Extra Speakers Can Uncover Hidden Stereo Channelsworldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-High-Fidelity/... · How to Use Lab Test Data As a Speaker Shopping Guide Answers

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110111JUNE 1971 750

FIDELITY Those Exotic

Sound -effects

Records

How to Use Lab Test Data As a Speaker Shopping Guide

Answers to Most Often Asked Questions About Speakers

Extra Speakers Can Uncover Hidden Stereo Channels

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The Fisher CP 100 8 -track tape cartridge player.

"IIFISHER

So far, there has been a big But.Ordinary 8 -track cartridge players sim-ply don't have the audio quality de-manded by owners of fine componentstereo systems. And that's where thenew Fisher CP-100 comes in. An 8 -track tape cartridge player designed tomeet Fisher standards. Suddenly, you'rein business: you can play 4 -channelBach or rock (and lots of it) with excel-lent fidelity.

The new CP-100 is different.The Fisher CP-100 is a ruggedly

built tape deck with low flutter and wowft has four separate low-distortior play-back channels from tape head to cutout.To play either the new 4 -channel orstandard 2 -charmer 8 -track cartrdges,sirr.p:y plug the CP-100 into the tapemonitor or "aux'. irput of your syslem

(as shown above). Switching to the cor-rect mode, 4 -channel or 2 -channel, iscompletely automatic, indicated by redjewel lights. You select the tape se-quence you want to listen to by pushingone of the three convenient programcontrol buttons (jewel lights indicateyour choice). Frequency response is 50to 12,000 Hz, which compares favorablyeven with open -reel machines. The listprice is $169.95.

What to use with it.Of course, to get the most out of

your 4 -channel 8 -track cartridges, theCP-100 should be plugged into the bestpossible 4 -channel stereo system.Which brings us, as any alert audio-phile could have told you, to the Fisher701.The 701 is a true 4 -channel AM/FMstereo receiver with 250 watts of power,

push-button electronic tuning withoutmoving parts (from the front panel or byremote control), toroidal filters on FM'and other ultrasophisticated electron-ics. In addition to being the most ad-vanced piece of 4 -channel equipmentyou can buy, it's also a sensationallyfine receiver for conventional 2 -channelstereo. Not to mention mono.

With the CP-100 and the 701,you're ready for all the current actionin 4 -channel stereo. And you can alsouse them to simulate a 4 -channel effectwith a 2 -channel program source. That,of course, doesn't sound as good as true4 -channel, but who's going to sue you?

e FisherWe invented high fidelity.

Introducing the ideal source of true 4 -channel stereo:

Only 250! $2 value! Send for your copy ofThe Fisher Handbook, a fact -filled 80 -page guide tohigh fidelity.This full -color reference book also includescomplete information on all Fisher stereo components.Enclose 25C for handling and postage

Fisher Radio, Dept. HF-6, P.O. Box 1367Long stand City, N.Y. 11101

Name

Address

City

'Please glue or tape coin on oicture of handbook above.

State Zip

0106718

F,

Even with a true 4 -channel stereosystem of the highest quality (like the=isher 701 receiver and XP -9C speak-ers shown on the right), you must con-front the question of what to listen to.

Why 8 -track cartridges?The 4 -channel LP record and 4 -

channel FM broadcasting are undoubt-edly coming but aren't here yet. Tapeis the only readily available source oftrue 4 -channel stereo. Open -reel 71/2ips 4 -channel tapes can be superb, butif you want a reasonably extensive rep-ertory of classical and popular music,your choice is necessarily the 8 -tracktape cartridge. With two 4 -track se-quences at 33/4 ips, the 8 -track cartridgeis capable of good fidelity and has theunqualified backing of several majorrecord companies. But!

Prices slightly higher In the Far West. Overseas and Canadian residents please write to Fisher Radio International, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101.

There's no higher fi than a true 4 -channel stereo system.But what do you feed into it?

(L ft flap.) >

Shown above: The Fisher 701 true 4 -channel AM/FM stereo receiver ($699.95)plus four Fisher XP -9C four-way bookshelf speaker systems ($219.95 each).

What good is a cartridge thattracks at 3/4 of a gram but delivers

lob,less than 3/4 of the music?

Great. For tracking-but not for listening. To provide greatsound, a cartridge should be able to deliver 100% musicpower, especially at higher frequencies. Like Pickering XV-15cartridges do. Because our XV-15's give you 100% musicpower, you enjoy complete instrumental definition in thosecritical ranges as well as throughout the entire audio spectrum.

And Pickering XV-15 cartridges give you two other extrafeatures. The exclusive DustaMatic brush that cleans recordgrooves. Plus a Dynamic Coupling Factor (DCF) rating systemthat helps you select the right XV-15 model for your recordplayer.

Improve your high fidelity music system with a PickeringXV-15 cartridge-priced from $29.95 to $65.00. Write for f-eecatalog and DCF rating charl to Pickering & Co., 101 Sunnyside

PICKERINGBlvd., Plainview, New York 11803.

"The 100% Music Power Cartridge for those who can the difference."hear

NIGHFILIELITYmusic and musiciansEdward Greenfield, V. D. Yurchenkov

BEHIND THE SCENES: LONDON AND LENINGRAD10

VOL. 21 NO. 6 JUNE 1971

Klemperer records Cosi . Shostakovich's King Lear

Robert P. Morgan SPEAKING OF RECORDS 20 Pianistic culminations on disc

Eugene Endres THERE'S A TWEETER IN MY TWEETER 61 The exotic world of sound -effects records

Gene Lees TORONTO-A NEW NASHVILLE?

audio and video

102 Canada's musical boom

TOO HOT TO HANDLE 22 HF answers your more incisive questions

NEWS AND VIEWS 24 New super tape! and super FM?

EQUIPMENT IN THE NEWS 26 The latest in audio gear

Sherwood S-7100 receiver

EQUIPMENT REPORTS 31Wharfedale W 80A loudspeakerBib Indexa record filing systemAR tuner

Leonard Feldman SHOPPING FOR LOUDSPEAKERS 36 How lab test data can help

Morley Kahn UNCOVER HIDDEN STEREO CHANNELS 43 Simple speaker hookup does the trick

Roy Allison GET THE MOST FROM YOUR SPEAKERS

recordings

48 Most often asked questions . . . and answers

Penderecki's operatic Grand GuignolFEATURE REVIEWS 69 Kempff plays the Schubert piano sonatas

Sills and Gedda star in Manon

CLASSICAL REVIEWS 74 Ormandy and the 1812 war . Szell's great orchestra

Peter G. Davis REPEAT PERFORMANCE 98 Walter's 1936 Das Lied .. . Richter and Prokofiev

R. D. Darrell THE TAPE DECK 100 The Ampex Reel -by -Mail Service

POP REVIEWS 104 Jimi Hendrix's last album . . . No, No, Nanette

JAZZ REVIEWS

etc.

108 Benny Goodman in Stockholm ... Earl Hines's jazz trip

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 6 Technicolor music . . . Schwann's way (stereo only?)

17PRODUCT INFORMATION

93An "at home" shopping service

ADVERTISING INDEX 92

Published al Weal B. salon, Ma.. 01130 oy Billboard Publications, Inc.busiyinzlit 19/1 by Billboard Publications,Inc. the design and contents of Nigh fidelity Magazine ere lolly protected by copyright and must not be reproduced in

aryl FannerSecond.class postage paid al Great Barrington and at additional mailing offices. Authorized as second.class

mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa and for payment al postage in cash. Nigh fidelity -Musical America Editionis published monthly. Subscriptiol in the U.S.A. and its Possessions, $14: elsewhere, V 5. Subscription including ConcertArtist 0,ettory published in December, $20 in the U.S.A. and its Possessions. elsewhere, $21. Regular issues 11.25 acopy. National and other edition.- published monthly. Subscription in the U.S.A. end it, Possessions, $7; elsewhere, $8.Regular issues 754 a copy. Indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Current and back copies of High fidelityend High fidelity/Musical America available en microfilm from University M.croldrns, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. Cleanseof address motives mod undelivered copies (Form 1579) should be addressed to blob Fidelity, Subscription Deparhoest,1160 Patterson Street, Cincimoati, Obi* 43214. Please state both old aod new ad d when reteuestin9 a change.

4 -CIRCLE 34 ON READER -SERVICE CARD3

It takesa lot of gutsto say a new

stereo cassette dedcis the greatest

ever made.

--1410,..4.74/11

Wollensak can say it.The new Wollensak 4750 stereo cas-sette deck brings true hi -fidelity tocassette listening.

Here's why: It has one of the lowestwow and flutter characteristics of anydeck available. The precise heavy-duty tape transport mechanism isconsidered by independent audioexperts to be the finest in the industry.A mechanism that includes the onlyfull-size flywheel and capstan avail-able to assure constant tape speedsand eliminate sound distortion.

Record -playback frequency re-sponse is truly exceptional: 60 -15,000 Hz t 3 db. Fast -forward andrewind speeds are about twice as fastas any other.

A massive, counter -balanced bi-peripheral drive means years ofdependability. Interlocked controls

SPECIFICATIONS: FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 60-15,000 Hz 3 db a ips. WOW AND FLUTTER:0.25P/a RMS. SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO: Greater than46 db. FIXED PRE -AMP OUTPUT: 1.0 V. per channel.CONTROLLED PRE -AMP: 0-5 volts per channel.PRE -AMP INPUT: 50mV to 2 volts. MICROPHONEINPUT: .1mV to 3mV, low impedance.

allow you to go from one function toanother without first going through astop or neutral mode. The Wollensak4750 features end -of -tape sensingwhich stops the cassette, disengagesthe mechanism and prevents unneces-sary wear. The Wollensak "CassetteGuardian" automatically rejects astalled cassette in play or record posi-tion. The 4750 complements yourpresent component system by provid-ing cassette advantages. Americandesigned, engineered and built. Styledin a hand -rubbed walnut base withPlexiglass® smoked dust cover.

All of these features add up to thetruest stereo sound with reel-to-reelquality from a stereo cassette deck.Become a believer. Hear and comparethe new Wollensak 4750 deck at yournearby dealer.

Wollensak 3!!!3M CENTER, ST. PAUL, MN 55101

CIRCLE 53 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

LEONARD MARCUS

Editor

NORMAN EISENBERG

Audio -Video Editor

PETER G. DAVIS

Music Editor

SHIRLEY FLEMING

Editor, Musical America Section

ROBERT LONG

Associate Audio -Video Editor

EDITH CARTERSHEILA SCHULTZ

Assistant Editors

ROY LINDSTROM

Art Director

ROBERT MADDOCKS

Associate Art Director

RUTH W. DUNTON

Production Editor

MORGAN AMESR. D. DARRELLALFRED FRANKENSTEINHARRIS GOLDSMITHDAVID HAMILTONPAUL HENRY LANGGENE LEESGEORGE MOVSHONH. C. ROBBINS LANDONContributing Editors

MILTON GORBULEW

Circulation Director

STANLEY BINDER

Circulation Manager

CLAIRE N. EDDINGSAssistant Publisher andDirector of Advertising Sales

WARREN B. SYERPublisher

Cover design by Roy Lindstrom

ADVERTISINGMain Office: Claire N. Eddings, The PublishingHouse, Great Barrington, Moss. 01230. Tele-phone: 413-528-1300.

New York: 165 W. 46th St., New York, N. Y.10036. Telephone: 212-757-2800. SeymourResnick, Eastern Adv. Mgr.; Charlotte Gilbert;Steven R. Twomey.

Chicago: Billboard Publications, Inc., 150 NorthWacker Dr., Chicago, III. 60606. Telephone:312-236-9818. Leonard Levine.

Los Angeles: Billboard Publications, Inc., 9000Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90069. Tele-phone: 213-273-1555. Andrew Spanberger.

Nashville: Billboard Publications, Inc., 1719West End Avenue, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Tele-phone: 615-242-1761. Robert Kendall.

London: 7 Carnaby St., London W.1, England.Telephone: 1011 437-8090. Andre de Vekey,

Frankfurt/Main: Eschersheimer Landstrasse 69,Frankfurt/Main. West Germany. Telephone:106111 590805-6. Walter B. Rios.

Milan: Piazzale Loreto 9, Milan 20131, Italy.Telephone: 28.29.158. Germano Ruscitto.

Tokyo: Japan Trade Service, Ltd., Ikeiiri3-.1-1-1008, Setagoya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Tele-phone: 413-2871. Kanji Suzuki.

HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE4

Uut of the Research that Produced the 901

BOSE brings you the SecondDIRECT/REFLECTING Speaker System

The BOSE 901* The BOSE 501*DIRECT/REFLECTING Speaker System

THE 12 YEARS OF RESEARCHTwelve years of research into physical acousticsand psychoacoustics produced this unconven-tional speaker that has met with unprecedentedsuccess. Copies of the Audio Engineering So-ciety paper, by Dr. A. G. Bose, describing thisresearch, are available from BOSE Corp. forfifty cents.

THE RAVE REVIEWSThe 901 is the most highly reviewed speaker onthe market, regardless of size or price. Circlenumber 5 on your reader service card for re-prints of the reviews.

THE SOUND OF THE 901Ask your franchised BOSE dealer for an A -Bcomparison with the best conventional speakershe carries, regardless of their size or price. Youwill only appreciate why we make this requestafter you have made the experiment.

DIRECT/REFLECTING Speaker System

THE DESIGN GOALOur objective was to produce a speaker in the$125 price range that would audibly outperformall speakers costing less than the 901.

THE DESIGN APPROACHWe preserved as many of the features of the 901as possible to produce a speaker that sells for$124.80.

*Circle No. 6 for information on the design ofthe BOSE 501.

THE PERFORMANCEYou are the judge. If we have succeeded in ourdesign goals, the result will be obvious to youwhen you A -B the 501 with any speaker sellingfor less than the 901.

"You can hear the difference now."DOSENatick, Massachusetts 01760

*Covered by patent rightsissued or applied for

Circle # 5 for information or the BOSE 901Circle # 6 for information on the BOSE 501

why mosthifi

speahemanufacturers

demonstratwith the

Crown DC30It's no secret to ni-fi show goersthat Crown DC300's are at work inalmost every independent speakermanufacturer's exhibit. And, it youcould visit their factory design labsand test chambers, you would seeDC300's in nearly every plant too.We don't have to tell you why.Speaker manufacturers are nter-ested n hearing their speakers, notthe amplifier. And the Crown DC300is the only amp in the world whichcan deliver a signal so pure thatdistortion is practically unmeas-urable, at any listening level. Plusadequate power to reproduce all ofthe critical transient signals with-out overload. Does that tell yousomething about how your systecould sound with a DC300?

300 watts/channel RMS into 4IM distortion under 0.05%, 1/10

watt to 300 wattsS/N 100db below 150 watts RMS

into Kt3 -year warranty on parts and labordamping factor greater than 200

r

BOX 1000, DEPT. HF, ELKHART, INDIANA 46514CIRCLE 15 ON READER -SERVICE CAF.D

I ettersColorful Music

I was greatly interested in Robert Long'sarticle, "The Color of Sound" [March1971] particularly as it related to per-formances of Scriabin's Prometheus. Mr.Long refers to four recent performancesof this work, with lights, in Rochester,New York City, New Haven, and atSouthern Illinois University. I am pleasedto make note of a fifth production ofthe work, which was performed in Janu-ary 1971 by the San Francisco SymphonyOrchestra with Seiji Ozawa conductingand Yuji Takahashi performing the pianopart.

Maestro Ozawa was intent on follow-ing the composer's wishes with regardto lights, and the following excerpts fromHeuwell Tircuit's review in the San Fran-cisco Chronicle, January 22, 1971, mightbe of interest to your readers.

"Great care was taken to present thelight show with as much authenticity aspossible. . . . Stage manager ThomasColangelo, Jr. got the electricians of theopera house together and rigged thehouse and back of the orchestral shell.These were then set into special controlconsoles backstage, where assistant con-ductor Niklaus Wyss 'played' the colorelement and apprentice conductor CharlesDarden the intensity and flash control.Colangelo himself worked the smokeand flame for the coda. To achieve theproper colors without distortion, house,aisle and stage lights were out, with theorchestra using individual music -standlights, as they would in the opera pit.All concerned took a bow, and deserved-ly so. Brilliant! Absolutely faithful to thecomposer in style, and awesome to be-hold. Those lights, that 120 -piece or-chestra . . . an astounding accomplish-ment."

The performances were extremely wellreceived by our audiences, and I ampleased to note that the three concertsbroke our all-time attendance records inthe War Memorial Opera House forthree performances-a total of 10,128paid admissions, including nearly 700standees.

Joseph A. ScajidiGeneral ManagerSan Francisco Symphony Assn.San Francisco, Calif.

Readers of Mr. Long's excellent articlemay be interested in the evolution of anaudio-visual idea which somewhat pre-dates the "color organ" boom of theearly Sixties.

In Radio and TV News, October 1957,Glen Southworth described a three -channel thyratron color organ which be-came an immediate hit with electronichobbyists. I drove mine with a Marantz2B, using as input a theremin of R. A.Moog's design which had appeared inthat magazine in January 1954. For lackof a competent performer, the theremineventually gave way to a wire recorder.

The device in this form caught theimagination of other psychometricians

here at Procter & Gamble. We substitutedan audio signal generator for the recorderand arranged the lights vertically so thatthe higher tones would "appear" higherup thereby adding another synestheticdimension. It was used during lectures todemonstrate the concept of intersensorycorrelation in the development of con-sumer products.

That Christmas I arranged threetwenty -five -lamp strings in helix form ona large Norway spruce, and drove themseparately from our hi fi via the colororgan. Frequency bands were stacked inascending order from floor to ceiling,and the search began for psychologicallyrelevant colors. Quickly confirming thelack of consensus reported by Mr. Long,we resorted to trial and error with veryst.tisfactory results. The nuances possiblefrom seventy-five small colored lights ina darkened room with IBL corner hornsupport were so astonishing that wehave done this every year since, and re-cently built the entire apparatus into ournew home, driving the tree from a stereocenter channel.

Now we have come full circle, be-cause the most spectacular music sourcefor our psychedelic tree is-you guessedit-recordings of the Moog synthesizer!Executing the light fields in stereo wouldbe a logical next step, providing a hori-zontal impression of motion to comple-ment the vertical spectrum. Still, there isone obvious correlation untouched: doesanybody know how to make a tree re-volve in time with the music?

A. M. MarrerMethods ResearchProcter & GambleCincinnati, Ohio

Schwann's Way

Like Mr. Mackler ["Letters," February1971], I was disturbed by the deletion ofmonaural records from the Schwanncatalogue. While I can appreciate theeconomic factors that led to this change,I wonder if Mr. Schwann might not con-sider (or reconsider) another alternative.Quite frankly, I see no point in purchas-ing a new catalogue each month-thechange from issue to issue does notwarrant it.

Why not publish separate cataloguesfor classical and popular recordings inalternate months? The classical materialfrom the supplementary catalogue couldbe placed where the popular sectionnow stands and popular material to-gether with its brethren could be pub-lished in a different issue. This changemight offer benefits for collectors, recordmanufacturers, and the Schwann staff.

Philip BlackmarrMenlo Park, Calif.

Accepting the inevitable fact that it isno longer economically feasible for allcurrently available recordings to be listedin the regular monthly Schwann cata-

Continued on page 8

HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

The sound you getis the sound they got.

This is Blood, Sweat & Tears?Nine accomplished musicianswho have mastered the art ofrock and jazz and have creativelyblended them to make theirown distinctive sound.

As professional musiciansthey insist on full natural soundfor their own listeningenjoyment. Sound thatis properly balancedand offers sharplydefined separations oflows, midrange andhighs. That's why theyselected Pioneerspeaker systems.

Their decision to usePioneer speakers wasmade the same way youwould make it - bylistening to a variety ofspeakers in a dealer'sshowroom. When youcan get nine individual-ists such as Blood,Oweat & Tears to agree onanything - it's got to be good.

Make your own comparisontest at a Pioneer dealer.

Remember that the finestspeaker system neither augmentsnor diminishes the quality ofthe original performance. Itprovides smooth, uncolored,unadulterated soundreproduction, free o4 distortion.

