Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312140013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JOSEPH MCLELLAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The most expensive set of recordings on the market this year - and, on the whole, a very good one - is Sony's f+b``Royal Edition'' of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonico on more than 100 CDs.
The least expensive CDs that seem suitable for a gift are sprightly new productions of Wagner's ``Flying Dutchman'' and Rossini's ``Barber of Seville'' on the bargain-priced Naxos label. The performers have no name recognition in the United States, but the performances are well sung and theatrically alive, good choices for beginning collectors and worthy additions to any collection.
Between these extremes, there is fine material in all price ranges and enough variety to let the giver show exquisite awareness of the receiver's special tastes. Much of it assembles previously issued basic repertoire by well-known performers - Richard Goode's superb set of the Beethoven piano sonatas on Elektra/Nonesuch, for example, and the Tokyo Quartet's Beethoven cycle on RCA - but quite a lot of it has been hard or impossible to find on compact disc until now.
Getting personal for a moment, there are three items I would most like to find in my stocking on Christmas morning if I did not already have them: the ``Julian Bream Edition'' (RCA, 28 CDs), ``Music From the New York Stage 1890-1920'' (Pearl, 12 CDs) and ``Singers of Imperial Russia'' (Pearl, 12 CDs). Many music lovers would prefer the monumental f+b``Horowitz: The Complete Masterworks Recordings: 1962-1973'' (Sony, 13 CDs ), the glitzy ``RCA/Met: 100 Years, 100 Singers'' (RCA, six CDs) or the devilishly clever ``The Master's Voice: Noel Coward: His HMV Recordings 1928 to 1953'' (Angel, four CDs).
Bream, who has just turned 60, has been an international star for more than 30 years. He is a unique figure at that level in his mastery of both the guitar and the lute, and a historic force in the revival of old music and the introduction of new works, such as Britten's brilliant ``Nocturnal,'' which was written for him. The RCA collection presents the life work of a true musical renaissance man - or at least a first installment; if Bream keeps going as long as Andres Segovia did, his career is only a bit past the halfway mark.
The English label Pearl has become the world's leading source of what we might call audio archaeology: meticulously engineered, carefully collected and thoughtfully documented CD editions of recordings from the acoustic era, before microphones were used. The sound is highly variable, sometimes scratchy but often surprisingly good, and the material can be fascinating. ``Music From the New York Stage 1890-1920'' and ``Singers of Imperial Russia'' oare just what their titles would indicate.
Most of the Russian singers will be unfamiliar to the average listener, and the collection is amazing for the abundance and quality of its material, testimony to the very active musical life of pre-revolutionary Russia. But Verdi is also well represented, and there is a little bit of Puccini and a lot of Meyerbeer.
``Music From the New York Stage'' contains nearly 300 songs from 149 shows, beginning with ``The Old Homestead'' and running up to ``My Lady Friends,'' recorded by members of the original casts. Naturally, there are some clinkers and quite a bit of ethnically insensitive material, but the documentary value is enormous, not only for musical style but also for the cultural history.
Many of the singers still have high name recognition. There is a lot of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Bert Williams; tantalizing glimpses of Lillian Russell and Eva Tanguay; and composers Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan plugging their own songs. The person who ``has everything'' probably doesn't have this material.
Sony's Horowitz collection documents that remarkable point in his career when he came back after 12 years of self-imposed exile from the concert stage. The electrifying Carnegie Hall concert of May 9, 1965, is in this set, recorded live, as were several 1966 concerts and a 1968 television program.
by CNB