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To round out its imposing operatic catalogue. London has also released The Marriage of Figaro (4 LPs), with Hilde Gueden, Danco and Siepi, and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Erich Kleiber, and The Magic Flute (3 LPs), with Gueden, Wilma Lipp, Simoneau and Berry, conducted by Karl Bohm. Both are first-rate performances and, as a bonus, the albums contain the complete musical scores.
Other new records:
Bruckner: Quintet (Koechert Quartet; Decca). A mellow, untroubled piece in pastoral mood, the only chamber work that Symphonist Bruckner ever wrote.
Debussy: Blessed Damozel (Victoria de los Angeles. Carol Smith; Radcliffe Choral Society; Boston Symphony Or- chestra conducted by Charles Munch; Victor). A piece that Debussy submitted, at 24. as part of his duties as a winner of the Prix de Rome. (Officials hesitated to accept it because of its "systematic" vagueness.) It is less vaporous than his more mature works, but its earthy enthusiasm is winning, especially in this crystalline performance.
Folia: Harpsichord Concerto (Sylvia Marlowe; Concert Arts Players; Capitol). An uncompromising concert work (1926) by the composer of the ballet Three-Cornered Hat. The style varies between a toccata motion of unceasing activity, and arpeggios opposed by ponderous chords. The small orchestra sounds smooth through the sometimes ripping dissonances; the harpsichord sounds like somebody jumping on the bedsprings.
Roy Harris: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (Nell Tangeman and chamber group; M-G-M). A deeply pulsing lament of heavy piano chords (played by Composer Harris' wife Johana) and elegiac countermelodies played by the violin and cello. Mezzo-Soprano Tangeman sings the Vachel Lindsay words with power and feeling to produce some fine music.
Josef Hofmann Golden Jubilee Concert (Columbia). Six Chopin works and four other romantic numbers, played in 1937 by one of the few men (now 79) who could always make the piano exciting. Even after 50 years of concertizing in the U.S. (he began at eleven, in 1887), and through the crackling of a bad recording, his elegance, fleetness, playfulness, aptness are astonishing.
Honegger: A Christmas Cantata (Michel Roux; Lamoureux Orchestra, choirs and organ conducted by Paul Sacher; Epic). A pacing, brooding opening chorus wells up to a shrieking appeal to the Saviour. After that, the music carries on with more competence than excitement, but it does weave in several Christmas carols (sung in their original languages by children) to make a big, festive impression. A typical work by the first member of France's famed Les Six to die.