There's a wide range ofPioneer speaker systems to suit

(4)

any budget. Listen to them all.Blood, Sweat & Tears did.You're in good company.U. S. Pioneer Electronics Corp.,178 Commerce Rd.,Carlstadt, N.J. 07072

PIONEER

West Coast: 1335 W. 134th St., Gardena, Calif. 90247 Canada: S, ti. Parker Co.. Ontalo'Blood, Sweat & -ears Ltd., New Yce-k, N.Y. ex.71usi +Ely represented by Larry fioldt fat'

Empke's newestgienadier

is fife onlyEigh:fi0141efed

omni-directionalwide angle lensdown facing

WOoferN3eaker sy§tem

priced under $110Wait till you hear the difference

a true stereophonic design can offer.The kind of sound no box can deliver,and at a spectacularly low price.

In Empire's stereo cylinder, thewoofer faces down, for bass so "live" itgives you goosebumps, while ourexclusive acoustic lens spreads thehighest of highs through a full 160 arc.

There is no ugly grill cloth; thewalnut finish goes all the way around;the marble top is meant to be used; andthe sound is superb no matter whereyou put it.

If you're talking at least $100 fora speaker system, think about this greatGrenadier value. Nothing else in theworld comes close.

Model 6000 Grenadier SpecificationsHeight -24 inches , diameter- 18 inches3 way System up to 75 watts per channelPrice $109.95; with imported marble top$119.95 .

For information and further details writeEmpire Scientific Corp., 1055 Stewart Ave.,Garden City, N.Y. 11530

EMPIRE

LETTERS Continued from page 6

logue, I should like to offer the followingalternative to Schwann's recently an-nounced policy of listing only stereo-phonic recordings in their monthly cata-logue with mono recordings listed only intheir semi-annual supplement. List bothmono and genuine stereophonic record-ings of serious music in the regularmonthly catalogue. Relegate electroni-cally enhanced pseudostereophonic re-cordings of serious music to the supple-ment. This might even turn necessity intoa virtue by discouraging the issuing ofpseudo stereo records which have uni-versally been denounced by critics asbeing nearly always sonically inferiorto the mono originals. What say yourother readers?

Jim CartwrightFort Hood, Texas

Tarnished Masters

Perhaps Harris Goldsmith and I need tohave a little chat on what this record -collecting thing is all about ["Old MastersRemastered," March 1971].

Why should one put an X amount ofdollars into fine stereo equipment toreproduce records with hopelessly out-moded sound? Especially when Mr. Gold-smith himself labels the interpretationsas: "erratic rhythmically.. .sloppy tech-nically. . ." (Schnabel); "altered dy-namics. . .rephrases. ..not really Chopin'ssonata at all" (Rachmaninoff); "insipid. . .flippant. . .highly insensitive" (Hof-mann); "a certain sameness and bland-ness of tone" (Lhevinne). And yet herecommends that all "these discs. . .

should be bought without delay!"It doesn't hang together. I have just

returned several such "Art of.. ." recordsto the dealer. Why? Kempff (for me)does a better Chopin Op. 35 than Mr.Goldsmith's "Mad Scientist" Rachmani-noff, and the sound is beyond compari-son. This is not to be iconoclastic per se,but we have pianists, great ones too-Arran, Slenczynska, Moravec, Laredo,Riefling, Larrocha, Horowitz, et al. I,for one, see no merit in dragging some-one else's Tares and penates behind me,and even less merit in filling a recordlibrary with inferior recordings of in-valid interpretations by pianists simplybecause they are "legendary."

Ernest FinkeSedona, Ariz.

Casting Problems

I have just read two (and will undoubtedlyencounter more) criticisms of London'srecent issue of Meyerbeer's Les Hugue-nots. This is then followed by DavidJohnson's letter [February 1971], whichis little more than an echo of what hasalready been said before. He does notshed any new light on the issue.

Any opera fan can be an armchaira & r man and dream up a spectacularcast. So Mr. Johnson's galaxy of stars isreally not important; what is significant

is what has been done. Sutherland,Bonynge, and company have made awhole new generation of listeners awareof what all the fuss was about fifty yearsago. Perhaps if listeners were as percep-tive today as they were half a centuryago, collectors would be scratching theirheads over which Les Huguenots to buy,instead of which Carmen or which Ma-dama Butterfly. I shall enjoy Les Hugue-nots as a revelation of what was oncemeant by the words Grand Opera; Ishall be ever grateful to London for itsdaring; and I shall overlook the sceptics.

In the midst of such quarreling andcarping, I have almost completely aban-doned hope of ever seeing Goldmark'sQueen of Sheba or Meyerbeer's L'Afri-caine and Dinorah on records.

Richard F. EllisBuffalo, N.Y.

Permit me to comment on David John-son's letter in the February issue concern-ing the generally inept supporting caststhat sing with Joan Sutherland on herrecordings, and offer a modest solution.

I completely agree with Mr. Johnson'sevaluation. While my opinions on specif-ic singers differ from his (for example,I enjoyed the work of Bacquier andGhiuselev, but Tourangeau drove me toutter distraction), the great majority ofMiss Sutherland's recordings are fatallymarred, at least to my ears, by support-ing singers who are either inadequate ormiscast. One may go all the way backto some of her earlier discs and find thesame trend: Sonnambula's tenor and bass,Puritani's tenor and baritone.

I think there is a solution, albeit a dif-ficult one. Perhaps London recordsshould merely exchange Mr. Bonynge forthe gentleman who selects the supportingsingers for Elena Souliotis' recordings.Her Anna Bolena is superbly cast, fromMarilyn Home, John Alexander, andNicolai Ghiaurov down to Stafford Dean,Janet Coster, and Piero de Palma. Herforthcoming Macbeth has Ghiaurov andDietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with LambertoGardelli conducting. These people wouldsurely do justice to a Sutherland record-ing. Meanwhile, Miss Souliotis, who hasbeen a sad disappointment on records,would have the kind of supporting castshe deserves.

Lawrence S. KingChampaign, Ill.

Dual 1215 CorrectionHie listing of the Dual Model 1215on page 52 of our May issueshould have read: Similar to Model1209, but different arm and coupled(nonadjustable) antiskating compen-sation. Price: $99.50. The 1215like the 1209, is equipped with avernier speed adjustment and cue-ing control.

CIRCLE 23 ON READER -SERVICE CARD HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

What is the most expensivecomponent in your stereo system?

Wrong.Assuming that you picked one of the component

types pictured here.Although these three components form the typical

stereo system, no system is actually complete withoutnumber four: records.

And no matter what you may have paid for yourreceiver, speakers, or turntable, chances are you'vespent even more for your records. Or will before long.

Your records are not only your biggest investment,but the most vulnerable as well. They can remain asgood as new for years or begin to wear the first timethey're played. In which case they become evenmore expensive.

How to protect your investment.Which brings us to the turntable, the one component

that actually contacts your records and tracks theirimpressionable grooves with the unyielding hardnessof a diamond.

What happens then is up to the tonearm. It mustapply just the right amount of pressure to the stylus,keep this pressure equal on both walls of the groove,and follow the stylus without resistance as the groovespirals inward.

Then the stylus will be able to respond freely to allthe twists and turns in the record groove, withoutdigging in or chopping away.

How the Dual does it.Dual tonearms are designed with great ingenuity

and engineered to perfection. For example, the tonearmof the 1219 pivots exactly like a gyroscope: up anddown within one ring, left and right within another. Allfour pivot points are identical, and nothing moves withthe tonearm except the inner ring. If you can imagine0.015 gram, that's the maximum resistance this tonearmoffers to the stylus. This suspension system is called agimbal, and no other automatic arm has it.

Another unique feature of the 1219 tonearm is theMode Selector, which sh fts the entire arm to set thecorrect stylus angle in either single or multiple play.

Also, the longer the tonearm, the lower the trackingerror Thus, the 1219's arm, 83/4" from pivot to stylus,is the longest of all automatic arms.

Other things to consider.In addition to preserving records, a turntable must

also bring out the best in them.The record must rotate at precisely the right screed,

or pitch will be off.The motor must be free of vibration,or rumble will be added to the music. The platter mustweigh enough to provide effective flywheel action tosmooti out speed fluctuations. And, of course, the stylusmust get to and from the groove as gently as possible.

The professionals'choice.A I this is something :o think about the next time you

buy a record or play your favorite one. It's why Dualturntables have been the choice of professionals for somany years.

Not only for the way Duals get the most out ofrecords (without taking anything away) but for theirruggedness, reliability and simplicity of operation.

If you'd like to know what independent labs sayabout Dual, we'll send you complete reprints of theirreports. Plus an article on what to look for in recordplaying equipment, reprinted from a leading musicmagazine.

But if you're a!ready convinced and can't wait, justvisit your authorized United Audio dealer and ask fora demonstration.

You'll find Dual turntables priced from $99.50. It'snot the least you can spend. But when you consider yourinvestment in records, you may agree that it's the leastyou should spend.

United Audio Products, Inc., 120 So. ColumbusAve., Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 10553.

DualCIRCLE 20 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

JUNE 1971 9

ADC:WORLD'S MOSTPERSNICKETYSPEAKER MAKER.

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behindthescenes

Photo Pic

The Comic Klemperer

LONDON

Otto Klemperer has now recorded Mo-zart's four most popular operas: the re-cently completed Cosi fan tutte will soonjoin his existing sets of The Magic Flute,Don Giovanni, and the newly releasedFigaro. EMI was persuaded to undertakethe project readily enough, but the com-pany would have much preferred it ifKlemperer had finished his Die Walkiirefirst. As it is, Act I of the Wagneropera stands intact (reputedly very im-pressive in sound as well as interpreta-tion) but plans for its completion are inabeyance. With Cosi fan tune, on theother hand, Klemperer would hear of nodelay. "What do you want," the eighty-six -year -old conductor is alleged to haveprotested, "a posthumous interpretation?"

What many feared-the critical publicat large if not EMI-was that the inter-pretation of this most sparkling ofcomedies would be, if not posthumous,at least funereal. Those fears were com-pletely allayed for the London public atleast, when at the end of his long stintof seventeen sessions Klemperer con-ducted a concert performance with thesame artists in the Royal Festival Hall.Obviously the finished recording may nothave quite the same atmosphere, but indramatic terms this was as genuinelycomic and pointed a performance asanyone could want, especially from thesingers. Although the cast had neversung these roles together before, theyformed a fine team, acting the comedyout as though in costume and relishingthe chances of extra pointing made pos-sible by Klemperer's slow tempos.

Not that Klemperer's tempos seemed

particularly slow in the live performance,for his rhythms were lightly sprung andhe consistently took special care withtextures. In the Act I finale, for example,he was particularly careful to distinguishthe textural contrasts between the de-ceiving men (strong and confident) andthe women (their genuine concern aboutthe "poisoning" was underlined by Klem-perer's pointing up the triplet accompani-ment). Suvi Raj Grubb, the recordingmanager, took special note of one play-back during the recording of theFiordiligi/Dorabella Act II duet "Pren-dero quel brunettino." He himself wouldhave been quite happy to pass the take,but Klemperer's firm comment was: "Iwant scherzando; it's too heavy."

The seventeen sessions at KingswayHall were fraught with problems ofconflicting engagements on the part ofalmost every singer, which made it all themore remarkable that they got on sowell together. But then, Geraint Evans(singing Guglielmo, not Don Alfonso asone might have expected) has a finelydeveloped social sense that would helpto keep any group happy. He was inthe middle of a run of Die Meistersingerat Covent Garden, singing Beckmesser,a part he had just recorded with Karajanin Dresden [see "Behind the Scenes,"April 1971]. He told Klemperer aboutthat Karajan recording, and mentionedthat the whole work had been polishedoff in a mere nine days. "What operadid you say?" asked Klemperer in dis-belief. When he was told, his commentwas predictable: "Too quick!" In Cosi,Evans was enthusiastic about the clarityof Klemperer's accompaniment. Hear-ing the playback of one of his arias,which he had sung many times, he


10 HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

pointed to one line of the score in amaze-ment: "I've never heard that before."

Taking the role of the other lover,Ferrando, was another Cosi veteran (atleast comparatively), Luigi Alva. He toohad conflicting commitments, and on onememorable day Alva sang three three-hour recording sessions within twelvehours-one was an extra session of theMozart opera to check on the two longfinales, the other two for Philips. Alvawas singing some duet madrigals withRyland Davies for Raymond Leppard'smonumental complete recording of theMonteverdi madrigals, the first five discsof which will be appearing this autumn.

Even more fraught was the to-ingand fro-ing of the Despina in Cosi, LuciaPopp, who at the time was committedto singing opposite Joan Sutherland in

' the Hamburg production of Handel'sGiulio Cesare. She explained to Suvi RajGrubb that it would be impossible to finda substitute in Hamburg, and everyonehoped that scheduled air flights wouldoperate on time. They didn't. Quite apartfrom the February weather there werestrikes by the staffs of both BEA andLufthansa. On one occasion Miss Popphad to drive from Hamburg to Munichbefore catching a plane to London, justas the BEA strike finished. After arrivingat Kingsway Hall she didn't even havetime to take off her coat before launch-ing into a take of the sextet.

The other three soloists were lesspredictable Cosi interpreters-MargaretPrice as Fiordiligi, Yvonne Minton asDorabella, and Hans Sotin as Don Al-fonso-but they were proportionatelymore predictable in their movements.Sotin, as the oid philosopher, contrastedmarkedly with Alva and Evans as thejunior member of the male contingent.In the choice of the two principal womensingers, EMI deliberately opted for up-and-coming younger singers. YvonneMinton recently sang on Solti's ChicagoMahler records, while the young Welshsoprano, Margaret Price, has just madea fascinating recital for RCA, coveringa wide repertory of Mussorgsky, Liszt,Mozart, Bellini, Verdi, and Donizetti.Certainly in the live performance, herswas the success of the evening with aformidably brilliant account of "Comescoglio." Suvi Grubb promises equallybrilliant recorded results in that aria:he selected the fastest take of the finalphi allegro which proved to be the mostprecise as well as the most brilliantfor both singer and orchestra.

Mozart Masses. While Klemperer wasbusy with Cosi fan tulle at KingswayHall, Colin Davis tackled another majorMozart project at Westminster Cathe-dral for Philips. This was the unusual re-cording site that Philips also used forDavis' Berlioz Requiem sessions, and thecompany felt that a return visit would beappropriate for Davis' latest choral proj-ects, which included three Masses: theMass in C minor in the Robbins Landonedition (that is as Mozart left it minusthe Schmidt accretions) and the two Cmajor Masses in a more extrovert style-

Continued on page 12

After you remove therumble, wow and flutter from

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Uniquely designed for precisespeed control.It is vital that motor ro-tor speed control be precise. In theTD-125AB it is governed by a depend-able Wien Bridge transistorized oscil-lator whose frequency can be variedprecisely to change the speed of the16 -pole synchronous motor. Since themotor requires only 5 watts to drive itand the output of the oscillator is pow-ered by a 20 watt amplifier, there's

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We put a little more featureinto eature.

A Papst hysteresis synchronousmotor with outer rotor for unvarying speed

accuracy. Precise stylus overhang adjustment with built-in gauge - noshifting, no guesswork, no templates. Silicone -damped cueing in bothautomatic and manual play. And, those exclusive light touch pushbuttonsto make it easy to enjoy all those other wonderful 50H features $175.00at your hi-fi dealer. Benjamin Electronic Sound Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y11735, a division of Instrument Systems Corp. Available in Canada.

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Continued from page 11

the Credo Mass, K. 257 and the Corona-tion Mass, K. 317. For the big C minorMass, the LSO was joined by the LSOchorus, but for the two shorter MassesDavis preferred a smaller band of pro-fessional singers: the John Alldis Choir.These are the latest Philips contribu-tions to a whole collection of Mozartchoral music conducted by Davis. Solo-ists on these occasions included HelenDonath, Heather Harper, Ryland Davies,and Stafford Dean in the C minor Mass;the same group plus Gillian Knightand Clifford Grant in the other two.

Davis' next Mozart project is evenbigger, a complete recording of Figarowith Mirella Freni as Susanna. As inDavis' Idomeneo set, also for Philips,the orchestra will be the BBC Symphony,still under Davis' baton until he takesover officially at Covent Garden in theautumn.

Dart's Valedictory. The death of Thurs-ton Dart, scholar and harpsichordistextraordinary, at the early age of forty-nine came as a blow to the Britishmusical and recording scene. As recentlyas the end of last year he had taken partin a complete recording of the Bachsuites for Argo with Neville Marrinerand the Academy of St. Martin's. Heplayed the continuo and, even more im-portant, edited the performing scores,sometimes opting for unexpected sololines. With the same musicians but a dif-ferent company (Philips) he was thengoing on to tape a complete recordingof the Brandenburg Concertos in aneven more controversial edition preparedby himself.

In great pain, he took part in thefirst two days of sessions, but then hadto be taken to the hospital where withindays he died. But thanks to the devotionof four of Britain's finest harpsichordplayers-Raymond Leppard, Philip Ledg-er, Colin Tilney, and George Malcolm(who was already cast for the solo inNo. 5)-the scheduled sessions at Wem-bley Town Hall were all completed ontime, and the finished set should be ap-pearing toward the end of the year. Wehave had a foretaste of the Brandenburgeditions on the BBC, and reactions willcertainly be positive. Dart deliberatelywent back to the original versions writtenat Ci:ithen, well before Bach thought ofsending them to the margrave of Bran-denburg. No. 4 is particularly surprisingbecause Dart deduced that echo recorderswere intended and would have beenplayed an octave higher than written. Sofor this occasion we shall have highsopranino recorder sound. At least itwill be different. EDWARD Cila ENFIELD

LENINGRAD

Shostakovich's New Movie ScoreLast year was a prolific one for DmitriShostakovich despite the serious illnessthat prevented him from acting as chair -

Continued or page 14HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE12 CIRCLE 12 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

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man of the Fourth International Tchai-kovsky Competition. (At the time ofthe opening ceremonies he was in theSpecial Orthopedic Hospital at Kurgan,West Siberia.) Still the composer man-aged to write several ballads for unac-companied male chorus, the ThirteenthString Quartet, and music for King Lear,a new Lenfilm production shot in Lenin-grad. Though Shostakovich is best knownfor his symphonies and chamber works,he has often written music for films overthe past forty years. Grigori Kozintsev,the King Lear director/producer, hasbeen Shostakovich's closest associate inthis field-their most recent collabora-tion resulted in a filmed version of Ham-let in 1964, one of their most interestingjoint projects. Shostakovich finished theKing Lear score just a year ago at thecomposer's union sanatorium at Korna-i ovo, a picturesque suburb of Leningrad.When his work was completed Shosta-kovich stayed on in Leningrad so that hemight attend one of the recording ses-sions.

The site of the sessions was the hallof Lenkinokhronnika (Leningrad News-reels' studio), which is considered tohave excellent acoustic qualities. The hallis often used in taping Lenfilm's sound-tracks, particularly when a symphony or-chestra is involved, as well as for someof Melodiya's recording projects. A thor-oughly equipped studio is always readyand waiting for action; the hall itselfrequires little preparation before any ses-sion begins, because it is never used forpublic concerts. When I arrived on asunny June morning the engineers hadalready set up a network of twelve Neu-man microphones, and musicians of theI.eningrad Philharmonic were taking theirseats. I looked into the control roomwhere engineer Eduard Vanuntz was ad-justing his mixing panel. The whole ses-sion, he said, was to be an exceptionalmusical event for Russia's film industrysince the soundtrack would be recordedin stereo. It appeared that Melodiya alsohad a hand in the decision: the companyplans to release the soundtrack on discthis year. Twelve machines were pre-pared to tape the full orchestral ensem-ble. Vanuntz himself took charge of bal-ancing the most important instrumentalgroups in the score-winds, brass, andpercussion; the strings were attended toby his assistants located in adjacentbooths. The responsibility of achievingthe final blend was in the hands of theproducer, Joseph Shapiro. In the hallitself I was surprised to see the well-known opera and ballet conductor DjemalDalgat. Maxim Shostakovich, the com-poser's son, was originally expected toconduct the session. As it turned out,Shostakovich junior had resigned him-self to a sort of tradition; all of the elderShostakovich's Leningrad premieres areconducted by Prof. Rabinovich. Rabino-vich, however, had gone on vacationsomewhere in the south and Maxim, not


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QUAD ®For 20 years and throughout the world the trade markQUAD has identified the high quality audio equipmentmade by this Company.

