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Rossini, La Cenerentola (Teresa Berganza, Luigi Alva, Renato Capecchi, Paolo Montarsolo, London Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera Chorus, Claudio Abbado conducting; Deutsche Grammophon, 3 LPs, $20.94). Despite the greater popularity of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, this is actually the composer's comic masterpiece, a work in which the stuff of childish fantasy is transformed breathtakingly into the best kind of adult fun and games. In the title role, Spain's Teresa Berganza sings with a bravura coloratura style that (among mezzos) only Marilyn Home might match. Conductor Claudio Abbado not only has opted for a newly cleaned-up version of the score (with spurious arias discarded, and some of Rossini's original instrumentation restored), but has produced a performance totally dedicated to the opera's unceasing wit, sane dramatics and will-o'-the-wisp musical acrobatics.
Stolen Goods, Gems Lifted from the Masters; The Outrageous Dr. Teleny's Incredible Plugged-in Orchestra (Zack Laurence conducting; RCA quadradisc, $5.98). The cover of this album shows a James Bond type suspended by rope above an alarm-rigged floor making a heist of some bejeweled busts of the great composers. The first track is called The People, Yes, and turns out to be Chopin's Revolutionary Etude done up in the sex and violence of an 007 film's sound track. Ludwig's Gig is a lush snippet from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony; Superjoy, an electronically extravagant "lift" of Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring; Wild Turkey, a toe-tapping treatment of Mozart's Turkish Rondo, and so on. Of its jazzing-the-classics type, basically an appalling genre, this is better than most, and the stereo sound from one of RCA's new quadradiscs is stunning. One of the outrageous things about Dr. Teleny is that he does not exist. His orchestra is a London pickup ensemble put together by the creators of the album, Freelance Arrangers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who number Elvis Presley among their clients.
Mozart, Violin Concertos Nos. 1 to 5, Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364 (and other works) (David Oistrakh, soloist and conductor, Berlin Philharmonic; Angel, 4 LPs, $23.92). The riddle of the Sphinx is nothing compared with the mystery of Mozart interpretation. How else explain the existence of so many otherwise great men of music (Horowitz, Stokowski, to name but two) among the ranks of failed Mozarteans? David Oistrakh is emphatically not one of them. His playing (that curvaceous tone especially) has a touch of the romantic, but not enough to tarnish the piquant bloom of youth that imbues all these works. Mostly, Oistrakh's way is a perfect blend of ingenious inner detail and simple, uncomplicated exteriors. That applies also to his viola playing in the Sinfonia Concertante (Son Igor takes the violin solo) as well as to his conducting of the Berlin Philharmonic, which plays with more energy and bite than it usually does under its regular conductor, Herbert von Karajan.