krenek: Violin Concerto No. 1.
Juillet (violin), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/John Mauceri.

Part of London's "Entartete Musik" series.  An interesting concept,
but little more.  Three composers contemporary with one another, major
players in the Austro-German Twenties music scene.  The program shows the
breadth of style at the time, even though the Korngold was written in the
Forties - from the post-Straussian essays of Korngold and Krenek, to the
Mahler-Schoenberg astringencies of Kurt Weill.  However, the Krenek is, to
put it kindly, an unremarkable work, and none of the performances of these
concerti are close to the best that can be got.  Chantal Juillet is not a
violinist I've ever warmed to.  Her readings tend to the literal, and her
intonation isn't all it should be.  The Korngold is particularly cruel to
violinists, since they must often modulate to God knows where without
orchestral support.  Mauceri does his usual gooey, doughy job.  In short,
do yourself a favor and stick with Heifetz or Perlman or Shaham or ....
The Weill reading has the virtue of clear playing, but it's an account that
not only reveals nothing new about the work, it reveals nothing.  Again, go
with Nona Liddell and David Atherton on DGG or Christian Tetzlaff on Virgin
Classics.  The standard lament about Krenek is that he abandoned tonality
for Schoenbergian serialism.  As far as I'm concerned, he had very little
to say as a tonal composer and started producing masterpieces only after he
made the switch.  The Violin Concerto No.  1's a case in point:  a rehash
of 19th-century chromatic melodic cliches.  When the instrumentation is the
most interesting thing about a work, maybe the work wasn't worth doing.
Mauceri and Juillet fail to make a case.  D118804

===========================
Milhaud: Le Boef sur le toit.
La Creation du monde.
Harp Concerto.
Cambreling (harp), Orchestre de l'Opera de Lyon/Kent Nagano.

The first two works come from Milhaud's most popular period, the Twenties,
and the last from his still too-little-known final period.  Le Boef and La
Creation show two of Milhaud's preoccupations of the time:  Brazilian music
and jazz, respectively.  Milhaud spent time in Brazil as secretary to the
poet-diploment Paul Claudel and heard Brazilian popular music up close and
personal.  He loved sambas, and Le Boef is, to a great extent, a large
orchestral samba.  La Creation is part of classical composers' fascination
with jazz just after World War I.  Stravinsky, Martinu, Schulhoff, Tansman,
Rachmaninoff, Weill, Lambert, Gershwin, Copland, and Antheil, to name only
a few, each had their own take on jazz.  Unlike many of those composers,
Milhaud had the great advantage of actually listening to the real thing.
He came to New York on a visit, went to a Harlem nightclub, and returned
to Harlem every night thereafter for the duration of his stay.  La Creation
du monde, the artistic result, is probably his most popular work, enduring
the shifts of fashion that have put most of Milhaud's huge output into an
obscure corner.  Yet, it's hard to find a recording of this work that uses
Milhaud's original scoring.  Usually, conductors beef up the strings
(Milhaud calls for a string quartet, plus bass).  Nagano gives us pure
Milhaud.  Both Le Boef and La Creation get clean, light readings.
Bernstein may be more exhilarating in Le Boef and Abravanel grittier in La
Creation, but Nagano gives you a good time, although with fewer calories.
Nagano emphasizes the considerable wit and poetry of these scores.  He
stands out in La Creation's jazz fugue.  The Harp Concerto (op.  353!
Milhaud had at least twenty more years to go) shows a bit of mellowing.
The work emits a graceful elegance.  The harpist is not so much the star
as a team player.  The first movement, a slightly sentimental waltz, is
followed by an exuberant allegro, reminiscent of the young members of Les
Six.  The slow movement is the "austere" Milhaud of the Thirties.  The
finale, a bit military in character, comes from Milhaud's populist, popular
vein of the Forties, when in U.S.  exile he wrote pieces that seemed to
stem from a need to preserve the best of French culture in bad times.
The performance is wonderful, capturing both the high spirits and the
contemplative poetry of the work.  D101443

======================================
Schoenberg.  Suite for String Orchestra in G*.
Chamber Symphony No. 2.
Theme and Variations.
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra*, Berlin German Symphony Orchestra/John
Mauceri.

More from the "Entartete Musik" series.  Schoenberg's attempts to
write popular works that people could hum.  All the works are tonal, and
they're all masterpieces as well.  I first heard the Suite on my car radio.
Naturally, I missed the announcement of the title and composer, so I began
to play "Guess Who?" The music struck me as modern, post-Romantic, and
knocked me out with its penchant for beautiful, unconventional harmonies -
in all, a gracious, elegant work.  I never would have guessed Schoenberg.
It revised my picture of this composer considerably.  Unfortunately,
Mauceri does his usual slop-through.  Gielen does a better Chamber
Symphony, Del Mar a better Suite, and Fennell a better Theme and
Variations.  The only reason to get this CD is to hear the latter
two works until better performances are released.  D120628

======================================
Daugherty.  Jackie O.
Soloists, Houston Grand Opera Orchestra/Christopher Larkin.