Because others are now seeking to use the name inother ways we have to make it clear that by itself orcombined with other words or numerals, QUAD iden-tifies only audio equipment, components and relatedgoods of our manufacture or sponsorship.

All other use of QUAD in connection with such goodsis either a misuse, abuse or infringement which mustand will be prosecuted.

ACOUSTICAL MANUFACTURING CO. LTD.HUNTINGDON, ENGLAND.

realizing this, had filled his own sched-ule. The fifty -year -old Dalgat, accordingto the orchestra's manager, LeonidKutick, appeared to be the only compe-tent conductor available. (In 1965L'Academie du Disque Francais hadawarded him the Toscanini prize for hisrecording of Prokofiev's Love for ThreeOranges.)

Dalgat had just laid down his batonafter a brief, last-minute rehearsal whenthe musicians began applauding gently;they had caught sight of Shostakovich,who had quietly entered the hall duringthe rehearsal. The composer sat to oneside, together with Kozintsev, completelyabsorbed in his own music. A sectionentitled Powers of Evil was being taped.During the first take, which had beenpreceded by a series of balance and leveltests, the amplified voice of engineerVanuntz issued from the control roompointing out minor infelicities of ensem-ble and balance and calling for samplepassages from the various instrumentalgroups. At the playback Shostakovichjoined Dalgat, and the two of themclosely followed the score. The first takeshowed some need for rebalancing, and afew adjustments were made in micro-phone placement and seating. There weretwo more takes, and the last one provedsatisfactory. The next piece to be re-corded was The Voice of Truth.

His crowded schedule did not allowShostakovich to attend the additional ses-sions that included the Fool's songs (per-formed improvisationally with no ac-companiment) and some brass -band mu-sic. The whole series of sessions tookabout ten days and within a few weeksof its completion Shostakovich's KingLear music had been successfully cap-tured for both screen and phonograph.

V. D. YURCHENKOV

High Fidelity, June 1971, Vol. 21, No. 6.Published monthly by Billboard Publications,Inc., publishers of Stereo, Stereo Interna-tional, Modern Photography, AmericanArtist, Billboard. Vend, Amusement Busi-ness, Merchandising Week, Photo Weekly,Gift & Tableware Reporter, Record Retailer,Record Mirror, Discografia Internazionale.World Radio TV Handbook.

High Fidelity/Musical America Edition pub-lished monthly. Member Audit Bureau ofCirculations.

Editorial correspondence should be addressedto The Editor. High Fidelity, Great Barring-ton, Mass. 01230. Editorial contributions willbe welcomed. Payment for articles acceptedwill be arranged prior to publication. Un-solicited manuscripts should be accompaniedby return postage.

Subscriptions should be addressed to HighFidelity, 2160 Patterson St., Cincinnati, 0.45214. Subscription rates: High Fidelity/Musical America: In the U.S.A. and itsPossessions, I year $14; elsewhere, 1 year$15. National and other editions publishedmonthly: In the U.S.A. and its Possessions,I year $7; elsewhere, 1 year S8.

Change of address notices and undeliveredcopies (Form 3579) should be addressed toHigh Fidelity, Subscription FulfillmentDept., 2160 Patterson St., Cincinnati, Ohio45214.


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speakingof records

Pianistic Culminationsby Robert P. Morgan

IN AN AGE of stereo delights, the pianooffers little opportunity for engineers todisplay their schizophrenic skills. It isone of the most difficult instruments torecord-perhaps the most difficult; thereis something about the tone quality thatis extremely resistant to faithful repro-duction. But a recording of course ismore than just a sonic blast; it is also arecord (in the documentary sense) of aperformance, and a reasonably permanentauditory embodiment of the notes in acomposer's score. It is these considera-tions, then, that concern me in regardto the records I would like to discusshere.

Since I have no favorite recordings,my choice is perhaps a bit on the randomside, and it is as much determined bythe music involved as it is by the per-formances. I have settled on three pieces(or, in the last case, group of pieces)that seem to me to represent the cul-mination of one aspect of the develop-ment of keyboard music, each a highpoint of its type. They present certainunique problems to the performer and,from the point of view of execution, arethe most difficult in the entire keyboardliterature. They are Bach's GoldbergVariations, Beethoven's HammerklavierSonata, Op. 106, and the piano music ofSchoenberg.

To begin with Bach, the disc I havein mind is the now famous one byGlenn Gould on Columbia (ML 5060,now available in rechanneled stereo asMS 7096). In these variations Bach hascarried the development of baroquelinear counterpoint to a peak that hasnever been eclipsed. The work is a com-pendium of polyphonic techniques, con-taining a bewildering variety of texturalpatterns in addition to such exotic con-trapuntal feats as a series of canons,each of which is composed at a differentcanonic interval. It takes a very con-trolled type of playing to bring off thiskind of music, and it seems to me that,at least in this instance, Gould handles thedifficulties magnificently. I am particular-ly impressed by his ability to keep thepiano sound "dry," thereby enabling thevarious voices to sound through independ-

ently, without however letting it becomeso parched that it loses all of its charac-ter. He also manages to keep the piecemoving forward in an extraordinary way,and since the work is indeed a very longone, this is particularly welcome here.It is not just a question of Gould'stempos (which are admittedly quite fast),but of his ability to move through thevariations in such a way that one hearsa clear progression throughout the piece;each variation is allowed to grow logi-cally out of the preceding one, thus pre-venting the work from breaking up-as so frequently happens-into a seriesof fragmentary sections.

If the Goldberg Variations representthe culmination of the development ofthe linear style of keyboard writing, theHammerklavier might be said to markthe culmination of its "spatial" develop-ment. One aspect of Beethoven's progressin his piano style is the gradual enlarg-ing of the instrumental range to in-clude its most extreme registers, a devel-opment that reaches its final stage inthe last five sonatas. In all of thesepieces, but especially in Op. 106, Bee-thoven goes to the far reaches of theinstrument to exploit the special qualitiesof timbre which they uniquely afford.This is one of the reasons why theseworks have such an individual sound, anexpressive nuance unmatched by anythingelse in the literature.

Any pianist who wishes to play theHammerklavier must come equippedwith two indispensable attributes: hemust have an enormous technique whichwill not break down under the mostgrueling kind of long-distance exertion,and he must possess a truly penetratingmusical intelligence. My choice in thiscase is the performance by AlfredBrendel, included in the second volume ofhis six -volume recording on Vox ofthe complete Beethoven piano music(SVBX 54170 or available separately onTurnabout TVS 34392). The Hammer-klavier contains so many pitfalls for theperformer, both technical and musical,that one often has the impression in lis-tening to the piece that it looks betteron the page than it sounds to the ear.

Brendel, however, gives the lie to thisview-he makes the piece come alive ina most convincing way. I won't say hemakes it sound easy-that would bedefeating the purpose-but he does makeit sound "plausible." In short, he man-ages to make everything hang together sothat the work comes out not simplyas a somewhat grotesque tour de force,but rather as a composition, an extraordi-nary expression of musical structure atits richest and most complex.

Although Schoenberg did not composeany one keyboard piece of the scopeof the Goldberg Variations or the Ham-merklavier Sonata, his total keyboardoutput for solo performer, all of whichcan be contained on one long-playingrecord, does represent the same kind oflast word in regard to a particular pianis-tic development. Unlike Bach and Bee-thoven, Schoenberg was not himself akeyboard performer (1 am told that heabsolutely refused to play the instrument,even for purposes of illustration in hisown classes), but the rather special char-acter of his musical thought led himto develop a keyboard style that isstrikingly original and yet still remainsremarkably pianistic. Schoenberg's worksfor piano are also particularly interest-ing in that one can clearly trace in themthe gradual development of his composi-tional technique toward the serial prin-ciple, culminating in his last two com-positions for piano, Opp. 33a and 33b,both of which are small masterpieces oftwelve-tone music.

In this case my preferred recording isthe one made by Edward Steuermann forColumbia (ML 5216), which is unfor-tunately no longer available. (Its placein the Columbia catalogue has apparentlybeen taken by the more recent recordingby Gould, which is especially regrettablesince this is not one of Gould's betterefforts.) Part of the reason why I ad-mire the Gould Bach and Brendel Bee-thoven recordings just discussed is thatin their readings both performers inter-pret the scores very much in the light ofcurrent musical conception, makingthem more relevant for the present-daylistener. My reason for choosing thisSchoenberg recording, on the otherhand, could be said to be determined byjust the opposite consideration: Steuer-mann, a pianist of the old school whostudied under Busoni, plays Schoenberg'smusic in such a way as to illuminate itsties with the past. It seems to me thatthis is a very important aspect of Schoen -berg's style and one that is apt to beoverlooked if one concentrates too heav-ily on the dissonant nature of the sur-face sound. Underneath it all there is abasic structure of phrases and sectionswhich in its fundamental rhythm is re-markably Brahmsian. This is not to say-as has been said-that Schoenberg isreally a musical reactionary. That is ofcourse quite absurd, and besides, I'mnot sure what the term can mean inthis context. But the sense of continuitywith the tradition is one of the basicqualities of this music, and one whichneeds to make itself felt in performance.Steuermann achieves this admirably.


The AR -6.A new speaker system from Acoustic Research.

"Out -performed a number of considerably larger and far more expensivesystems we have tested in the same way ... We don't know of many

speakers with as good a balance in overall response, and nothing in itssize or price class has as good a bass end." ...Hirsch -Houck Laboratories . . . Stereo Review

Suggested retail price: $81, oiled walnut; $72 unfinished pine. 5% higher in Wesr and Deep South.

Acoustic Research, Inc.24 Thorndike St., Cambridge, Mass. 02141, Dept. HF-6

Please send a free copy of your illustrated catalog as well astechnical specifications on the new AR -6 to:

Name

Address

CIRCLE 1 ON READER -SERVICE CARDJUNE 1971

21

Can I use a pair of either AR -6s or AR-4x's with my Kenwood KT -40 receiver,which has a total continuous poweroutput of 20 watts? My room measures12 by 12 by 8 feet and I generally lis-ten at low to moderate volume levels.-W. D., Skokie, Ill.We don't know why you want to hidebehind the semianonymity of initials,W. D.- you have a perfectly legitimatequestion. If you're feeling apologeticabout a receiver of only modest powerby today's standards, don't. It may bequite adequate for your needs. True,10 watts per channel doesn't matchAR's recommendation of 15 per chan-nel for the AR -4x or 20 for the AR -6.But considering your smaller -than -average room size and the fact thatyou don't plan to run the system abovemoderate levels, it's likely that you'llbe satisfied by either speaker system.Your biggest problem may be yourroom proportions. Since length andbreadth apparently are equal, you mayneed extra draperies or other sound -absorbing materials to control standingwaves-and that will eat up some ofthe sound. But the basic rule to keepin mind in considering these factorsis that doubling the amplifier poweradds only 3 dB to the loudness. Inother words, 10 watts is not all thatfar below the recommended 20 wattsfor the AR -6. So if 20 watts is ade-quate for full volume levels, 10 wattscertainly should do for moderate levels.

From your comments on the AdventDolby units it would appear that theyshould offer more audible improvementin home -recorded cassettes than youcould get by using the new high-performance tapes. But considering thecost of the Dolby equipment and thegreater complexity it introduces intothe system, the new tapes seem to bea more attractive way to go. For in-stance, what happens if something goeswrong with the Dolby circuit?-J. W.Vere, Montclair, N.J.First, let's get some basic factsstraight. The Dolby circuit improvesaudible sound because it suppressestape hiss and electronic noise gener-ated in the recorder by as much as10 dB. The new tapes offer some im-provement in noise (a few dB) butthey also improve frequency response(often audibly) and perhaps distortion(possibly audibly) when used with a

recorder perfectly suited to the re -

toohot

tohandle

quirements of these tapes. There's thecatch. And the new formulations arenot all the same; in particular, thechromium -dioxide cassettes should of-fer more improvement under optimumconditions than you can get from reg-ular iron -oxide tapes. But the chromi-um -dioxide (Crolyn, to use the originalDu Pont name) cassettes cost more;and even 3M's new High Energy iron -oxide cassettes are expected to sellfor premium prices. So-to answeryour question at last-if you do enoughrecording, the new high-performancecassettes could cost as much as theDolby circuitry in the long run, andtheir advantages in terms of soundquality are not truly comparable. TheDolby circuitry does undeniably intro-duce some added complexity. If itconks out (that can happen to anycircuit, of course) you can still playyour Dolbyized tapes by reducing thetreble control in your stereo system,though the sound won't quite be iden-tical to that with the Dolby circuit inuse. But in any case there's no reasonwhy you can't use both the Dolbycircuitry and the new cassettes (aCrolyn switch is built into most Dolby-ized cassette decks) since their respec-tive advantages are cumulative ratherthan mutually exclusive.

I have trouble receiving FM stations at104.7 and 105.0 on my Sansui 2000.There is distortion on both stations,though this can't be a selectivity prob-lem since I can't pick up both stationswith the same antenna location. Recep-tion at all other frequencies is perfectwith equivalent signal strength. Doreceivers ever fail at one particularfrequency and work faithfully at allothers?-Granville Bruner, Birmingham,Ala.Seems extremely unlikely, even allowingfor misalignment of the tuner section-something your discussion of receivingdistant stations (omitted above) doesnot suggest. Have you tried listeningon other people's equipment? If youstill hear the distortion, it presumablyis originating at the station; and ifyou consider it serious enough, youcould write to the FCC asking the localmonitoring office to check the stationsout. (Incidentally, that second fre-quency has got to be either 104.9-inwhich case it is on the adjacent chan-nel to 104.7 and must be at a consid-erable distance from it-or 105.1. FM

frequencies are assigned by channel,and no in-between frequencies are al-lowed.)

I beg to disagree with J. R. Smith. [InJanuary this column contained a com-plaint by Mr. Smith that "as most seri-ous listeners use their turnables manu-ally anyway" multirecord sets shouldbe pressed in manual, rather than auto-matic sequence.] I consider myself amusic lover and greatly prefer my mul-tiple -record sets to be in automaticsequence; and I always buy them thatway-other things being nearly equal-both for home listening and for thestock in my store. Incidentally we sellvery few manual players (AR, Thorens)compared to automatic equipment(Dual, Garrard, Miracord).-RandolphBean, Brunswick, Me.And as Maine goes... But as your let-ter implies, other things are not en-tirely equal. That is, one normallydoesn't have a choice of either manualor automatic sequencing in a given per-formance. If record companies wouldoffer the choice, it would be easier totell which arrangement is preferred bywhich segments of the buying public(though the double inventory wouldcreate its own problems). Failing sucha gauge, we can contribute somethingby allowing you and Mr. Smith to arguethe matter in print.

Have you published any test reports oneight -track cartridge recorders? I'mconsidering buying one but I don'tknow which. In particular, will I gettrue stereo separation in the record-ings?-SSG James V. Acosta, FortDevens, Mass.Since most of the inquiries we receiveconcern cassette and open -reel equip-ment, we have concentrated on thoseformats in our test reports, though weare planning reports on eight -trackequipment. We're not sure why youfocus on channel separation as thecriterion of merit in eight -track equip-ment. The close spacing of the trackson the tape can produce some overlapof the head onto adjacent tracks ifthe tape -to -head alignment is not cor-rect; but there's no particular problemabout separation between tracks of agiven stereo pair, which are separatedphysically by the three other "pro-grams." So the stereo separation is"true" enough. You'd be better advisedto concentrate on factors like stabilityof tape motion (since the way in whichthe loop of tape moves within the car-tridge causes a drag that can be aproblem in a poorly built deck), andelectronic characteristics like noise anddistortion.

I would appreciate it if you could rec-ommend the best color organ, in youropinion.-James W. Walter, Jr., Tampa,Fla.Sorry. We can tell within fairly preciseboundaries what a given recordingought to sound like; but who can saywhat it ought to look like?


Every so often, an ntil itstime has come. So it arrives ahead of scheduleAnd begins a trend.

Take the new Sony 6065 receiver, for in-stance. It takes direct -coupled circuitry intoa new dimension. Which means there is noth-ing to come between you and the sound -no coupling capacitors, and no interstagetransformers.

Those capacitors and transformers couldcause phase shift or low -end roll -off, ordiminish the damping factor at the low fre-quencies where you need it most.

So, instead we use Darlington -type coupling,a complementary -symmetry driver stage, andan output stage that needs no coupling capa-citor between itself and the speaker becauseit's supplied with both positive and negativevoltages (not lust positive and ground).

The results speak for themselves. The ampli-fier section puts out 255 watts' with less than0.2% distortion, and a cleaner, purer soundthan you've heard before in the 6065's price

The twothat couldn't

wait.

range (or, qui it).And the FM section has not only high

sensitivity and selectivity 1,2.2 uV INF and80dB respectively) but lower noise and betterinterference rejection, to help you discoverstations that you've never heard before-re-discover stations that were barely listenablebefore.

You'll discover new flexibility, too, in thecontrol functions. Sony's famous two-wayfunction selector lets you switch quickly tothe most used sources-or dial conventionallyto such extras as a front -panel AUX input jack,or a second phono input. There's a centerchannel output, too, to fill the hole -in -the -middle in large rooms, or feed mono signalsto tape recorders or a remote sound system.The Sony 6065. $399.50

Another "impatient" receiver also featuringthe new Sony approach to direct coupling,the 6055 delivers 145 watts` Moderately priced,this receiver is a remarkable value at $299.50.

So, there they are, months ahead of schedule

and way ahead of their time. Don't wait toenjoy them at your dealer. Sony Corporationof America, 47-47 Van Dam Street, Long IslandCity, New York 11101..IHF constant Power .u001v method nt 4 ohms

TWD NEW RECEIVERS FROMSONY

4

AND NOW, 3M'S SUPERTAPEThe 3M Company's new high-performance video tape,mentioned in this column in the April issue, already hasproduced a companion consumer product: the ScotchHigh Energy cassette line. The formulation is describedby 3M as being "based on a proprietary cobalt -modifiedferric oxide." Cobalt-not to be confused with chromium.as in chromium -dioxide. Superficially there is a similarity.however: like chromium -dioxide, High Energy tape firstappeared in nonaudio form and boasted a low -noise out-put. There the similarity ends. No special bias or equali-zation is required by the new tape; 3M says High Energ>is interchangeable with "standard low -noise" (i.e.: Dyna-range) in this respect. The difference appears to be large-ly in the higher output level of High Energy, resultingin signal-to-noise gains of at least 2 dB in the bass andup to 6 dB at the high end according to 3M.

Another improvement is incorporated into both theHigh Energy product and 3M's more conventional cas-settes, now to be called Extended Range: a new coatingon the base side of the tape is said to promote evenwinding on the hubs within the cassette and thereforeforestall jamming. Extended Range cassettes will be madein C-30, C-60, C-90, and C-120 sizes. The High Energyproduct will be made only in C-60 and C-90 sizes forthe present and is expected to sell at higher prices. Howmuch higher has yet to be announced.


news L)-views

"STANDARD"TAPE

IMMEMEupp-orgo9Aumintammusil

111111111111111111111

11111111116

PP{ um

HIGH ENERGY

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A

3Als oscilloscope photographs compare new ScotchHigh Energy tape (right) to "standard." Verticalblurring in top pair is caused by noise in multiplecopying; height in bottom pair indicates tape output.

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH DOLBY

Considering how recently the Dolby "B" noise reductionsystem was announced, the implicit assumption by manyindustry insiders we have talked to that the Dolby ishere to stay in at least some types of consumer equip-ment is high praise indeed. There are those who take adimmer view, of course, and complain that noise reduc-tion is simply a way of sweeping noisy electronics underthe rug, so to speak. But by and large the advantages ofthe Dolby circuit-particularly for high -quality cassetterecordings-go unchallenged.

The Dolby people began with the "A" system: an ex-pensive affair operating in four separate frequency bands.That system is now all but indispensable in the recordingindustry. Then came the B model with only one frequencyband. It's what most people mean when they say "Dolby"today-at least within the context of home high fidelity.A "C" system also is in the exploration stage, and wouldbe used to control the noise inherent in disc recordings.It might have two frequency bands: high (perhaps iden-tical to that in the B model) to reduce dust crackle forexample, and low to control rumble.

