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Beethoven: Trio No. 7—"The Archduke" (Emil Gilels, piano; Leonid Kogan, violin; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; Monitor). Three virtuosos demonstrate that the Red Russians can do as well as Whites. The players melt their individual talents into a superlative ensemble performance which makes this latest version of an exquisite trio close to irresistible.
The Two Oistrakhs: Bach's Sonata for Two Violins and Piano, Mozart's Sonata No. 15 for Violin and Piano, Beethoven's Trio No. 9 with Pianist Vladimir Yampolsky, and the Gilels, Kogan, Rostropovich trio; Monitor). Singly and together, papa David and son Igor Oistrakh show that the Russians know how to play Bach and Mozart with purity and cool grace.
Beethoven: the Late Quartets Nos. 12-16 (Hollywood String Quartet; Capitol, 5 LPs). Despite its frivolous name—its members are movie studio musicians—the Hollywood Quartet is a first-class outfit, and it meets this Everest of chamber music on its own heights. It lacks the bite, power and drive of the Budapest, whose Beethoven performances are unique, but its tone is warmer. In the haunting sighs and groans of the tragic No. 14, the Hollywood dips beneath the surface to the inner life of a matchless work.
Bartok: Complete String Quartets (Parrenin Quartet; Westminster, 3 LPs). These six quartets were written over a period of 30 years, between 1908 and 1939. Even the earliest reveals a musician of size and depth. Impressively played, all reveal a dazzling ability to create new sounds about old torments, a gift for making strings do everything but talk. Sometimes, in the strange musical idiom Bartok invented, they seem to do even that.
Italian Chamber Music (soloists and Societas Musica Orchestra of Copenhagen; Vanguard). A delicious antipasto of Italian baroque, featuring Albinoni's melodies in the Trio Sonata in A, Opus I No. 3 for two violins, cello and virginal; Alessandro Scarlatti's serene Sonata in F; and a highly stylized love song for tenor accompanied by cello and harpsichord, by a 17th century Casanova named Alessandro Stradella. The power of his music was legendary. Once, so a story goes, assassins hired by a prominent Venetian (whose mistress Stradella had carried off) caught up with him in a church where one of his oratorios was being performed; the music so moved the henchmen that they warned the composer and let him escape. But when a jealous actress sent other assassins after him in Genoa, no music was being played—or the assassins were not musical—and Stradella, only 37, was murdered.