Thomas Hobbes called life "nasty, brutish, and short." The same can be
said for this opera.  Daugherty has made pop culture his inspiration,
particularly the trashier parts of pop.  At his best, he's terrific - a
real poet.  Occasionally, he gets burned, as he does here.  One can see
the attraction the cult of celebrity has for Daugherty.  Unfortunately, he
gives us a work as repellent and shallow as that cult.  To a large extent,
the librettist, Wayne Koestenbaum, does him in with a story in which
Jacqueline Onassis, Maria Callas, Aristotle Onassis, Liz Taylor, Grace
Kelly, Andy Warhol, and others parade across the stage for no real purpose
other than to let the writer and his audience gawk and goo.  You learn
nothing about any of these folks.  It's like seeing the weekly cover of the
National Enquirer tabloid.  The "that's the point" defense doesn't really
work here, since the opera gives you exactly nothing else.  Daugherty's
music is as dramatically trivial as the libretto.  The opera's as
brain-dead as what it supposedly criticizes.  All of these people were
complex, and their iconic status in the culture complicated their lives
even more.  This could have been wonderful.  Now, it's a waste of time.
D120813

======================================
Leroy Anderson: Piano Concerto in C.
Gershwin: Second Rhapsody (original 1931 version).
Gottschalk: Grand Tarantelle (arr. Hershey Kay)*.
Bowman: 12th Street Rag* (arr. Kunzel).
Joplin: The Entertainer (arr. Kunzel)*;
Solace (arr. Kunzel)**;
Maple Leaf Rag (arr. Kunzel)*.
Gould: Interplay.
Goodyear (pno), Tritt (pno)*, Lockhart (pno)**, Cincinnati Pops
Orchestra/Erich Kunzel.

A mixed bag.  The wonderful mixes with the mundane.  The find for me is
Anderson's Piano Concerto.  Anderson studied with major American Modernist
Walter Piston, among others, but worked for many years as chief arranger
for the Boston Pops.  In the process, he became a composer of open-hearted,
exquisitely-crafted light music that in its genius and beauty makes him
artistic kin to Johann Strauss the younger.  Anderson classics include
Sleigh Ride, The Syncopated Clock (theme of the Late-Night Movie in the
States), Fiddle Faddle, Bugler's Holiday, and The Typewriter, which turns
that utilitarian device into a musical soloist.  The piano concerto isn't
A Major Monument, but it is indeed damned attractive, with lovely tunes and
a sense of justness in its treatment of material.

The Gershwin is indeed a Major Monument of American music, although it's
never achieved the status and popularity of either Rhapsody in Blue or the
Concerto in F.  Amazingly enough, and indicative of the raw deal Gershwin's
music normally receives, is that this is the premiere recording of the work
as Gershwin wrote it.  Even Fiedler's pioneer recording in the early stereo
era used the orchestration of one Robert McBride, who scored far less
imaginatively than Gershwin.  He also silently edited actual notes.  This
is American music's shameful secret.  All those people who claim that
Gershwin is second-rate as a concert composer have probably never heard
real Gershwin.  Fortunately, this situation is being corrected, with
scholarly restoration of the original scores.  Even so, Gershwin has
remained a composer strong enough to withstand such patronization.
Americans who don't pay much attention to classical music can hum themes
from Gershwin's opera and concert works.  All we need now are a conductor
and orchestra willing to take Gershwin as seriously as they take
Stravinsky.  The Second Rhapsody began life as film music for the movie
Delicious.  Gershwin reworked the score into his follow-up to Rhapsody in
Blue.  He originally titled it "Rhapsody in Rivets" (after the rat-a-tat
rhythm of the first theme), changed to "Manhattan Rhapsody," and settled on
the chaste Second Rhapsody.  The tunes are fully up to Rhapsody in Blue.
Furthermore, the argument is more focussed and the structure more solid.
Like most late Gershwin, excepting Porgy and Bess, it has remained somewhat
obscure, more's the pity.  Nevertheless, it delivers Gershwin's big-city
exuberance and Romanticism in concentrate.  There are so many great touches
in this work, I can't recount them all, but the ending with massed horns
gets my blood moving like very little else.

The Gottschalk and the group of rags is more standard pops fare,
which I can take or leave.  If I never hear another arrangement of "The
Entertainer" again, I'll slaughter an ox to the gods.  All that said,
Kunzel, Tritt, and Lockhart (yeah, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops) all
do great.  If I hadn't a poker up my butt, I'd join in the fun.