Dolby Laboratories has been increasing the ranks ofcompanies it has licensed to manufacture Dolby circuits.A recent announcement says that three more Japanesecompanies have been admitted to the fold, in additionto Nakamichi (a private -label company producing Dol-byized cassette recorders for American distribution) andHitachi. We understand that several European compa-nies now are licensed as well. And by next fall, if allwe hear is true, there should be an upsurge of Dolbyized

products on dealers' shelves. In particular, the list mayinclude a choice of high -quality open -reel decks.

But the most provocative scuttlebutt within the indus-try at the moment concerns Dolby circuitry built intoFM receivers. By the time you read this, Dolby Labora-tories will have demonstrated the application of the Bcircuit to noise reduction in FM broadcasting (beforethe National Association of FM Broadcasters). The 10dB of quieting available through adoption of the Dolbytechnique not only would be a boon to listeners in re-ceiving borderline stereo stations, it would increase thegood -signal coverage areas of the stations, making themmore attractive to advertisers. According to Dolby Labo-ratories, a comparable increase in coverage throughtransmitter power alone would require a doubling of thestation's output (and FCC approval, of course).

If stations use the Dolby system, does that mean thatwe all would have to run out and buy new equipment-or at least an add-on Dolby unit? Not really, says Dolby;and their demonstrations on this point seem convincingenough. As with Dolbyized cassettes, the non -Dolby lis-tener can tame the abundance of highs in the uncor-rected signal by using his amplifier's treble control. Ifhe wants to. That is to say, some listeners-particularlyif their equipment is minimal, with a weak high -end re-sponse-seem to prefer the brighter sound of the uncor-rected signal. But because of the almost universal use oflimiters in broadcasting, the correction appears to be lesscritically needed for FM reception than it is in cassetteplayback because the limiter forces more of the sound



The experts agree on

the Citation Eleven Preamplifier.

Citation Eleven (wired) $295.00

Stereo

Review:

High

Fidelity:

Audio:

Stereo

& Hi-Fi

Times:

Record

Guide:

. The Citation Eleven is unquestionably one of the best preamplifiers we havemeasured. It would take better ears - and instruments - than ours to find any unin-tentional signal modification in the output of the Citation Eleven. As a rigorous test ofthe Citation Eleven's "wire with gain" properties, we connected it up so that a signalcould be led either around it or through it on the way to the power amplifier. Anyresponse aberration introduced by the Eleven would then be audible during A -B com-parisons. Perhaps needless to say, the Eleven left the signals (including white noise)completely unaffected in any way detectable by our ears. It is an ideal companion forany really good basic power amplifier. In combination with the Citation Twelve, it wouldbe hard to beat.

. Using and listening to the Eleven is a music -lover's delight: the unit doesnothing to the source material that you don't wait it to do. It is one of those superioraudio devices that functions without seeming to be in the circuit; it lets you listenthrough the system back to the program material. We have no doubt, in fact, that theperformance capabilities of Citation equipment exceed the response capabilities ofcommercial program material. Just to nail home this point we played a stereo tape thathad been dubbed from master tapes containing a variety of orchestral aril vocal selec-tions which we could now hear several generations earlier than we normally would intheir commercial -release versions. Their superiority was clearly audible on Citationequipment, once again demonstrating that "Citation sound" is nothing more or lessthan accurate reproduction of musical sound.

. Having made all the measurements, we were champing at the bit to try itout. We have been using the Citation Twelve as a power amplifier for some months, andfrom the moment it was put into service, we noted a definite improvement in oursound quality. The Eleven does away with the need for any frequency shaping devices,since it has practically all that anyone could desire. With music, you can correct forrecording misequalization, if it exists, or you can add your own. You can compensatefor room acoustics to a remarkable degree, increasing the bass to make up for speakerdeficiencies, and boosting or cutting the highs - extreme or middle - to make up forroom furnishings. In short, there is very little that you cannot do with the CitationEleven. It is a worthy addition to the already distinguished reputation that the nameCitation has achieved over the many years since they first made their appearance.

Let me say it right out. The Citation Eleven is a fitting companion to the poweramp I wrote about last time. That is, the pair of units represent no -compromise audio.The Citation Eleven ... does everything a separate preamp is expected to do, it doesthings with finesse, and it does things no other preamp does. ... I started off heapingpraise on the Citation Eleven. That praise is unqualified. Granted, there are not toomany separate preamplifiers left on the market. But of these, the Citation Eleven mustbe the best - and more important - it will not be bettered in the near future. At $295,it represents the culmination of a purist's dream.

The state of the amplification art moves inexorably on. Just as I get to a pointwhen I begin to believe that preamps hardly can be improved, some manufacturer provesme utterly wrong. Harman-Kardon has done it this time - and not for the first time,either. ... I might add that the Citation Eleven is now the preamp that acts as thecontrol of my own music system. And there it will stay for the foresee4tle future. Whatmore can I say?

. . . unquestionably one ofthe best preamplifierswe have measured.

. . accurate reproduction ofmusical sound.

. . . very little that you cannotdo with the CitationEleven.

. . . represents the culmina-tion of a purist's dream.

We're eager to send complete information..Write Harman-Kardon. 55 Ames Court. Plainview. N.Y. 11d03

. acts as the control ofmy own music system . . .

What more can I say?

harman kardon

JUNE 1971CIRCLE 25 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

A subsidiary of Jervis Corporation

25

NEWS & VIEWS

up to the levels beyond the reach of the Dolby action.If FM broadcasters buy the idea, it will be some time

before appreciable numbers are on the air with Dolby-ized broadcasts of course. In the meantime there areother uses to which the noise reduction circuit in thereceiver can be put. In fact-given appropriate switching-it allows the receiver to Dolbyize an existing cassette.eight -track, or open -reel tape deck. If you've been read-ing about the Dolby circuit, you'll remember that it"stretches" a signal fed through it in one direction, cor-rects one fed through in the opposite direction. So asingle pair can be used to make Dolbyized stereo record-ings or to play back those so prepared-either in thehome or by commercial processors.

An elegant extra in the Dolby FM proposal is thatprocessed broadcasts could be recorded directly-mak-ing the tape Dolbyized as well as the broadcast-withthe circuit in the receiver used only for monitoring: achoice of source or tape during the broadcast, and a partof the listening system in subsequent playbacks. How farin the future all this may be is hard to tell, but we'retold that the receivers may be on the market this year.

Now about that C system. . . .

videotopicsFREE VTR USE-IF YOU'RE A COMPANY, THAT IS

Akai America, Ltd., the new marketing agency for theaudio and video products from the Akai Electric Corn -


pany of Japan. has instituted an imaginative promotionservice for its VT -100 portable video tape recorder. Ithas offered to loan the lightweight system (twenty pounds,including camera. VTR. 3 -inch -screen monitor, and reelof tape) free of charge to any business firm that wantsto tape a meeting, conference, sales presentation, etc.The unit, incidentally, uses 1/4 -inch tape.

Interested companies may contact Stan Harris, AkaiAmerica, Ltd., 2139 East Del Amo Boulevard, Compton,California 90220.

PROJECTION TV: ANOTHER STEP?

That braes no\ \\ odd of big -screen projection color TVthat several companies have been hinting at over the lastfew years seemed a mite nearer recently when RCA an-nounced development of a new helium -selenium lasercapable of producing twenty-four of the rainbow's infinitecolors. The new laser's range covers everything fromdeep blue to red, so that a single laser can produce allthree of the primary hues needed for color TV: red,green, and blue.

Previous laser projection systems have relied on mul-tiple lasers and complex systems for integrating the threecolor bedms in forming the image. A single laser thatcould be switched from one color to the next as its beamtravels across the screen would seem to offer a muchsimpler approach. Is such a system possible? An RCAspokesman comments simply that immediate plans con-centrate on use of the helium -selenium laser as a "labora-tory tool in spectroscopy and materials investigations,"with potential application "as an alignment laser for sur-veying or pipe -laying." Well, who knows. . . .

equipment in the newsCitation loudspeaker: H -K makes it official

Over the past year Harman-Kardon has been using a prototype of afloor -standing omnidirectional speaker system to demonstrate its Cita-tion electronics at hi-fi shows; now the speaker system is availablecommercially as the Citation Thirteen. If you've seen the prototype,you'll note that the cabinetry of the production model is more sophis-ticated and solid -looking. A choice of grille cloths is available for thetop panel, which is angled upward at 14 degrees. Drivers mountedbeneath it include three 7 -inch woofers loaded by a double -chamberedenclosure to smooth out both bass response and impedance curves;response down to 30 Hz without doubling is claimed by H -K. TheCitation Thirteen sells for $295.


Bogen 's eight -track deck for home systems

A component -style player for eight -track (closed -loop) tape cartridgesis offered by the Bogen Division of Lear Siegler. The 8P, as it iscalled, has two unusual features: a "micro balance" tape -to -headalignment control on the front panel, and an auxiliary input thatallows another component to play through the stereo system when the8P is not in use. The drive system of the 8P includes a synchronousmotor; wow -and -flutter performance is said to be as low as 0.25%.Front -panel controls include the micro balance and a manual pro-gram selector to override the automatic track -advance system. Sug-gested list price is $79.95.



26 CIRCLE 4 ON READER -SERVICE CARD-*

Altec's new Dynamic Force Systems.They're built a lithe better.

With a new 15 -inch Dynamic Forcewoofer for better reproduction of lowfrequencies. Both Altec's new Barcelonaand Granada speaker systems incor-porate this all -new woofer. It features along voice coil with edge wound, pre -flattened copper wire and a magneticstructure of extremely high flux field.Working together in our infinite baffleenclosure, this speaker is capable ofproducing a Dynamic Force against thecompressed air in tt-e cabinet of up to16 psi. This greatly improves low fre-quency transient performance, extendslow -end response and reduces distortionwhile maintaining medium efficiency.

With a large sectoral horn for bettercontrolled angular distribution of midsand highs. This exclusive horn enablesthe new Barcelona and Granada to keepthe off -axis frequency responses of midsand highs almost identical to the on -axis responses-even in the critical midrange (above 500 Hz) where most lowfrequency speakers have a narrow angleof distribution. This large sectoral hornalso helps extend the direct field whichis where you hear the original acousticsof the recording rather than the acous-tics of your listening room.

Built a little better.

With mcre hand -sanding and hand -finishing for liner cabinetry. The hand -rubbed natural walnut cabinets of Altec'srew Barcelona and Granada feature arinfirite baffle design inside the enclosurewith snap -on fretwork grilles outside Toensure both quality and beauty, thesepieces of fine furniture have peen indi-vidually hand -sanded probably morethan any other speaker cabirets on themarket today.

Altec's rew Barcelona (873A) sells for$560.00. Altec's new Granada (875A)sells for $450.00. Write for our complete,new catalog. Altec Lansing, 1515 SouthManchester Ave., Anaheim, Calif. 92803.

A CLIAL t, COMPAN LTV LING ALTEC.

EQUIPMENT IN THE NEWS Continued from page 26

Pick your perspective with AKG headphones

The new AKG K-180 stereo headset from Norelco has transducerswhose position can be altered within the earcups. Turn the knobs onthe outside of each so that the transducers are as close as possible toyour ears, says AKG, and the acoustic perspective will approximatethat of a front -row -center orchestra seat. Move them away fromyour ears and the sound will grow progressively larger and morediffuse, as it might when you move toward the back of the audito-rium. The K-180 is delivered with a coiled cord and has a ratedimpedance of 600 ohms, allowing use with either low- or medium -impedance sources. It costs $69.


Fisher markets turntables

Fisher Radio has moved into the automatic record -changer field byoffering a line of three models priced from $99.95 to $149.95. Thetop model, shown here, is the Fisher 502. Among its features are avariable antiskating control, variable vertical tracking angle correc-tion for up to eight records (the knob on the near end of the cartridgeshell), vernier pitch adjustment, record sensor to prevent the stylusfrom descending onto the bare platter cover, and an automatic -repeatsystem that will repeat any record in the stack. The Fisher 502 canbe used as a manual or automated single -play unit as well, of course.


New open -reel deck from Pioneer

The Pioneer Model T-6600 is a quarter -track, automatic -reversestereo tape deck equipped with a two -speed (71/2 and 33/4 ips) syn-chronous -motor drive system. The automatic -reverse system, cued byconductive foil strips on the tape, can be set to operate in bothplayback and record modes, making possible continuous unattendedrecording on both sides of the reel. Other features include a retractingpinch roller to simplify tape threading, a pause control, output levelcontrols, and a front -panel headphone jack. The T-6600 sells for$299.95.

British speaker available from OlsonThe Celestion Ditton 15 ABR speaker system is being sold in thiscountry by Olson Electronics, the Akron -based retail chain, as theModel S-39. The Ditton speakers from Celestion have been wellknown to British high fidelity enthusiasts for some years. ABR standsfor Auxiliary Bass Radiator, a feature of the woofer system in theDitton 15. Power -handling capacity of the model is rated at 15 wattsrms. A single unit sells for $110: a pair for $200.


Medium-priced receiver from Sansui

The Sansui 1000X is a stereo FM/AM receiver in the medium pricerange with some features of the company's more expensive units:connections and monitor switching for two tape decks, independentpreamp and power amp stages (used for insertion of special controlslike electronic crossover or speaker equalizer), FM interstationmuting, and switching for two pairs of speakers (either, both, orneither). The selector includes positions for phono, FM with auto-matic stereo switching, AM, and "aux." Price is $269.95.


aiaiii


Or maybe a better set of speakers.Because if you must spend more on your stereo

system, you needn't spend it on the receiver. Evenat just $160, the 40W (±1 db) Nikko STA-301 isalready as good as or better than most speakersystems made, no matter what they cost.

Honest.Frequency response is 20-50,000 Hz ±1 dB

(IHF) and harmonic distortion is a low 0.8% at ratedoutput. So if you spend more money on a receiver,you get more knobs and switches, slightly bettersensitivity, separation and distortion. But mostly

you get more power, not better sound.Of course, if you need more power, you could

always buy our 64W (±1 dB) STA-501 or our90W (-±1 dB) STA-701-B.

But if all you really need is clean pure sound,spend your money wisely.

The nitty-gritty on the STA-301 AM/FM Stereo Receiver-FM Sensitivity:2.5 iLV (IHF). FM stereo separation: 32 dB. Power output: 40W (-I:1 dB)Frequency response: 20-50,000 Hz (IHF). Hum and noise: -60 dB (mag. phono),-65 dB (Aux). Harmonic distortion 0.8% (rated output). IM distortion: 1%(rated output). Nikko Electric Corporation of America: 5001 Lankershim Blvd.,North Hollywood, California 91601

NIKKO

ate:11up1111111111011111111

11/cl:6,a 1

money Inthe bon

JUNE 1971

Distributed in Canada by Superior International Electronics Ltd.

CIRCLE 33 ON READER -SERVICE CARD29

THENO -CHARGE

SEPtPt -

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C0,00tatIOn

to theorigi

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0 f a

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It's guaranteed not to make abulge in your wallet or a dent in yourpocketbook.

The Revox No -Charge Card iscompletely different from any cardyou've ever had. In fact, most of thetime you leave it at home in a safeplace, like next to your life insurancepolicy.

But let's suppose that five, ten oreven 50 years from now, the unlikelyhappens, something goes wrong

*Record and playback heads, capstan andpressure roller are guaranteed for one year.

Revox Corporation212 Mineola Avenue, Roslyn Heights,N.Y.115771721 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, Calif. 90028In Canada:Tri-Tel Associates, Ltd., Toronto, Canada

with your faithful Revox A77. Afterall, it's just possible that one of the842 parts covered by our lifetimewarranty* could go bad. Not toworry. We'll supply a replacement atno charge to you, upon presentationof your No -Charge Card and thedefective part.

Come to think of it, there's onlyone drawback to the No -Charge Card.

r The way Revox is built, you001 may never get to use it.

4 0 ", ori.4 REVOX DELIVERS

WHAT ALL THE REST

CIRCLE 40 ON30

AR ONLY PROMISE.READER -SERVICE CARD


newequipmentreports THE CONSUMER'S GUIDE

TO HIGH FIDELITY EQUIPMENT

LOW-PRICED RECEIVER PERMITS TAPE -TO -TAPE DUBBINGTHE EQUIPMENT: Sherwood S-7100, a stereo FM/AMreceiver supplied in walnut case. Dimensions: 171/2 by131/2 by 53/4 inches. Price: $199.95. Manufacturer:Sherwood Electronic Laboratories, Inc., 4300 NorthCalifornia Ave., Chicago, III. 60618.

COMMENT: Sherwood has packed a lot into this low-priced receiver. It offers AM and stereo FM receptioncombined with a stereo amplifier that contains morefeatures and a higher level of performance-and awalnut cabinet too-than one might expect from a$200 combination set.

Styling resembles that of the higher -priced Sher-wood S-8900 (see HF test report, October 1970), al-though the new model understandably has fewercontrols. At that, there's an ample array to suit theneeds of most playback systems. The AM and FMtuning dials are clearly marked, with a maximum -strength tuning meter (that works for AM and FM)at one end and a stereo FM indicator at the other.The large knob to its right is the station tuner; nextto it the set's volume control is combined with thepower off/on switch. Across the bottom of the frontpanel there's a signal selector (with positions for auxil-iary, phono, FM, and AM); switches for tape monitorstereo/mono mode, FM hush, and loudness contour;a tape dubbing jack; stereo headphone jack; speakersystem selector (either, both, or none); bass control;treble control; channel balance knob. The headphonejack is live at all times. The tone controls handleboth channels simultaneously.

Speaker connections at the rear accommodate twoseparate pairs of stereo speakers; these are controlledby the front -panel switch. Stereo inputs are providedfor magnetic phono pickup, tape monitor, and anauxiliary (high-level) source. A fourth pair of jacksfeeds signals to a tape recorder. Since this connectionduplicates the input capabilities of the front -paneldubbing jack it permits connecting two tape recordersat once to the receiver. It also permits copying tapes

from one recorder (connected to the rear tape moni-tor jacks) to another (connected to the front paneljack). Antenna terminals accommodate twin -lead (300 -ohm lead-in) for FM; there's also a terminal for along-wire AM antenna in addition to the set's loopstickAM antenna. The rear also contains three fuses (oneeach for the audio output channels and one for themain AC line), plus the power cord and a switchedAC outlet.

FM sensitivity was clocked at 2 microvolts, andthe sensitivity curve descends fairly steeply to a

maximum quieting level of -45 dB for 50 microvoltsof input signal. The curve shows no sign of overloadfor signal levels above 50 microvolts. Harmonic dis-tortion was generally low in mono, increasing some-what on stereo. In both mono and stereo the distor-tion also increased slightly as the set's volume controlwas raised to maximum. Both sets of figures are givenin the accompanying data chart. FM audio responsewas good, showing some roll -off toward the extremeupper end; stereo channel separation remained betterthan 30 dB across most of the range and better than20 dB across to well beyond 10 kHz. In our cable -FM test, the S-7100 logged a total of 42 stations ofwhich 36 were considered suitable for serious listen-ing or for off -the -air taping. AM performance soundedbetter than average.

The set's amplifier portion shapes up as a "low -medium" powered unit that would seem to make itsbest showing when driving moderate -to -high -efficiency

HI KH/

Square -wave response.

REPORT POLICYEquipment reports are based on laboratory measurements and controlled listening tests. Unless otherwise noted,test data and measurements are obtained by CBS Laboratories, Stamford, Connecticut, a division of ColumbiaBroadcasting System, Inc., one of the nation's leading research organ zations. The choice of equipment to betested rests with the editors of HIGH FIDELITY. Manufacturers are not permitted to read reports in advanceof publication, and no report, or portion thereof, may be reproduced for any purpose or in any form withoutwritten permission of the publisher. All reports should be construed as applying to the specific samples tested;neither HIGH FIDELITY nor CBS Laboratories assumes responsibility for product performance or quality.

