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Music: Records: Summer's Choice
Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog (Columbia; $5.98).
The work of Columbia Producers Andrew Kazdin and Thomas Shepard, Everything is actually something less than that, a Franco-Spanish program including Chabrier's España, Ravel's Bolero, a mini-suite from Bizet's Carmen and the Malagueña of Ernesto Lecuona (only Latin in the group). Infinitely superior in sound quality and Moog mastery to the same company's alltime classical bestseller Switched-On Bach, Everything is not to be confused with the originals, nor is it to be condemned for its license. Harmless fun and easy to take, it asks the question: Has the time come to judge Moog programmers on their interpretive skills? If so, Kazdin and Shepard rate four stars for just tempos, bold colorations and wit.
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 (Herbert von Karajan; Berlin Philharmonic; Angel, 3 LPs; $5.98 each). Six testaments to the delectable creations in which Mozart not only prophesied the symphonic era that followed him but very nearly said the last word on the subject. Von Karajan's distinctive blend of rich phrase and richer orchestral sonority customarily works well. But this time he seems surprisingly nonchalant. His drowsy Jupiter, for instance, might better be called Saturn. The best set of these symphonies remains Otto Klemperer's (also on An gel), and for crisp, detail-laden sound George Szell's versions of 35, 39, 40, and 41, recently offered at a bar gain price ($6.98) by Columbia.
Penderecki: The Devils of Loudon (Philips, 2 LPs; $11.96). Focusing his threnodies and oratorios on man's worst moments (Hiroshima, Auschwitz, to name but two), Poland's Krzysztof Penderecki has emerged in recent years as the Hieronymus. Bosch of contemporary music. Here, in his first opera, he examines the nightmarish moods surrounding the torture and execution (at the stake) of a falsely accused 17th century French provincial priest. Penderecki's lurid vision of hell on earth rivals Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu. Splendidly performed by the Hamburg State Opera, Devils is clearly the operatic record of the year, though not for the easy listener.
New Music of Czechoslovakia (RCA; $5.98). Musicologists and conductors coming out of Prague these days speak fervently of the new school of young composers flourishing there. Here, at last, is convincing recorded documentation, performed by the London Symphony and Conductor Igor Buketoff. Vladimir Sommer's Vocal Symphony and Jan Klusak's First Invention are impressive enough, but the real "find" here is 15 Prints After Dürer's "Apocalypse" by 35-year-old Lubos Fišer (pronounced Fisher). Read musical episodes for prints, and you have a work that does not so much interpret Dürer, as reflect the austere purity of his graphic art.
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