In the Gould, we have another overlooked gem of American music.  Morton
Gould, a composing prodigy, was finding professional composing work in
his teens for the radio.  I consider him one of the best this country's
produced.  He's not all that well known, mostly due to a feud with Leonard
Bernstein, the most influential proponent of American music of his time.
Nevertheless, Gould's work is well worth exploring.  Interplay, also known
as American Concertette for Piano and Orchestra (yikes!) and originally
written for Iturbi to perform on Gould's radio program, later became a
Jerome Robbins ballet and thank heavens received its title change.  The
work combines jazz, Latin-American rhythms, and barn-dance fiddle tunes
very attractively and in a way unique to Gould.  It's a gem of a piece.

The performances are all first-rate.  Kunzel, while not drilling the life
out of the playing, nevertheless gets clean, rhythmic, and vital work from
his musicians.  The Telarc sound is its usual wonderful.  D101450

================================
Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ.
La Mort de Cleopatre.
Sara la baigneuse.
Meditation religieuse.
La Mort d'Ophelie.
Pears, Morison, Cameron, Rouleau, Frost, Fleet (all L'Enfance),
Pashley (Cleopatre),
St. Anthony Singers, The Goldsbrough Orchestra (L'Enfance), English Chamber
Orchestra/Colin Davis.

A "two-fer," budget-priced.  Such a deal.  Handel's Messiah - don't get me
wrong, a masterpiece - has nevertheless crowded out a bunch of interesting
stuff, this work among them.  One of Berlioz's finest scores, full of his
quirky sense of drama, with a few connective scenes it could have been an
opera.  The work consists of three parts:  "Herod's Dream," "The Flight
into Egypt," and "The Arrival at Sais." It opens with the tenor Narrator
calling all the faithful to attend, followed by a marvelous fugato passage
for the orchestra, which depicts Herod's restless nights.  Two centurions
recount Herod's troubled sleep and then Herod himself takes the stage.
Berlioz blurs the line between oratorio and opera here.  This is not really
the usual aria-and-chorus back and forth of oratorio, but mainly a
collection of scenas.  The recording, I believe, was the first to use a
critical approach to the score.  But Davis, although he has repeatedly
shown his great love for Berlioz's music, nevertheless turns in a rather
tepid performance, certainly no match for Munch and Boston Symphony.
Munch's accounts seemed almost like spirit possession of the composer.
Similarly, although Davis's readings are fine, the other works have been
better served by others.  On the other hand, it does represent a valid,
less-expensive alternative.  D220306

==================================
Britten: Spring Symphony.
Hymn to St. Cecilia.
Five Flower Songs.
Hagley (sop), Robbin (contralto), Ainsley (ten), The Monteverdi Choir,
Philharmonia Orchestra/John Eliot Gardiner.

The Spring Symphony, despite its title, is one of those anthology works
like the Serenade, Nocturne, and War Requiem.  This time, the subject is
(mainly) Spring, with a wonderful collection of poems by Spenser, Clare,
Peele, Milton, Herrick, Vaughan, Auden, and Blake.  For some reason,
critics don't talk about this work a whole lot.  I don't understand it.
It's always been one of my favorite Brittens, full of brilliant invention
and long sections of great power.  Just as the title has led us to expect
something else, even the anthology is hardly a simple hymn to nature.  The
key to the work comes in a magnificent setting of Auden's "Out on the lawn
I lie in bed," with its dire warnings over Hitler's invasion of Poland:

     "And, gentle, do not care to know,
     Where Poland draws her Eastern bow,
     What violence is done;
     Nor ask what doubtful act allows
     Our freedom in this English house,
     Our picnics in the sun."

This connects the work back to Britten's Thirties period, Our Hunting
Fathers and especially the Sinfonia da Requiem.  The Spring Symphony
thus becomes a "thanksgiving for victory" (to borrow the title of a
Vaughan Williams work), a praise of English freedom and the injunction
to not forget.  Gardiner's reading competes with the composer's own.
The conductors differ in their emphases.  Britten's account is more
Romantically lyrical.  Gardiner's is edgier.  I recommend both, but I
do prefer Gardiner.  For one thing, he gets sharper rhythm and greater
focus from orchestra and chorus.

Britten left behind some of the finest choral music of the century.  The
Hymn to St.  Cecilia and the Five Flower Songs rank among his best.  Both
pose incredible difficulties for choirs, although not for listeners.  The
Monteverdi Choir has all the problems licked.  However, the Hymn eludes
Gardiner, who turns in a superficial though technically expert reading.
The connections between the Auden text and Britten's music have escaped
him.  In the final movement, for example, the virtuoso imitation of musical
instruments Britten engages in is lost.  George Malcolm on an old Argo LP
led the best performance of this work I've heard.  Gardiner comes back,
however, with a lovely account of the Five Flower Songs.  The technical
superiority of the Monteverdi Choir combine with real interpretive insight
for a reading far out of the common.  I'd have to go back to an old Louis
Halsey LP (again on Argo) for anything this good.  D120002