JUNE 1971 31

POWER OUTPUT DATA

ChannelsindividuallyLeft at clipping: 27.7 watts at 0.16% THDLett for 1.0% THD: 30 wattsRight at clipping: 27.7 watts at 0.24% THDRight for 1.0% THD, 30 watts

Channels simultaneouslyLeft at clipping: 21.7 watts at 2.0% THDRight at clipping: 21.7 watts at 2.1% THD

POWER BANDWITH

0for 1% THD, zero dB = 25 watts

- -3ce,g +5W- 0(0 _5

+50

-5

+5ca3 0

-5 Left channel, +1. -3 dB. 20 Hz to 14 Ii17

Right channel: +0.5, -3.5 dB. 20 Hz to 12.5 kHz- 10

E2-15 Left channel: - 35 dB at mid -frequencies: 20 dB, 20 Hz to 14 kHz---- Right channel: > 35 dB at mid -frequencies: > 20 dB, 25 Hz to 12 kHz r

L'ca'-20

14 Hz to 34 kHz

FREQUENCY RESPONSE, 1 -WATT OUTPUT

-3.5 dB, 20 Hz to 47 kHz

10 20 100 1K 10K 20K 100K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

MONO FM RESPONSE

2 dB, 20 Hz to 14.5 kHz

-25- 30

- 35

- 40

I20.55 0.4

0.3

0.2

a0.1

STEREO FM RESPONSE

CHANNEL SEPARATION

20 50 100 200 500 1K 2K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

°-01

+50

-5

-8 -ohm load: <- 0.35% to 33 watts output4 -ohm toad < 0.35% to 18 watts output16 -ohm load: < 0.35% to 21 watts output

IM CHARACTERISTICS

5K 10K 20K

2 3 4 5 10 20 30 40 50POWER OUTPUT, WATTS

RIM EQUALIZATION

+0.5, -3 dB, 20 Hz to 20 kHz

oMISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERISTICS

+15 Bass boost) Treble Boost+10

"" +5 ....c' 0ce)

-5-10-15

------

Treble cut

TONE CONTROLS

LOUDNESS CONTOUR, VOL. CONTROL AT 9 O'CLOCK

20 50 100 200 500 1K 2K 5K 10K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

100

200

- 10

L,..;

rz' -20z-s-30.-2 0

V) -40_im.5

.-2.01.4

IHF SENSITIVITY2.0 microvolts at 98, at 90.

and at 106 MHz

- 501 10 100 1K

RF INPUT IN MICROVOLTS

10K 100K

g 2 HARMONIC DISTORTION CURVES

c''" 1 25 WATTS OUTPUT ----- -U 0

Left channel: 2.0%, 40 Hz to 20 kHzRight channel, < 1.1%, 40 Hz to 20 kHz

2

1 12.5 WATTS OUTPUT

0- Left channel: < 0.59%, 20 Hz to 20 kHz

m_ Right channel: < 0.61% 20 Hz to 20 kHz

20 50 100 200 500 1K 2K 5K 10K 20K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

speakers in a normal -size room. At power demandsbelow its maximum rating, both harmonic and IM dis-tortion remain very low. Response is linear across thenormal audio band, equalization is accurate, tone con-trols are satisfactory, and both sensitivity and relatedsignal-to-noise ratios on all inputs are fine. Square -wave response shows a roll -off in the deepest bass,

characteristics in the highs.For its price, the S-7100 offers somewhat better

performance and certainly more features than you'dexpect. As such it can serve as the heart of a modest,but decent quality, stereo system.

CIRCLE T42 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

Sherwood S-7100 Receiver Additional Data

Tuner Section

Capture ratio 3 dB

S/N ratio 58 dB

IM distortion 0.21%

THD Monomid* max

L chmid* max

R chmid* max

40 Hz 0.55% 1.0% 0.92% L6% 0.88% 1.5%400 Hz 0.55% 0.87% 0.80% 1.2% 0.79% 1.2%1 kHz 0.44% 0.86% 0.57% 1.1% 0.55% 1.1%

19 -kHz pilot -61 dB38 -kHz subcarrier -64 dB

Amplifier Section

Damping factor 22

Input characteristics Sensitivity S/N(for 25 watts output)

phono 1.7 mVtape monitor 215 mVaux 225 mV

62 dB84 dB67.5 dB

* mid -position rotation of the volume control.


NEW OMNIS OFFER MANY INSTALLATION OPTIONS

THE EQUIPMENT: Wharfedale W80A, full -range speakersystem in enclosure. Dimensions: 29 by 171/4 by 17inches. List price: $317.60. Manufacturer: WharfedaleDivision, British Industries Co., Westbury, N.Y. 11590.

COMMENT: The newest design from Wharfedale (oneof the oldest and most respected names in highfidelity on both sides of the Atlantic) is the "omnidi-rectional" W80A-a high -performing speaker systemthat offers smooth, wide -range response plus morethan usual versatility in terms of its installation possi-bilities. The W80A uses four drivers: a 121/2 -inch long -throw woofer, a 5 -inch midrange cone, and a pair ofdomed tweeters; one with a three-inch radiating sur-face called a "subtreble" tweeter; the other with aone -inch surface called an "ultrasonic" tweeter.

More intriguing is the way these four speakers aremounted and how they radiate their sound. An L-shaped baffle is employed. The midrange and tweeterunits face "backward" and radiate against a large,hard -surfaced disc panel which itself may be posi-tioned to produce various dispersion patterns. Thewoofer faces upward from beneath the disc. Coveringthe entire array are four framed grille cloths whichmay be removed to gain access to the movable discand to a pair of two -position toggle switches thatadjust the relative levels of midrange and highs.

The enclosure itself is finished in walnut, and itmay be positioned vertically or horizontally. Connec-tions are made to terminals at one end (the bottom,if the unit is positioned vertically). Nominal inputimpedance is 8 ohms. The W80A is rated as a "me-dium -low" efficiency system, and the manufacturersuggests that an amplifier capable of supplying about20 watts or more (sine -wave average power) perchannel be used.

In the lab, the W80A produced the response curvesshown on the accompanying graph. Note that the on -axis response seems droopy at the high end; this isnormal for this speaker inasmuch as "on axis" heremeans measuring the response from behind the frontpanel (i.e., 180 degrees off axis), while the speakersthemselves are producing sound in the opposite direc-tion, radiating against that disc. The acoustic mixdeflected off that disc is what we're really interestedin. In other words, the average omnidirectional re-sponse is even more relevant for the W80A than it isfor conventional speaker systems, and this (the uppercurve on our graph) was clocked as within plus orminus 6.5 dB from 45 Hz to 17,500 Hz. Not only isthis an excellent response characteristic for a speakersystem, but it confirms that the W80A is performingexactly as its designers intended it to. In listeningtests, using generator tones, we found the over-allresponse running from a faint, but relatively clean, 25Hz to beyond 16,500 Hz where the slope toward in-audibility became evident. Some bass doubling couldbe heard in the 40 -Hz to 45 -Hz region; it was in sumless than that heard on most speakers. Except for asmall peak at about 7,000 Hz, the entire responserange sounded exceptionally smooth and uniform. Dis-persion was, of course, outstanding-tones well above10 kHz were audible all about the system. Incidentally,the tests were all run with the midrange and tweeterswitches in their "more" position, which provides forabout 2 dB higher output from 1,000 Hz and up thanthe "less" position, although in a very live room youmight prefer the latter setting for these switcies.

The measured impedance curve for the W80A neverdipped below 6.0 ohms and averaged a fairly linear

8 ohms across the audio range. The minimum averageamplifier power required to produce an output of 94dB was 10 watts, and the speaker could take steady-state power of 80 watts before exhibiting any -realdistortion or buzzing. On instantaneous pulse tests,the W80A stood up bravely to peaks of 416 watts,although with some distortion. This data in sum at-tests to its ruggedness, ample dynamic range, andsuitability for use with just about any amplifier orreceiver on today's market.

We auditioned a pair of W80As in various positionsand liked what we heard in all instances. They projecta broad, natural -sounding acoustic front with ample"air" and "space" that lend a convincing note of real-ism to stereo playback. The louder we drove them the

Continued on page 34-B

90

LI 80

It 70

'Ed 60 \------- ON AXIS RESPONSE---- AVERAGE FRONT HEMISPHERIC RESPONSE \

AVERAGE OMNIDIRECTIONAL RESPONSE

so20 50 130 200 500 1K 2K 5K 10K 20K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

Wharfedale W80A Harmonic Distortion°

OutputLevel(dB)

80

Frequency

Hz 300 Hz

°A) 2nd % 3rd % 2nd % 3rd

70 0.03 0.15 0.15 0.10

75 0.35 0.22 0.20 0.12

80 0.40 0.35 0.35 0.15

85 0.45 0.60 0.45 0.42

90 0.50 0.65 1.20 0.73

95 0.75 0.78 2.70 1.20

100 1.40 1.90

'Distortion data is taken on all tested speakers until a level of 100 dBis reached, or distortion exceeds the 10 -per -cent level, or the speakerproduces the spurious output known as buzzing, whichever occurs first.

JUNE 1971 33

The JBL 4310 is especially designed formastering, control room installations, mix -down facilities, portable playback systems.It's full of good things like:

Wide range response. Full 90° dispersionfor vertical or horizontal placement. Powerhandling capability, 50 watts program material.

Front panel controls for separate adjustmentof presence and brilliance.

12 -inch long7excursion low frequencyloudspeaker, massive mid -frequency directradiator, separate ultra -high frequencytransducer.

Only available through Professional AudioContractors.

t National Periodical Publications

Beneath this mild mannered charcoalgray exterior, is the finest compactstudio monitor money can buy.

It should be. The JBL 4310 wasdeveloped with the enthusiasticassistance of leading recordingengineers. (And they're the only oneswho can buy it.)

Now, guess what else theprofessionals have been doing with the4310's for the last two years. You'reright. They've been taking them home,using them as bookshelf speakers.

That's why we decided to get even.


Supershelf.It's the new JBL Century L100. It

costs $273. It would be the finestprofessional compact studio monitormoney could buy except it's not soldto studios. (If that sounds like the JBL4310, there's a reason. They're twins.)

JBL started with a definition of sound.It's the sound the artist creates, thesound the microphone hears, the soundthe recording engineer captures.

Then they added oiled walnut and anew dimensional grille that's moreacoustically transparent than cloth buthas a texture, a shape and

colors like Ultra Blue or Russet Brcwnor Burnt Orange.

Oh, yes. The JBL Century L100has individual controls under the grilleso that you can match thesound to the room-just the rightpresence, just the right brilliance.

And then theychecked the rule book.

There's absolutelyno law againstprofessional soundlooking beautiful.

James B. Lansing Sound, Inc., 3249 Casitas Avenue, Los Ange es 90039. A Subsidiary of Jervis Corporation


more they bloomed and no one complained of theirsounding too loud. We also tried one of the installa-tion approaches suggested by Wharfedale in its lit-erature: putting two W80As together horizontally on alow pedestal. With the discs angled outward andslightly up, you do get a stereo effect when listeningfairly close to the assembly, but this diminishes as youstep back, and we found that at a distance of, say,seven feet or more it became difficult to identify leftand right channels clearly. The total bass output inthis position was also reduced, but by no means se-verely. Actually, the W80As can be enjoyed in thisunusual position while at the same time helping tosolve a particular decor problem. However, we feelthat the W80As sound their best when separated asfar apart as conventional speaker systems, and stand-ing upright (vertically). Driven by a good amplifieror receiver, they must be ranked with the best repro-ducers available today. In this position, incidentally,you can vary the angle of the reflector disc to suityour own listening preferences and/or the program

INDEXING SYSTEM CANCATALOGUE 10,000 RECORDS

THE EQUIPMENT: Bib Indexa Record, a record -cata-loguing index book. Price: $4.95. Manufacturer: BibDivision, Multicore Solders, Ltd., Hemel, Hempstead,Herts, England; U.S. distributor: Revox Corp., 212Mineola Ave., Roslyn Heights, N.Y. 11577.

COMMENT: In our September 1969 issue, David Ham-ilton provided readers with suggestions for cataloguingrecords ("Now Where Did I Put That Franck Sonata?").He recommended shelving records in numerical order,the numbers to be assigned by you. The logic of thisstorage system then would be in a corresponding cardfile, rather than on the shelves. "The great advantageto this method," Hamilton pointed out, "is that newrecords are always added at the end of the shelf,which eliminates having to shove records around inorder to accommodate new purchases." Now, fromEngland, comes a product that allows you to approxi-mate Hamilton's system.

The Bib Indexa Record includes ten 81/2- by 61/2 -inch double transparent plastic pockets (sort of large-scale versions of wallet -photo holders), enclosed bya strong, padded plastic binder that has, additionally, asingle transparent pocket inside each of its covers.The front cover insert holds a table of contents, theback cover a "records wanted" page (three of eachare provided in case you change your mind).

Inside each double pocket you insert two indexpages back to back, as you do wallet photos (well,not exactly back to back, since each sheet is printedon both sides-again in case you change your mind).Each index page (a pad of twenty-five is included)has space for twelve entries; thus a complete IndexaRecord can accommodate 240 listings. Remember,these are 240 listings, not records. With cross-index-ing, figure 100 records. Bib does; it provides 100pairs of self -sticking labels numbered 1 to 100 foryou to place on your record jackets, front and back.If you have more than 100 records, you buy anotherIndexa Record and add a third digit to each label.Bib thus claims that the system can be expanded to

material played. For instance, if you angle the discsoutward you'll get a somewhat broader prosceniumeffect which might sound more satisfying for large-scale works such as operas. Angling them in throws thesound more directly into the room center, which youmight prefer when listening to small groups or soloists.

The W80A is suoplied with four small feet attachedto the end that is ,ts nominal bottom when positionedvertically. These feet may be easily unscrewed forthe end -to -end installation described above. If thispositioning is to be used, Wharfedale recommendsplacing the speakers on a special low base which isavailable as an accessory, Model 660A, listing at$25.75. Yet another accessory is a roll -out base, theModel B-69 list -priced at $18.50. This device holdsa single W80A system on a platform supported bycasters; with it you can install the new Wharfedalesin a built-in setup. but roll them out and about forthe best stereo effect when listening. And our feelingis that once you find the optimum positions for theW80As, and the preferred angle for their reflectordiscs, you will do a lot of listening.


999 records. We suppose this is what audio appraiserscall a conservative rating; we could get two morefairly large digits on a label, thereby accommodating9,999 records (or even 10,000 if we leave the firstrecord unlabeled and index it as "0"). The label,incidentally, has provision for noting treble and basscontrol settings.

An index page has space for you to indicate the typeof records you are listing on it: rock, opera, shows,orchestral, or what -have -you. Since this will be the keyto your entire catalogue, you had best give consider-able thought to your categories. You will not be ableto browse about your haphazardly organized shelveswhen you want to hear "some Bach" but will have tobrowse in your booklet. (And if the information printedon each page-file number, mono or stereo, com-poser, title, artist-doesn't suit your needs, Bibsupplies forty white adhesive strips on which you canmake your own headings.) You can probably leaveyour operas unlabeled (just put them in alphabeticalorder; they are easily spotted) and your recital albumstoo (again, the alphabet is as good as a number), butif you think you might ever want to pick out severalversions of the theme song from Love Story or seewhat you own of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, or, maybe,Kalus Schlupp, you'd better make sure you've writtenthem down on the index page somewhat near eachother.

34B HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

Here lies one disadvantage the Bib system haswhen compared with a card file: you can't insertlistings or cross -listings between other listings. Ifyour collection is sizable and you have just boughtanother Kalus Schlupp recording you might not beable to list him where you can easily find him-

AR TUNER: PLAIN JANE LOOKSBUT SUPERB FM PERFORMANCE

THE EQUIPMENT: AR Tuner, a basic stereo FM tuner.Dimensions: front panel, 151/4 by 31/4 inches; chassisdepth, 91/8 inches. Price: $210. Optional walnut case:$15. Manufacturer: Acoustic Research, Inc., 24 Thorn -

dike St., Cambridge, Mass. 02141.

COMMENT: A basic tuner designed for connection toan external amplifier, the AR tuner (it has no modelnumber) has the same very simple styling of otherAR electronic components and also like them offerssuperb performance in its equipment class. As suchit should be of interest to the stereo system ownerwho may not yet own an FM receiving facility or whois ready to update an older tuner with a modern high-

performing version. On all counts, the AR tuner isexcellent: sensitivity is very high; distortion, verylow; response, very linear.

The accompanying test data tell much of the story.In both mono and stereo operation, frequency re-sponse remains virtually a ruler -straight line across

+5

0

-5

0

co -5-10-15-20

it -25- 30

-35- 40

-45

MONO FM RESPONSE

-1 dB, 20 Hz to 15 kHz

STEREO FM RESPONSE

Left channel: +0, -I d8.20 Hz to 15 kHzRight channel: +05. -1 dB, 20 Hz to 15 kHz

CHANNEL SEPARATION

- Left channel > 40 dB at mid -frequencies: > 30 dB, 68 Hz toll kHzi

Right channel: Same > 20d8, 20Hz to 15 kHz

20 50 100 200 500 1K 2K 5K 10K 70K

FREQUENCY IN HZ

-10

- 20c,

g -302 a-

-40

-501

1.6 AY

IHF SENSITNITY

1.6 microvolts at 90, at 98and at 106 MHz

10 100 1K 10K 100KRF INPUT IN MICROVOLTS

especially if you are up to record 687 and on yourseventh Indexa book. The advantage of the Bib sys-tem: compactness, neatness, and security. With thelistings in strong plastic pockets you don't have toworry about lost or damaged file cards.


=MI

the normal FM audio band. Channel separation onstereo is outstand ng, exceeding the normal 30 -dBstandard across most of the band and never decreas-ing to less than 20 dB at its extremes. Distortion,extremely low on mono, hardly increases in stereo.Other measured characteristics are uniformly excel-lent. The IHF sensitivity figure of 1.6 microvolts isamong the best ever measured; the sensitivity curvedescends steeply and reaches maximum quieting of-48 dB for only 50 microvolts of input signal (wellbelow the normal average received strength of 1,000microvolts), and it shows no signs of overload forstronger incoming signals. In our cable -FM tests, welogged a total of fifty-four stations of which forty-threewere judged suitable for critical listening or off -the -airtaping; this of course puts the AR tuner into the"champion class" in this regard. These measurementsare quite borne out by the tuner's sound which wefeel renders utterly clean and honest versions of what-ever is being broadcast-so much so in fact that, aswe have had occasion tc comment on other superbFM sets in the past, we could say of the AR tuner thatits response capabilities generally exceed the broad-cast quality of most FM stations.

For a tuner in its performance class, the AR modelhas deceptively unassum ng styling. The FM dial issimply but clearly marked, and tuning is aided by astereo indicator and a center -of -channel meter. There'sthe tuning knob plus three rocker switches for stereo/mono mode, interstation hush off/on, and poweroff/on. The output level control is at the rear alongwith a 300 -ohm (twinlead) antenna terminal, stereosignal outputs for connecting to an amplifier and atape recorder simultaneously, the AC line cord, andthe set's fuse -holder. Thats about it: simple and great,or rather, simply great.


AR Tuner Additional Data

Capture ratio 2 dB

66.5 dBS/N ratio

IM distortion 0.38%

THD Mono L ch R ch40 Hz 0.18% 0.27% 0.19%400 Hz 0.16% 0.22% 0.15%1 kHz 0.14% 0.22% 0.10%

19 -kHz pilot -66 dB

38 -kHz subcarrier -67 dB

JUNE 1971 35

by Leonard Feldman

THE TRUISM concerning the relative inferiority ofthe loudspeaker as a high fidelity component has beenquoted and requoted for more than two decades.Much has been said too about preferred listeningtests, comparison shopping, the use of specific record-ings to reveal the merits (or demerits) of speakersystems, and finally the need for extensive subjectivelistening before making a final choice.

Somehow, these formulas for choosing speakershave always seemed to me vague and incomplete.For a long time we have, to a great degree, been ableto select a tuner or an amplifier on the basis ofnumerical specifications that have more or less be-come standardized over the years, and which permita certain amount of prejudging. Not so with speakers-not only has there been a conspicuous lack ofstandards but the ear must be relied on to a greaterdegree than for any other audio component.

