Music: New Records, Jun. 30, 1952

Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos takes a special pride in performing new music—and old music that is still new to the U.S. Last fall he gave the U.S. its first performance of Atonalist Arnold Schoenberg’s 1909 “monodrama,” Erwartung (Expectation), and his Manhattan audience seemed to find it considerably less noisy and strident than expected. Columbia Records stepped in quickly, got Mitropoulos, his New York Philharmonic-Symphony and Soprano Dorothy Dow to record it. Erwartung’s one-act story is somber, not to say macabre: a woman sings her innermost thoughts as she goes to a woodland tryst, stumbles over the dead body of her lover. The score sounds something like that of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, it is introverted and complex, but it succeeds in expressing terror and, surprisingly, tenderness. Soprano Dow, who comes from Texas, may not have so much Weltschmerz in her polished voice as Schoenberg had in mind, but she sings with great accuracy and lyrical ease. The orchestral part is played to perfection.

Other new records:

French Orchestral Masterworks (Minneapolis Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting; Mercury). Ravel’s Pavane Pour une Infante Défunte and Debussy’s Three Nocturnes receive clean, vigorous performances that are a shade too sturdy for their moods of fragile classicism and vaporous impressionism; the orchestra sounds fine in Berlioz’ Roman Carnival Overture. Recording: realistic, with a wide range of volume.

Lalo: Violin Concerto In F (Miriam Solovieff; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Henry Swoboda conducting; Concert Hall). A fiddler’s standby, warmly played by talented U.S. Violinist Solovieff.

Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F, K. 370 (Harold Gomberg, with members of the Galimar Quartet; Decca). Soloist Gomberg models his phrases with an elegance that would have delighted Mozart himself. The strings are shadowed somewhat, but play well.

Rachmaninoff: The Miserly Knight, Act II (Cesare Siepi, the Little Orchestra Society, Thomas Scherman conducting; Columbia). The whole act of this richly Russian score is devoted to the miser’s gold-gloating monologue in his cellar. Basso Siepi sings it resonantly in poorly articulated English. The orchestra sounds full-bodied, well-schooled.

Rossini: William Tell (with Giuseppe Taddei, baritone, Mario Filippeschi, tenor, Rosanna Carteri, soprano; orchestra and chorus of Radio Italiana of Turin, Mario Rossi conducting; Cetra-Soria, 8 sides). A rousing version of a masterpiece too seldom performed (its last performance at the Metropolitan Opera was in 1931, and no tenors have looked strong enough to warrant its production there since). Filippeschi blasts out his killing high notes with plenty of steam. Recording : on the shrill side.