This reliance still obtains, but today it can be sup-ported and directed by a fairly new set of numericaldata. In June 1970 HIGH FIDELITY published anilluminating article by Benjamin B. Bauer, vice pres-ident of CBS Laboratories (where most of the testdata for the magazine's published equipment reportsis developed). Bauer explained a new series of well-defined measurements to be used in evaluating loud-speakers. The measurements included such obviouscriteria as over-all frequency response, directivity,harmonic distortion, loudspeaker efficiency, transientresponse, power -handling capacity, and impedance.True, all of these parameters had been measured be-fore, but the new tests offered two advantages overearlier techniques. For one thing, CBS Labs proposedto take into account many more factors that relatedirectly to the actual musical listening experience,thereby making their measurements more realistic.For another, the new measurements were to be pre-sented (graphically and verbally) in the publishedreviews to serve as a guide and aid to the prospectiveloudspeaker purchaser.

How

to Use

Our TestReports

This latter aspect-using the information in HIGHFIDELITY'S equipment reviews to help select the loud-speaker best suited to your needs-is what I'd liketo comment on here.

Frequency Response

Simply stated, a loudspeaker's frequency response isthe sound pressure it produces at some finite dis-tance in front of its surface as a function of thefrequency applied. Just what constitutes "good" oreven "acceptable" frequency response from a loud-speaker never has been clearly defined. Nor can wediscern much general agreement on specific numbersin this area. A few years ago, Harry F. Olson, thenoted acoustician of RCA Laboratories, published afairly definitive set of criteria for high fidelityloudspeaker performance in which he proposed uni-form response from 30 to 15,000 Hz, with a maxi-mum departure from such uniform response of nomore than 5 dB at 100 Hz and 8,000 Hz, and amaximum departure of no more than about 8 dBat the extremes of 30 Hz and 15,000 Hz. Interest-ingly, Dr. Olson allows no provision for peaks abovean average "zero -dB" level, only for moderateamounts of attenuation. This concurs with the opinionof many experts who have long maintained thatnarrow peaks of departure from uniform responseare much more annoying (and tend to add to so-called speaker coloration) than are slight dips ofequal amplitude. [While Olson's prescription is prop-erly rigorous, we have found in the course oftesting modern loudspeakers that a smooth rise abovezero dB by no more than, say, 5 dB does not degradethe sound of a loudspeaker that has very good per-formance characteristics in important areas otherthan frequency response. Of course, much dependson where you designate the "zero -dB" level. Ed.]

In judging a loudspeaker's frequency response in


in

Selecting

a Speaker

conjunction with a HIGH FIDELITY equipment review,first examine the "on -axis response curve" of thespeaker to be evaluated. This is the simplest frequencyresponse curve, since it is concerned only withthe ability of the speaker to reproduce all frequenciesuniformly directly in front of the speaker radiatingsurface. If, for example, you note a significant "val-ley" in the curve in the midrange region (frequen-cies from about 300 Hz to about 2,000 Hz), listenparticularly for definition of individual orchestralinstruments and for "presence" in vocal selections.Lack of midrange response often tends to make vocal-ists sound subdued-almost as if they are singingfrom somewhere behind the accompanying orchestra.A premature rolling -off of low frequencies appear-ing in the curve will show,up in your listening tests asa distinct lack of "full-bodied" bass when such instru-ments as bass violins, kettledrums, and even thelower octaves of a grand piano are used as audition-ing material. To some degree, male speaking voicesalso will be affected; they will especially show"coloration" when a peak of a few decibels occurs inthe frequency response between 100 Hz and 300 Hz.This peak causes the so-called "bass -boom" or "one -

note -bass" effect often heard from mass-producedconsole sets. The truth is that many of these sets havea built-in peaked bass response to give the untrainedlistener an impression of "real bass." If you're indoubt, just listen to any live male voice and compareit with the sound of a reproduced male voice.

If the on -axis frequency response curve showshigh -frequency response poorer than that suggested(in Fig. I ), you have another clue to speaker perform-ance. To verify it, listen to musical selections contain-ing strong high -frequency signals (cymbals, triangles,and the like) as well as to the consonants in speechsuch as s, f, and even the letter t. If their crispnessand definition seem wanting in an on -axis test (wherehighs are more easily projected from a loudspeakerthan at any other listening position), you may be

fairly certain that degradation will be even moreextreme at any other listening position relative to thespeaker's axis.

In addition to these obvious performance aspects,a few less apparent but equally important speakercharacteristics should be considered. If the pressurewaves created by the moving diaphragm of a loud-speaker could be directly coupled to the listener'sear, our discussion of frequency response evaluationcould end right here. (In fact, properly designedstereophones work exactly that way. When usingheadphones that form a good seal with your ears,you eliminate all problems of room acoustics and ofdirectivity or "angular dispersion." All reproducedfrequencies are channeled directly to your hearingsystem, which probably explains why more and morestereophone enthusiasts maintain that no listening isas faithful to the original or as devoid of colorationas headphone listening. Since we are dealing withloudspeakers, however, we must face up to theseadditional problems in evaluating a given system.)

Much has been written about the shape and fur-nishing of an ideal home listening area, but in the

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Fig. 1. Shaded area represents typical response limitsof high -quality loudspeakers, approximately plus orminus 6.5 dB from 30 Hz to 15,000 Hz. The smooth-er the curve (i.e., the fewer dips and peaks) withinthis area, the better. "Normalized" response refersto the zero -dB reference line's being drawn throughthe center of the total dB variation, although theactual response measurements are made for a con-stant 1 -watt input, with approximately 80 -dB sound -pressure level resulting as the tnost often encounterednominal average speaker output.

JUNE 1971 37

last analysis how many readers will actually redeco-rate their living rooms or dens to conform to thatideal? Many listening rooms, in fact, do not evenhave the most desirable dimensional proportions(3:4:5). Here is one area of speaker evaluation inwhich intelligent subjective listening can again sup-plement objectively determined measurements and re-ports. Try to do your auditioning in a dealer's show-room that is not too unlike your own listening area-both in dimension and in sound -absorption treat-ment. Since one of the most often heard complaintsfrom owners of newly acquired speaker systems isthat "they didn't sound that way when I listened tothem at the dealer's showroom," try to get the dealerto let you "final test" the speakers of your choice bytaking them home for a few days.

Faced with the problem of room acoustics andyour own listening position (which is most likely tobe off -axis in any reasonable stereophonic arrange-ment), you need to concern yourself with anotherimportant specification newly brought to light in thecurrent method of HIGH FIDELITY speaker reviewing-that of directivity. If you examine the other two fre-quency response curves given in a HIGH FIDELITYspeaker report you will see that they are identifiedas "average front hemisphere response" and "averageomnidirectional response." Generally, the threecurves are almost identical up to frequencies of about150 Hz or so because bass tones emitted by a loud-speaker tend to be n9ndirectional. Mid and highfrequencies, however, become increasingly directionalso that as you move off -center of the speaker axis,these frequencies will sound weaker unless certaindesign precautions are taken. In stereophonic listen-ing this is particularly significant, because the lis-tener is more often than not well off -center of theaxis of either speaker (hopefully somewhere in be-tween them), subtending an angle of 45 degrees ormore to either speaker.

The two additional frequency response curves

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shown in the published test reports take cognizanceof directionality by including separate measurementstaken from various points around the speaker. Oneof these curves represents average radiated sound -pressure level ("equivalent omnidirectional response")while the other corresponds to average front hemi-spherical response. They provide a complete andeasily interpreted picture of both frequency responseand directionality characteristics. Previously, direc-tionality of a loudspeaker was usually shown by plot-ting a polar radiation pattern (Fig. 2a). The problemwith this type of graph was that a whole series ofthem would be needed (one for each frequency tested)to truly define a speaker's directional characteristics.

The new presentation (Fig. 2b), which includesthe two additional frequency response curves, tellsyou at a glance just how well the speaker can radiateenergy over the entire frequency range and into theentire listening area. As you listen to a speaker whichhas been reviewed by this new method, you willwant to walk to the extreme corners of the room-to every conceivable off -axis location in which youor other listeners in your home may find themselves.If the two off -axis -derived curves (particularly theone identified as "average omnidirectional response")exhibit marked attenuation characteristics above1,000 Hz, pay special attention. Should you planyour home seating arrangement at a considerableoff -axis angle from such a loudspeaker you are likelyto sense a deficiency of high -frequency response. Try,therefore, to duplicate this condition in the showroomby moving away from "stage -center" and determiningwhether you can, in fact, notice the loss of highswhich the published curves "predict." Again, this isbest done by playing music that is rich in high fre-quencies. Many of the newly designed "omnidirec-tional" speaker systems tend to overcome this prob-lem by using multiple drivers for their high -frequencyarray, often directing them away from the listener,so that the sound is dispersed by reflecting walls or

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Fig. 2 (a and b). Conventional method of presenting loudspeaker dispersion data (left)does so on an absolute basis for only one frequency at a time (this graph shows a polarpattern measurement at 5,000 Hz). In contrast, CBS Labs response curves, which areused in HIGH FIDELITY'S test reports, show complete frequency spectrum on a compara-tive basis: direct on -axis response, average front hemispheric response taken from fivepoints, and average omnidirectional response taken from fourteen points. The mostsignificant curve from the listener's standpoint is the third (omnidirectional) curve, butby comparing the contours of the three curves, you can form a good idea of thespeaker's directivity in terms of actual dB differences all across the total audio band.


other surfaces. This type of speaker reduces the un-desired beaming effect of the highs and tends toaverage out the high frequency energy radiated in aroom. If you find that such a system pleases you andthat the published curves confirm your high opinion,bear in mind that the smoothness of high frequencyresponse depends in part upon where that speaker islocated with respect to available reflecting surfaces.Should your home listening situation preclude suchpositioning, the high frequency dispersion of thesetypes of speaker systems may well be altered un-favorably.

Another point to remember when considering thehigh frequency dispersion characteristics of anyspeaker system is that many systems are equippedwith some sort of high -frequency control-either acontinuously variable adjustment or a multipositionswitch. Check the setting of such controls as youaudition the speaker. As a rule, the curves shownin the published reports are derived with all controlsset to their indicated "normal" position. However,the effect of the controls on the response also isdescribed. Thus, you should audition a speaker withthe controls set for neither boost nor cut, and thenvary the controls while listening for the specificchanges indicated in the report.

As a final check, after you are satisfied that thehigh frequencies are well dispersed to preferredlistening positions, return to the "on -axis" position(directly in front of the speaker). Try now to judgewhether the highs sound strident or overly obtrusive,particularly if the on -axis curve of the report showsa substantial increase of amplitude in the frequenciesabove, say, 4,000 Hz as compared with the othertwo off -axis curves. This procedure is advisable sincein some instances you or others in your listeninggroup may find yourselves in an on -axis positionafter all.

Distortion

The new "distortion tables" featured in speaker re-ports shed much needed light on this often confusingspecification. Many manufacturers, after avoidingthe subject for years, are also beginning to statesomething about distortion in their descriptive liter-ature. Their reluctance on this point stems fromtheir apprehension that the reader will equate thedistortion figures of speakers with those normallyencountered in connection with tuners, amplifiers,etc. The latter figures are minute by comparison.For instance, 5 to 10 per cent harmonic distortionat normal operating level would be considered hor-rendous in an amplifier, but of far less significancein a loudspeaker. Of course, by definition, the lowerthe distortion the better-in any audio device. Still,to understand what 10 per cent distortion at 40 Hzmeans for a loudspeaker, one must understand thenature of the distortion tests themselves. Suppose a

speaker produces 10 per cent distortion when it isfed with enough electrical energy to furnish an aver-age output sound -power level of 100 dB. The sameloudspeaker will produce a sound -power level of 90dB (putting you just a few rows back in the imaginaryconcert hall) with only 2 per cent distortion. In gen-eral, the greater the sound output, or the lower thefrequency (below the bass resonance of the system,at least), the higher the distortion. To put these fig-ures in perspective, sound levels of 90, 100, or even110 dB correspond to the loudest sounds normallyencountered in a concert hall. For this reason the100 -dB (or in some cases, the 90 -dB) level becomesthe one we try to get from every loudspeaker-in-cluding those that can produce such loudness onlywith "break-up" or "buzzing"-that is, with relativelyhigh distortion. However, the tabulations used inthe reports also show what happens when the speakeris driven to lower sonic output. The prospective buyerthen can plan accordingly. If, for example, yourbudget permits purchase of a system that cannotcleanly reproduce those concert -hall levels in yourliving room, it's nice to know that the speaker ofyour choice will, nevertheless, give clean output atan 80 -dB level, even at the difficult low frequencies.The distortion tables thus provide a much betterguide in this respect than a single statement such as"5 per cent distortion at 50 Hz" which is absolutelymeaningless (though still used in some advertising)when unaccompanied by some indication of soundoutput level, or electrical input requirement plus anindication of the system's efficiency.

Given the new tabular form of reporting, you canjudge a speaker system's distortion fairly easily. First,listen to an assortment of recorded material at mod-erate levels-well below the point where significantdistortion figures apply-and familiarize yourselfwith the over-all tonality of the system in question.Then, in separate steps and listening to the samerecorded passages, increase the level of sound withthe amplifier's volume control. At some point youwill begin to hear a decided change-a decrease inthe "cleanness" of the signal, particularly in the bassand lower midrange region. This point will, as arule, correspond approximately to the dB level atwhich the tabular report first indicates higher ordersof distortion. If that level seems overpowering-andone that you are not likely to require in your homelistening environment (either because of personalpreferences or considerations of neighborliness)-then the onset of distortion at such a level is ofacademic interest only: it need not dissuade youfrom purchasing the system in question. In conduct-ing these tests, however, you should allow for somemargin inasmuch as the dynamic range of some fu-ture musical programming may be such that instan-taneous crescendos may "push" the speaker intoobjectionable levels of distortion-if only for shortdurations. By basing the distortion tables in the re-ports strictly upon output sound levels (and not

JUNE 1971 39

amplifier power applied to the loudspeaker) any con-sideration of speaker efficiency as such is deliberatelyruled out for the purposes of this test. But efficiencyis important for other reasons too, as discussed be-low. I mention it here, however, to remind you tobe sure that an amplifier of ample, clean power out-put is used for listening tests-otherwise you may belistening to amplifier distortion or overload ratherthan the distortion caused by the speaker's limita-tions. In this regard, at least, most manufacturersof loudspeaker systems are careful to recommendrequired amplifier power for use with their products.I suggest allowing a margin of perhaps as much as50 per cent plus in this area-because the chancesthat a good high-powered amplifier will "burn up"the loudspeaker are less likely than is the chancethat the opposite will pertain, namely that a low -powered amplifier will be unable to drive an ineffi-cient speaker system to levels at which it is stillrelatively free from significant amounts of distortion.

Efficiency and Amplifiers

The new speaker reports in HIGH FIDELITY invariablyrecommend the amplifier power needed to properlydrive the speaker system being evaluated-but thisserves as a starting point rather than an absolute rulefor your power requirement deliberations. To trans-late the published (and necessarily generalized) powerrequirement to the specifics of your own room sizeand listening preference, a knowlege of the relativeefficiency of the system is still needed. Actually, anindication of speaker efficiency is implied in the fre-quency response curves already discussed. Thosecurves are derived with a standard electrical inputto the speaker of 1 watt, and so the output levels onthe dB scale of the graph provide a true indicationof efficiency. For instance, an output level of 70 dB(caused by 1 watt of electrical input) represents afairly inefficient speaker system. A speaker systemthat produces a sound level of 80 dB from the same1 watt of electrical input is ten times more efficientthan the one that produces only 70 dB of sound level.The acoustical (not electrical) power required to pro-duce a 100 -dB level in typical rooms of various sizesis plotted in Fig. 3. The cubic volume is simply thelength by width by height of the listening room. If90 dB of sound level is enough for your needs, youwould reduce the readings by a factor of 10. If, onthe other hand, you feel that you must have soundsat 110 -dB levels, multiply the reading obtained foryour room size by a factor of 10. A somewhat sim-pler approximation is to figure 1 acoustic watt per1,000 square feet of floor space for a 100 -dB soundlevel capability. Of course, to translate the acousticpower back into electrical power you would needto know the efficiency of the loudspeaker you con-template purchasing. Here the frequency response

curves of the report are used-bearing in mind that10 dB represents a 10 to 1 ratio of power. Thus, if1 electrical watt produces a sound level of only 80dB in a room of approximately 1,000 square feet offloor (a large dealer's showroom is likely to havesuch measurements), it means that the acoustic out-put is 20 -dB lower than our desired "100 -dB level,"or the efficiency of the system is 1/10 x 1/10 or1/ 100th-or 1 per cent (a figure not uncommon withmodern, air -suspension bookshelf -type speakers).

Whether you go through all these calculations ornot, the final test will still be a listening test involvingthe use of an amplifier, whose power rating youthink is adequate, coupled to the speaker you areevaluating. If the speaker is capable of high soniclevels, as reported in the tests, but there is audibledistortion as you approach such levels, you can bereasonably certain that the amplifier is overloadingbefore desired levels of sound are attained-and youwill then want to verify this "mismatch" by runningthe same speaker from a higher -powered amplifier.Most dealer showrooms are equipped to easily switchthe speaker under test to any of several amplifiersas a driving source. These few additional A/ B testsare well worth your extra time and effort, for thereis nothing so frustrating as having selected an ex-cellent speaker system only to find that the amplifierbeing used to drive it just doesn't have enough poweroutput to do the job.

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Fig. 3. Graph shows amount of acoustic powerneeded to produce 100 -dB sound level in listeningrooms of various sizes. Note that for other dB soundlevels, the acoustic power requirements change. Spe-cifically, for each 10 -dB lower sound level desired,divide the acoustic power shown here by 10. Forexanple: in a room that is 3,000 cubic feet in volume(length times width times height), the above graphshows that a sound level of 100 dB will he producedby 0.5 acoustic watt. To produce in this room asound level of 90 dB, only 0.05 acoustic watt wouldbe needed. For 80 dB, the acoustic wattage dropsto 0.005, and so on. To estimate amplifier powerneeded, divide acoustic watts by speaker efficiency:e.g., 0.5 acoustic watt from speaker that is 1 per centefficient requires amplifier capable of supplying 50watts to speaker.


Judging Transient Response

Since the early days of speaker evaluation, nearlyevery reviewer has spoken of good or bad "transientresponse." This term refers to a loudspeaker's abilityto respond with precision to sharply defined percus-sive sounds of short duration. Such sounds occuroften in music and are produced of course by per-cussive instruments. Moreover, it has been suggestedby some experts that all music (whatever the instru-ments producing it) is actually a series of "percus-sives" or "transients"-an interesting idea that fur-ther points up the importance of this characteristic.Anyway, the best program material for evaluatingtransient response is music that abounds in obviouspercussive effects.

As additional help, HIGH FIDELITY'S published testreports approach the problem in a somewhat moreconcrete and scientific way. Carefully tailored "tonebursts" are fed into a loudspeaker, while its outputis observed on an oscilloscope at various sound levels.The outputs are compared with the inputs for evi-dence of transient response defects such as "hang-over," "ringing," or "muddiness"-defects whichwere often suspected but never easily confirmedquantitatively by experienced listeners in the past.

While the published reports do not, as a rule, in-clude photographs of the actual tone bursts, theirrelative importance and possible effect on the soundis noted by the reviewer in terms of pinpointing de-ficiencies in transient response at specific regions inthe frequency range. Thus, high -frequency transientresponse may be adequate, while low -end transientcapability leaves something to be desired. If carefullistening tests confirm this, a comment will be in-cluded in the published report. When it does, that'syour cue to concentrate-during your own listeningtests-on such things as the attack of bass drumsand timpani, the bowing of bass viols, while simul-taneously listening for evidence of "muddiness" orlack of definition. If deficiencies are noted in thehigh -end transient response, listen for "fuzziness" inthe reproduction of sibilant sounds, upper brasstones, and even the upper octaves on a piano solo.

Power -Handling Capacity

The transient -response tests using tone bursts serveanother useful purpose: they enable the reviewer tosuggest maximum power limitations for a speakersystem. The older method-using continuous tonesof ever increasing power-to determine how muchpower a speaker system can safely handle is invalid,since musical programming is unlike "continuoustones" and more like the tone bursts used in thetransient -response tests. (I might add here that con-tinuous tones still are the most valid for testing am-plifiers-but for different reasons.)

For judging this performance characteristic I'drecommend that you be guided solely by the testreports. In other words, do not keep increasing thesound level in your own listening tests merely tofind out how much a speaker system can take beforeits voice coil is destroyed or its cone structure isdeformed. Such destructive testing may be worthwhilein an engineering laboratory (where one or moreprototypes are actually driven to destruction in thecourse of a design program), but it would hardly bewelcomed by. an audio dealer.

Impedance

Loudspeakers typically are rated by their manufac-turers for a nominal impedance of 4, 8, or 16 ohms,which suggests that the impedance value of a loud-speaker's voice coil is a constant number. Not so. Aloudspeaker's impedance is a complex function con-taining both resistance and inductive reactance. Itsvalue actually varies with the frequency of the ap-plied signal-and not always predictably. Thus, atypical speaker impedance curve plotted with respectto frequency might well appear as in Fig. 4. Notethat in the vicinity of resonance (in this case ataround 65 Hz), the impedance rises significantly.While this means a mismatch between amplifier andspeaker (and hence less power transfer to the speak-er), the increased efficiency of the system in thevicinity of resonance usually offsets this power mis-match quite nicely. Note, however, that at about600 Hz the impedance dips briefly to a value justover 2 ohms. This is so close to a "short circuit" thatmost solid-state amplifiers will draw excessive cur-rent through the output transistors in an attempt todeliver large amounts of power to that low an im-pedance load. At worst, output transistors may bedamaged beyond repair. At the very least, the condi-tion may cause the amplifier's protective circuitry(fuses, relays, etc.) to open-interrupting the pro-gram until the level is turned down and the outputtransistors are permitted to resume normal operation.

The published speaker reports always mention the

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Fig. 4. While a loudspeaker's nominal impedancemay be 8 ohms, the actual value may vary signifi-cantly at certain frequencies. Note too that the im-pedance given in the test report is the value to whichthe curve dips immediately after its characteristicbass rise; this example would be reported as about7.5 ohms. For importance of 600 -Hz dip, see text.

JUNE 1971 41

range of measured impedance. The minimum imped-ance encountered across the audio band is given sothat you can be assured of your amplifier's safetywhen it is used with that speaker. The impedanceinformation also relates to the use of two loudspeak-ers connected in parallel across the same amplifieroutput terminals. For instance, while a dip in im-pedance to, say, 5 ohms is of little importance fora given speaker system, the same dip on the part oftwo such speaker systems produces a net impedanceof only 2.5 ohms-which could be dangerously lowfor some amplifiers or receivers.

Additional Considerations

A performance characteristic of loudspeakers that isnot directly documented in the reports-but whichoften is inferred by the reviewer from related data-is that of dynamic range, the difference between thesoftest and the loudest sounds that you will hearwhen your system is finally put together in yourhome. The upper (or loudest) end of this dynamicrange may well be determined by the highest soundlevel your selected speaker system can produce withreasonably low distortion, as tabulated in the testreport. On the other hand, the lowest extreme (orthe softest sound) you will be able to hear withoutmasking caused by residual hum and amplifier noisewill be governed more by the performance of youramplifier-not to mention the characteristics of agiven phono pickup or tape deck. To gain some ideaof a speaker's dynamic range, play a record at theloudest listening level you will want-and then liftthe tone arm from the record. With everything (andeveryone) else perfectly silent in the listening room,are you then able to hear hum and noise from thesystem? Is it at a bothersome level? If it is, thenyour lower limit of dynamic range capability is be-ing diminished by amplifier limitations. Either thegain of the amplifier may be too high in terms of theefficiency of the speaker selected, or the amplifier'ssignal-to-noise ratio may be inadequate in terms ofthe speaker's own capabilities with respect to dy-namic range. For this reason it is important thatbefore purchasing a speaker system you should listento it actually being driven from your own make andmodel of amplifier (or receiver). Today's programsources (FM, low -noise tapes, and discs) often con-tain useful dynamic ranges of 60 and even 70 dB.A residual noise level caused by amplifier problemsmay well reduce that available dynamic range by asmuch as 10 dB.

IM Distortion

My earlier discussion of distortion covered only har-monic distortion, as do HIGH FIDELITY'S speaker re-

ports. Few speaker specialists have dealt in depthwith the possible effects of intermodulation distor-tion. Their justification for this approach has alwaysbeen based upon the fact that most speaker systemsemploy two or more driver elements (woofer, mid-range, tweeter, etc.). Since IM, as normally meas-ured in amplifiers and other electronic audio equip-ment, involves the combined use of a low (60 -Hz)and a high (6,000- or 7,000 -Hz) frequency, thesetwo test frequencies will not produce "sum and dif-ference" beat frequencies, since they are not beingreproduced from a common driving element. Thisargument, it occurs to me, may be entirely invalid.For one thing, not all loudspeaker systems containseparate woofers and tweeters; many less expensivesystems employ a single, wide -range driver unit, inwhich case ordinary IM distortion products mightwell exist and should be measured. As for the multi-element systems, IM products perhaps exist betweenfrequencies that are not so far apart as conventionalIM tests imply. For example, a poorly designedtweeter, fed with frequencies of 15,000 Hz and14,600 Hz could very well exhibit nonlinearities thatwould produce significant amounts of 400 -Hz (thedifference) energy. These two frequencies, in fact,are used to measure IM distortion in FM tuners, andspeaker designers might well borrow from the pro-cedure used in that allied technology in this instance.

There remains much basic workarea, but I believe that the reason speakers havingidentical harmonic distortion characteristics and iden-tical frequency response characteristics can stillsound vastly different in a subjective A/B test withrespect to "cleanness of sound" lies in the seldommeasured or stated IM distortion characteristics. Myown experiments in this area suggest that in yourlistening tests you should try to use program materialthat has a variety of high -frequency sounds all pro-grammed together. Woodwind ensemble playing hasoften pinpointed what I can only describe as IM dis-tortion, but correlating measurements for this phe-nomenon have yet to be evolved and standardized.

To suggest that the music enthusiast intent uponselecting a speaker system has but to arm himselfwith this new set of scientifically derived measure-ments would be telling only part of the story. Com-prehensive auditioning of as many speaker systems aspossible, in a suitable acoustic setting, will alwaysbe required. What I am emphasizing, though, is thatmeasurements taken in a standard and repeatablemanner can serve as an aid-a weeding -out process,if you will-in the final subjective evaluation thatstill must be made by the listener. The data containedin this new form of report can serve as a "warningflag" in those areas where deficiencies arise, and asa confirmation of your own judgment in areas whereperformance is estimated to be good or even superla-tive. Let the reports serve as program notes-whileyou enjoy the concert.


by Morley Kahn

Uncover Extra Stereo ChannelsSimple hookup reveals hidden ambience and directionality

in many two -channel recordings.

EVER SINCE THE STEREO DISC became commerciallyfeasible in 1957 it has generally been assumed thatall you need do for satisfactory stereo playback isconnect two loudspeakers to two separate channelsof amplification. Unfortunately this assumption hasprevented us from hearing-and enjoying-addition-al sonic information that is, to some extent, inherentin any stereo recording. As a result we have beendeprived of the full content of the bass notes in ourrecordings and of the "concert -hall" sound that wemight have been recreating in our living rooms. Yetthe means by which everything already present on astereo recording can be reproduced in the home areelegantly simple-and inexpensive.

The initial emphasis on those Gemini twins ofstereo, the left and right channels, has blurred rec-ognition of the fact that the differences and similar-ities between the two signals are as much a part ofthe stereo recording as the information in eachchannel itself. That is, the preoccupation with justtwo channels (compounded by inexact comparisonsto double -image stereo photography) has induced usto redefine "stereo" so that it relates specifically tothe notion of two sound sources. But the word is de-rived from the Greek stereos: solid, dimensional.Two points define a line. It takes a minimum ofthree to define a plane and four to define a solid.Conventional stereo is only a part -way approach tomusical solidity.

This Euclidean simile can be carried just so farof course. In the "spatial" effects of music we aredealing primarily with breadth and depth since heighthas relatively little to do with our perception of mu-sical sounds. So three points would represent theirreducible minimum needed to define musicalspace.

Establishing the Third Point

The difference between the signals in left and rightchannels can be thought of as a third signal: the "Lminus R" or "difference" signal. This signal doesnot exist as a separate entity within your stereo sys-tem, of course, but you may hear it by attachinga loudspeaker across the "hot" terminals of the am-plifier. Hooked up that way, the speaker will respondonly to differences in voltage between the two chan-nels, and the circuit is said to be "differential."

Used in conjunction with the normal stereo pair,a differential speaker is placed at the back of theroom. It may be elevated to within a couple feet ofthe ceiling. (If the listener is sitting down, the back

of his chair otherwise will tend to absorb a gooddeal of the sound coming from that direction.) Theleft and right speakers can remain connected andpositioned just as they always have been. Fig. 1

shows this three -speaker hookup.The relationship between the sounds each of the

three speakers will produce can be understood byconsidering the way in which stereo recordings aremade. Most are prepared from a two -channel mastertape on which the signals from many different mi-crophones are mixed. For simplicity's sake, however,let's begin by assuming that only two microphones-left and right-have been used. If the studio werecompletely free of reverberation (anechoic), theonly differences between the signals generated bythe microphones would be those caused by differentrelative placements of the microphones with respectto the sound source-or sources. Instruments closerto the left microphone would be recorded louder inthat channel than in the right channel, and thesound would reach the left microphone an instantbefore it was picked up in the other channel. Whenthis recording is played back over a conventional,two -speaker system, the amplitude (loudness) andphase (time) differences would be reproduced faith-fully, allowing the listener to localize the soundsomewhere between the two speakers but closer tothe one on the left.

There are reflections and reverberation of soundin the environments where recordings are made,however; so the microphones pick up more than justthese directly radiated sounds. Each recording studioor concert hall has its own individual characteristics.A hall that absorbs a lot of highs will sound dead;one that reflects a lot of highs will sound bright.Some halls absorb reflections quickly; others have alonger "decay" time. These "ambience" character-istics are picked up by both microphones. Thereforethere are differences between channels in this am-bience sound as well as in that picked up directlyfrom the instruments.

When a stereo recording is played back over astandard, two -speaker system, each speaker repro-duces the direct sounds louder and sooner than theirreflections. Because of the "Haas effect," these loud-er, direct sounds establish precedence. Thereforemost of the individual ambience qualities of the orig-inal acoustical environment remain buried if onlyleft and right speakers are used. But when a sepa-rate, differential speaker is connected in back, thehookup subtracts all common elements (which pro-duce equal voltages at the two hot terminals), un-masking the difference signal and reproducing it on

JUNE 1971 43

Get theMost From Your

SpeakersMost often asked questions . . and answers.

by Roy Allison

While the editors do not necessarily agree with allthe viewpoints expressed in this article, we wel-come the opportunity to publish them in theinterest of providing readers with a broad rangeof opinion on the subject.

IF IT IS REASONABLY SAFE to say that no one knowsall there is to know about loudspeakers, it is evenmore certain that an awful lot of people want to learnas much as they can about them, judging from theinquiries I have received over the years. What fol-lows is a distillation of several questions and answerscovering what I regard as points of major concernand general interest to all stereo enthusiasts.

Q. Are small speakers really best suited for smallrooms?There is no performance relationship that wouldmake small speakers better for small rooms and bigspeakers better for big rooms. It certainly is true thatrooms influence the perceived sound from loudspeak-ers, but that influence is much the same whether thespeaker cabinet is large, small, or in between.

A very small room will make it more difficult forany speaker system to generate adequate bass, re-gardless of its size. Consequently a case might bemade that a speaker system capable of really goodbass performance would not be fully exploited insuch a room. But the low -frequency performancecapabilities of speaker systems have little to do withtheir size.

Speaker efficiency, on the other hand, does havea loose relationship with speaker system cabinet size.More acoustic power is required from the speakersin large rooms than in small rooms to produceequivalent sound levels; the more efficient a speakersystem is, the more acoustic power it produces for agiven electrical input power from the amplifier.Hence the "big speaker" system might be consideredmore desirable for large living rooms-not becauseof its physical size, but because it probably hashigher efficiency. How much more desirable is it for

that reason, in practical terms? This is discussed inthe next question.

Q. In practical terms, how much more desirable is ahigher -efficiency speaker? And how does this relateto amplifier power?When loudspeakers radiate acoustic energy into aliving room, the fast-moving sound waves undergo agreat many reflections from walls, the ceiling andfloor, room furnishings, and people in the room. Witheach reflection some of the acoustic energy is ab-sorbed. More is absorbed simply traveling throughthe air. But the rate of absorption is low enough sothat once a listener in the room is more than threeto five feet distant from a speaker system, the ampli-tude of the reflected sound energy is greater than theamplitude of the direct radiation. In other words, thereverberant field predominates over the direct fieldfor any listener unless he is abnormally close to thespeaker. That holds true regardless of which way thespeaker is "aimed."

The reverberant field is composed of the sum ofthe speaker radiation at all angles, and for middleand high frequencies it is quite uniform in amplitudethroughout the room. Therefore it is the reverberantfield amplitude that determines, in all practical cases,how loud the sound will be.

The amplitude of the reverberant field is fixed ulti-mately by two things only: the rate at which acousticenergy is radiated into a room and the rate at whichit is absorbed. Energy input rate is the product ofthe amplifier power times the speaker efficiency.Absorption rate is proportional to room size and tothe average absorptive character of the room surfacesand furnishings. In a "dead" room, containing a lotof soft surfaces, the absorption rate is high and thereverberant field amplitude is lower than it would bein a hard -surfaced "live" room.

It seems reasonable to assume typical room condi-tions and from them relate speaker efficiency to am-plifier power requirements. Let us say that we want

Roy Allison, HIGH FIDELITY'S first audio editor, is nowvice president of Acoustic Research, Inc.


to create in a living room a reverberant field ampli-tude of 100 dB SPL (sound pressure level). That isloud; it corresponds to the peak sound amplitudeproduced by a large symphony orchestra in a concerthall. Other assumptions: the room is of average size(2,400 cubic feet, or 12 by 25 by 8 ft.) and is neithervery live nor very dead.

In such a room, with two speaker systems of 1%efficiency, 100 dB SPL will be produced with peakinputs from the power amplifier of 181/2 watts perchannel. For most kinds of formal music the averagepower input under these conditions would be lessthan 2 watts per channel.

The speakers that most people own today-rela-tively small acoustic -suspension systems-are about1% efficient. It can be seen that, even allowing fornormal variations in speaker efficiency and relativelylarge variations in room size and furnishings, thepower requirements for reasonably safe sound levelsare well within the range of readily available am-plifiers and receivers. Reproduction of popular musicat the same loudness is no problem either. But thesound levels at live rock concerts are much higher,frequently reaching 115 to 120 dB SPL.

If it is desired to reproduce at home the originalsound levels of a live rock performance, bookshelf -size speaker systems should not be used. Peaks of115 dB SPL would require peak inputs of 600 wattsper channel to a pair of 1% -efficient speaker sys-tems. The average power input would be 60 to 100watts per channel. Even if amplifiers powerfulenough can be found, the speakers would surely bedestroyed. Anyone who is willing to risk permanenthearing damage by listening at such levels must doit with horn -type speakers.

Q. Everyone seems to recognize that the listeningroom is a component of a sound -reproducing chain,because the room has a significant effect on thequality of the sound we hear from a high fidelitysystem. That being so, what are the attributes of agood listening room?It should not be very small, if good bass productionis important. Full reinforcement of a 40 -Hz funda-mental tone requires a room with one dimension ofat least 14 feet.

It should not have one dimension that is equalto or a multiple of another room dimension. If itdoes, there will be powerful reinforcement at discretebass frequencies spaced one octave apart, and littlereinforcement at other frequencies. The result willbe a tendency towards boomy, one -note bass. A room16 by 16 by 8 feet, for example, would be very bad.

The room should not be extremely live, in anacoustical sense, or extremely dead either. If it isexceptionally live-having mostly uncovered surfacesof hard material like tile, plaster, and glass-it willhave sharp resonances and will be too reverberant.The sound will be shrill; stereo directionality will be

diminished or lost because the direct sound from thespeakers will be so greatly submerged in the rever-berant field. If the room surfaces and furnishings areat the opposite extreme-predominantly soft and ab-sorbent-the sound will tend to be muffled and lack-ing in lustre. Too much of the direct sound from thespeakers will be heard; high -frequency beaming anddiffraction effects will be all too apparent, and thesound quality will change significantly as you movearound in the room. Moderation is the key; a roomwith acoustical properties that are pleasant for otherliving purposes is likely to be a good room for musiclistening.

Q. What is your opinion of omnidirectional loud-speakers?Omnidirectional speaker systems are not. The so-called "omni's" are multidirectional. Some may berelatively nondirectional in the horizontal plane, butthat includes only two of the three dimensions thatare implied by the word "omnidirectional."

In fact, a single radiator specifically designed forwide dispersion, and mounted in a cabinet with itsback against a wall, approaches the ideal of omni-directionality more closely than a multidirectionalspeaker system does.

It is claimed that the multidirectional systems makeloudspeaker location noncritical. In most cases theopposite is true; their manufacturers usually recom-mend that they be situated well away from the roomwalls, thus occupying more room space than conven-tional units. Wherever they are placed, the room af-fects them in the same ways that it affects conven-tional systems.

It is also claimed for some multidirectional speak-ers that they establish the same ratio of direct toreflected sound as is found in a concert hall. Thisratio, of course, varies drastically according to whatseat you have chosen in the hall; there is no single"correct" ratio. And no matter what kind of speakersystem you use at home, or how you aim it, you arewell within the reverberant field of a normal listen-ing room once you are more than a very few feetaway from the speaker system.

Finally, the time delays associated with reflectionsin a concert hall differ by an order of magnitudefrom those of a living room. The only way that theycan be duplicated successfully is with four -channelrecording and playback systems.

Q. Are room equalizers significantly more effectivethait tone controls in adjusting speaker response?Room equalizers sound like a great (if expensive!)idea. Adjust the loudspeaker output in 1/2 -octave orone -octave bands to produce a flat response in thelistening room, thereby eliminating room effectsaltogether. Problem solved.

We at AR have investigated the effects of many

JUNE 1971 49

typical listening rooms, and we have compared theresults with measurements of concert halls. Hereis what we have found: above 1 kHz, listening roomresonances are so closely spaced in frequency thatthey do not produce modes sharp enough to be audi-ble as such. Listening rooms simply affect the slopeof the high -frequency response; better correction, ifneeded, can be obtained with treble tone controlsthan with narrow -band equalizers. If narrow -bandcompensation is needed above 1 kHz it is because ofdefects in the speaker system, not the room.

Below 1 kHz, discrete room modes and clusters ofresonances may become discernible. But they arequite different in response pattern for each locationin the room. Narrow -band equalization can smooththe response at one particular seat in the room, butI have found that it often makes the response worseat other locations. The transient response of the res-onance is not affected favorably, in any case. Itwould seem more desirable and less expensive tosubdue prominent room resonances by other means:relocation of the speaker systems or judicious appli-cation of acoustical damping material, such as drapes.

Good concert halls are so large that their res-onances are very closely spaced even at low fre-quencies. Thus they do not suffer from audible res-onant modes. They do, however, have a much morepronounced slope in response than living rooms,rolling off the high frequencies more severely. Thatis important because recording microphones are al-ways placed close to the performers. They pick up afar brighter sound than the concertgoer hears. Togenerate a sound in your living room that is an ac-curate replica of the live concert -hall balance,therefore, the high frequencies must be rolled offmore than the acoustical properties of your livingroom will accomplish alone. A flat input to the roomis not desirable for greatest accuracy; a smooth, butsloping response is needed. Loudspeaker manufactur-ers attempt to provide that kind of response with thespeaker system's controls in the "normal" positions.

Q. How can I add a center -channel speaker?A fully honest answer requires a challenge to thebasic assumption of need for a third speaker, becauseit serves no useful purpose if the main speakers areproperly set up. Adding a center -channel speaker re-duces the effective separation of the two main soundsources; it is of value only when the main speakersmust be separated physically so far that they soundlike two separate speakers, rather than a stereo pair.This happens only infrequently, when the listeningroom furniture arrangement makes such wide separa-tion mandatory, or when the main speaker systemsare designed for use in room corners.

If you must use a center -channel speaker, it shouldbe driven by a separate power amplifier which is feda sum -signal derived from the two side channels.Some amplifiers and receivers have a sum -signaloutput jack for connection to a center -channel am-

plifier. If yours does not, you can obtain an appropri-ate signal with a small microphone mixer (such asSwitchcraft Model 310).

The volume of the center -channel speaker shouldbe turned up until its contribution to the total loud-ness becomes just faintly audible, and no more. Ofcourse, speakers connected to the center -channel am-plifier can be used as monaural extension speakersin other rooms.

A center -channel speaker should be phased withthe other two after you have adjusted its level. Donot disturb the already -phased connections to the twoside -channel amplifiers and speakers; the centerchannel speaker must be phased to correspond withthem.

Q. How can I be certain that my speakers are cor-rectly phased?Despite the fact that polarity markings are providedby manufacturers of stereo components, there is nostandard to which an manufacturers adhere. Evenif there were, it would still be very easy to get speak-ers out of phase in the wires connecting them to theamplifier or receiver, and in fact it is there that mostphasing problems occur.

Phasing the speakers in a stereo system is a matterof getting the diaphragms in both speaker cabinetsto move in synchronism (both in the same directionfor a centrally located sound image) rather than inopposition. This is required in order to obtain acoherent stereo image that remains in place betweenthe speakers as you make small normal head move-ments. An out -of -phase condition produces a jumpy,erratically moving image unrelated to the properlocation.

That is the key to one way of testing for properphasing. Put on a record and set the mode switchfor monaural operation. Both speakers will then beplaying the same program material; balance themfor the same sound volume.

Stand in front of the speakers, about six feet away,on a line exactly midway between the two. If thespeakers are in phase, the sound will appear to comefrom a point between the two speakers. (You mayhave to move your head a little, left or right, to per-ceive the illusion.) If they are not in phase, the soundwill appear to be diffuse or will jump rapidly fromone spot to another in an unpredictable way as youmove your head and shoulders.

To change the speaker phasing, reverse the ter-minal connections of the two wires in the cable goingto one of the speaker systems (not both). Mark thein -phase orientation and leave the connections thatway.

If the speaker systems can be moved easily, amore positive phasing test is to place the cabinetstogether, side by side, and to listen for changes indeep bass response as the leads to one of the speakersystem are reversed. The in -phase connection willproduce greater bass output.

50 CIRCLE 103 ON READER -SERVICE CARD -*

ZERO100 is the model number ofthe newest, most advanced automatic turntable.

The name stands for Zero Tracking Error... up to 160 timesless than with any conventional tone arm ... new freedom from

distortion . new life for your records. In the -ollowing pages,we o'fer you technical and nontechnical explanations...

GAZERO 100

We proudly present the

IMP

Two -Speed ( 331/3 45 rpI

IUD

t: Turntable

9 less base and cartridge

Again, the innovator!The components that comprise highfidelity systems have become increas-ingly sophisticated. In tum, the de-mands placed on the automatic turn-table for higher performance standardshave also increased. These stringentrequirements have led to higher pricecategories for automatic turntablesthan ever before.

Nevertheless, the Garrard Labora-tories resisted the temptation to build aso-called "super changer", until theywere satisfied that sufficiently meaning-ful improvements were feasible, to jus-tify the establishment of such a newproduct category.

Over the years, Garrard has in-vented, pioneered and introduced vir-tually every significant new feature inautomatic record playing units. Many ofthese have been revolutionary, and to-gether they have upgraded the entirecharacter of the automatic turntable.

But change, merely for the sake ofchange, has been sternly resisted.

this is the brilliant new star amongautomatic turntables, featuring zerodegree tracking efror and 12 othermajor adiances.

PageThe Zero 100true tangent tone arm

plus

15% vertical tracking adjustment

Cartridge overhang adjustments

Sliding weight styles force setting

2

4

4

4

Macnetic .anti -skating control 5

ariable speed t_ 3% 6

illuminated stroboscope 6

Tone arm safety reatrictor 6

Interchangeable spindles 6

Patented Synchro-Lab Motor 7

Kinetically matched turntable 7

Gentle 2 -point record support 7

Separate control tabs for Auto:Manual: Cueing Pausing 7

Therefore, such notable innovations asanti-skathg controls, built-in stylL:spressure gauges, cueing and pausecontrols. dynamically balancer.: lowmass tone arms and combination syn-chronous -induction motors (to name afew) were first introduced on Garrardautomatic turntables .. but only afterthe need was established and theywere tho,puchly researched, tested andperfected. Today, they are stancard cnmost of the higher -priced automaticturntables of all manufacturers.

The Zero 100 is a dramatic newconcept, with s7.yling as advanced asits features. It is a new classic, whichothers will emulate for years to come.

While the appearance of a productdoes not improve performance, .t doesconnote craftsmanship and quality -and reflects the aesthetics most peopleappreciate in products which are pre-cision -engineered. In the Zero 10, newmaterials have been used - st_ch asplexiglas, prass, machined parts satintinish aluminum - all set off cn a

sparkling while un't plate. Garrard hasmade the Zero 100 the very personi-fication of cuality.

Heart of the

ZERO 100is a revolutionarynew tone arm

"ZERO" stands forZero Tracking ErrorThe maintenance of zero degree track-ing error over the full surface of therecord has long been an experts'dream. From an engineering stand-point, the value of the principle is well -recognized, not only for obtaining thefinest sound reproduction and elim-inating distortion, but for preserving therecord grooves. The problem has beento obtain these results with minimalfriction and realistic cost. Since thefeature is so desirable, there havebeen some separate tone arms andmanual combinations attempting toplay records back with zero degreetracking error, but these have had un-acceptable friction levels, or were Ln-duly expensive. Certainly, they couldnot be used on automatic players.

Garrard has spent many years onthis development, discarding hundredsof ideas which did not meet its crite-ia.Now, at last, this advancement of thefirst magnitude is presented for homeuse on the Zero 100 automatic turntable.

How the arm is builtIn common with many examples of en-gineering ingenuity, the solution to theproblem of tracking error looks de-ceptively simple on the surface.

The new arm is designed so thatthe cartridge housing is pivoted directlyabove the stylus tip. The degree ofpivot is controlled by an auxiliary artic-ulating arm. The amount of cartridgehead pivoting, the length and positionof the articulating arm ... indeed, allthe complex geometrical problems in-volved . . . were solved and optimizedby computer. Without this procedure,the successful design and execution ofthis tone arm would have beenimpossible.

The combination of computerizeddesign and arm articulation throughadvanced pivotry, results in the track-ing geometry shown in the diagram.Note that the stylus is perpendicularlytangent to the groove throughout therecord -a dramatic achievement ofprimary importance in the search forperfect reproduction.

True tangent tracking geometry.The Zero 100 tone arm.

Turntablecenter

2" rad.

Pickup arm pivot - fixed

Articulating armpivot - fixed

41/

il

/

/ Articulating amn

// I

//

3" rad.

iii I

4" rad.

1Pivot between

P.U. arm

5" rad/ r

---------Arc of stylus

headarticulating aim

6" rad.

Pivot between p.u. arm andp.u. head - must be directlyabove stylus tip.

Center line of cartridgetangential to record groove.

P.U. arm pivot - fixed

Pivot 1

Pickup arm

Pickup head pivots Inthis direction as armtracks across records.

Pivot 2

Stylus

Articulating armpivot - fixed

Pivot 4

Articulatingarm

Pivot 3

2

Advanced pivotry for minimal frictionThe extremely low - in fact, negligiblefriction - which is essential to this con-cept, has been achieved with costly,precision -loaded ball bearings, and afree-floating universal pivot. These areamong the very few parts of the Zero100 which Garrard does not build. In-stead, they are purchased from an out-standing manufacturer specializing en-tirely in the design and construction of

pivots for gyroscopes and other so-phisticated space-age equipment. Thearticulating arm, which depends uponthis advanced pivotry, is fashioned ofstainless steel tube by Garrard.

Records are made with the cutterperperdicular (tangent at right angle)to each groove. When a conventionaltone arm plays this back, the arm de-scribes an arc from its pivot. Becauseof the fixed head, it produces a varying

amount of tracking error, which canonly measure zero at the two pointswhere the cartridge is truly perpendic-ular to the groove. Tracking error,therefore, is inherent in the perform-ance of all conventional tone arms. Itis measured and expressed in degreesper inch. It produces distortion in thesecond harmonic, and, until now, couldnot be successfully eliminated by anytone arm on automatic playback units.

Articulating arm front pivot

Pick-up head pivot

1Articulating arm rear pivot

Tracking error up to 160 times as lowper inch as standard tone arm!A comparison of the tracking errormeasurements of any conventionallypivoted tone arm with those of the Zero100, indicates the magnitude of thebreakthrough which Garrard hasachieved.

Consider that there are 3,600 sec-onds of arc in a degree ... and that aconventional tone arm may producetracking error as high as 4 degrees, or14,400 seconds at its full playing ra-dius. The tracking error of the Zero 100tone arm is calculated to measure aremarkable 90 seconds, placing it in

the area of 160 times as small per inchas the error of conventional tone arms.

The true tangent tone arm clearly es-tablishes the Zero 100 as a revolution-ary development of the first order.

Conversely, above and beyond thetone arm, the features described on thefollowing pages place the Zero 100 ina class by itself, at the very forefront ofall automatic turntables available today.

Comparisonof trackingdiagrams.Zero 100 vs.standardtone arm.

Track ng error(degrees)

Tracking error(degrees per Inch)

+.8

+.6

+.5

+.4

+.2

0

.2

-4

2

ZERO 100

3 4

Conventionalarm

Radius (Ins)

Conventionalarm

6 Radius (ins)

3

Stylus Setting Gauge(clear acrylic)

Locking plate1/4" cartridgeadjustment

Settinglines

Sliding weight for setting stylus forcealong an extended scaleIn order to impart stability and preci-sion to the increasingly important stylusforce setting, the Zero 100 tone armutilizes a brass weight which slides un-der the arm.

With the weight set at "Zero", thearm is balanced to a neutral "see -saw"position. The weight is then moved for-ward under the arm to set in the correctstylus force. It is frictionally engaged to

15° Vertical tracking adjustmentDiscs are recorded with the cutter setat 15°. Therefore, for the finest repro-duction, the stylus should approachthis angle as closely as possible. TheZero 100 tone arm shell provides anadjustment lever for this purpose. Whensingle records are played, a flick of thelever to "Manual" sets the cartridgeand stylus angle at precisely 15°. Whena stack of records is played, the leveris moved to "Automatic," and the angleof the stylus will be precisely 15° at thethird record.

Cartridge overhang adjustmentIn order to assure the full benefits ofzero degrees tracking error, and the15° adjustment, the stylus tip must bepositioned with absolute accuracy.The slotted cartridge carrier of theZero 100 is provided with a lucitegauge, used when the cartridge is

mounted. The cartridge carrier is in-serted into the gauge, and the cartridgeis accurately positioned for mountingby simply moving it to the point wherethe stylus tip lines up with the two crosshairs on the gauge.

the tone arm, to retain its exact posi-tion; yet it can be easily moved whendesired.

Since it requires a movement of11/8" to change the stylus force by onegram, a fraction of a gram can be setwith extreme accuracy. This carriesthrough the concept of the Zero 100tone arm, which is designed to trackthe most sensitive cartridges at theprecise fractional forces required fortheir optimum performance.

10

Magnetic anti -skating controlGarrard introduced the first anti -skatingdevice in an automatic turntable withits patented sliding weight design,which is still used in the (up -to -now) 3too Garrard models.

An anti -skating control is neces-sary to offset the normal tendency ofthe tone arm to move (skate) acrossthe record toward the center. As thedisc revolves, with the arm tracking, aninward skating force is created whichmust be counteracted and neutralizedby an equal force in the opposite direc-tion. This prevents wear on the innerside of the groove, premature damageto the record, and distortion.

Now, a unique and exceptionallyprecise anti -skating control has beendesigned for the Zero 100 and built

into the tone arm assembly. A precisionsliding scale, calibrated in fractions ofa gram and reading conveniently fromthe top, shows the exact amount ofanti -skating force being applied. Thescale has two settings. one for ellip-tical; the other for conical stylii.

The simple but ingenious Zero 100anti -skating control utilizes the well-known magnetic principle that likepoles repel each other. Built differ-ently than any previous device of itskind, it is frictionless; not mechanicallyconnected to the tone arm; and re-quires neither springs nor weights.

A ceramic disc magnet is mountedon the pivoting tone arm gimbal; andanother affixed above it on the rigidplexiglas tone arm housing. A ferrousmetal shield, with the precision reading

scale mounted on ;t slides betweenthe two magnets, to set the anti -skatingforce desired. When the shield is be-tween the total areas of the magnets,they have no effect on each other, sincethe shield blocks the magnetic flux.However, as the shield is moved out-ward, it exposes the magnetic field,creating an infinitely variable amountof magnetic repulsion. This, in turn,exerts a controllable and measurabletwisting force on the tone arm, as thetwo magnetic poles push apart, es-tablishing the correct starting amountof anti -skating force desired, as in-dicated on the reading scale; and vary-ing to the correct force required atevery distance from the center of therecord as the stylus moves inwardalong the radius. 0

00

1.1.,0 1 2 3

CONICALELLIPTICAL

1 2, 1,

Index line

I I t0 1 2 3

CONICAL IELLIPTICAL

0 1 2

Index line

Fixed member Rotating member Magnetgimbal surround p.u. arm gimbal

=fi

I

Shieldplate (in)

Magnet

P.U. arm

Zero Bias Compensation

Shield plate lout)

Maximum Bias Compensation

Magnet in rotatingmember (p.u. arm gimbal)

Magnet in fixed member(gimba surround)

Direction of bias forceon p.u. arm

Relative Polarity of Magnets

5

Variable speed control(±31/2% @ 331/2 -±-21/2% @ 45 rpm)

Variable speed is actually non -essentialfor the usual listening purposes whenthe record playing unit is equipped witha synchronous motor, since the motorinsures accurate, stable speed. How-ever, it is a welcome convenience forcritical listeners with perfect pitch whoprefer to play recordings at the exactspeed they select; for others who sim-ply enjoy records best at speeds theydetermine themselves; and for mu-sicians who wish to "tune" the recordplayer in order to accompany a mu-sical instrument.

Variable speed units are not new.For satisfactory performance, the in-herent requirements are to have a com-pletely stable motor, and a minimaltaper on the pulley which controls thespeed variation, so that it does not in-troduce wow or flutter. Now, with Gar-rard's proven synchronous motor, andwith the development of a long, veryslightly tapered pulley, the speed con-trol in the Zero 100 has achieved thenecessary degree of perfection.

Speed variation in the Zero 100is approximately ±3%. This createsan adjustment in pitch equivalent toone semi -tone.

Illuminated stroboscope(Essential with variable speed.)

The speed of the turntable is easily andaccurately adjusted by moving a ringaround the control knob which setsspeed and record size. It can be moni-tored continuously through the strobo-scope window, by watching the highlyvisible, illuminated line.

Mirror

Stroboscope

Clamping screw

Tone arm safety restrictorNo effort has been spared by the Gar-rard Laboratories to insure enjoymentby the owner. One example is the tonearm safety restrictor built into the Zero100 tone arm to prevent it from beingset down on the unit plate outside theedge of the record. A positive stop pre-vents accidental damage to the stylus.

Interchangeable spindlesThere are two instantly removable spin-dles. The short one, for single play,rotates in the same manner as spindleson manual turntables. The long spindleaccommodates a stack of six recordsfor automatic play at 331/3 rpm. An op-tional automatic spindle is available forwide hole, 45 rpm records.

Standard Pulley Extended pulley ofZero 100, or rocksteady speed, finerperformance overlong period of time.

6

Proven features retainedThe innovations described on the pre-vious pages are all introduced for thefirst time on the Zero 100. In addition,it retains the fully -tested major featuresof the advanced series of Garrard auto-matic turntables, which it now heads.

Synchro-Lab motor

Synchronous

MN Er A.11E1MM:0 Z, %WSWrAArA AMON. WO

Induction

Retained- The Garrard Synchro-LabMotor, an ingenious concept basedupon split -rotor design. It combines thepowerful torque and instant accelera-tion of the traditional induction motor;with the unwavering, perfect speed ofa synchronous motor. locked intothe accurately controlled 60 -cycle fre-quency of the electric current. With

Retained-Two point record support.Garrard's exclusive record support sys-tem guarantees utmost safety and re-liability. Records on the Zero 100 arehandled automatically with the care anddelicacy they require for long life andline performance. The record stack issupported at the outer edge by a sturdyplatform. The oversized clip at the topof the platform is easily grasped,quickly raised over the stack, where itacts as an effective stabilizer. Recordsare supported positively, and drop intoplace on a micro -cushion of air. 0

Retained - Unitized escutcheon withfinger -tab, cue/pause control. Put-ting the right controls, in the right form,in the right place (a concept known as"human engineering") is an importantGarrard feature. The Zerc 100 incor-porates a handsome control panel withthree customized finger -tab controls:one to run the machine on automatic;one for manual operation; and the thirdfor viscous damped cue and pausecontrol.

the Synchro-Lab Motor, there are nochanges in musical pitch caused bydrops in voltage due to appliances orother heavy loads on the line at thesame time.

Retained-The Garrard full -diameterturntable. One of the advantages o'the synchronously driven Zero 100 is

GARRARD ZERO 100SPECIFICATIONS: 2 speed, 33', and 45 rpm. 100-130 volts. 60 cycles AC (50 Cycle kit available).MINIMUM CABINET DIMENSIONS: Left to right,-15X6''. Front 'o rear, 14,,i". Above motor board.414" Below motor board, 2%".mINIMUM CABINET DIMENSIONS (Turntable onBase with Dust Cover): Left to right, 16%". Front torear, 153/.i". Too to bottom, 8!4".

that it does not require a heavy turn-table to act as a flywheel, as would aninduction motor. Instead there's a full-sized aluminum turntable, carefully bal-anced and matched to the kinetic en-ergy of the Synchro-Lab Motor. Theturntable mat is heavily ribbed for easycleaning and safe support of the recordthrough its full diameter.

The incomparable

ZERO 100and the entireGarrard Series.

Component Series

The Zero 100 is the newest model numberto bear the proudest name in high fidelityrecord playing equipment. Garrard's repu-tation has been re -earned year after year forover half a century by pedigree perform-ance. Now, once again, Garrard lives up toits reputation with an automatic unit ad-vanced beyond any others now available inperformance and convenience ... yet it isoffered at a realistic price.

Now, more than ever before, there's aGarrard Automatic Turntable for every com-ponent music system.

Mtq by Plessey LtdDist by British Industries Co

WORLD'S FINEST AUTOMATIC TURNTABLES

SP2OB$37.50

Module SeriesComplete with cartridge. base and dLst 03,n1

X-11 "Demi'$39.95

British Industries Co., Westbury, New York 11590 I Division of Avnet, Inc.Prices and Specifications Subject to change without notice Copyright 1971 by British Industries Co

8

The s aTweeterin MYTWeeTer

PEOPLE COLLECT RECORDS for all kinds of reasons.There are specialists in various categcries of classicalmusic; they trap you in their listening room and puton their lastest discovery-a Concerto for GlassHarmonica and Plumber's Plunger. There are com-parative shoppers-those who have bought everyversion of Scheherazade, by every conductor whoever managed to live through it, including a rareearly version scored far augmented brass band. Thereare, too, the "old record" types who have corneredthe market on Salvation Army 78s, carefully re-corded them on tape, and had the d scs bronzed attheir local shoe store. An evening with one of qieselovers of antiquities is an excruciating experience oflow fi and superb surface noise. Suffice it to say,collecting records, like collecting stamps or stockcertificates, attracts all kinds.

I collect and listen to records of sounds-justsounds. People look at you strangely when you saythat, as if you had put your shirt on backwards. Butsounds have fascinated me since the early days ofhigh fidelity. Of course, I admit to having ordinarymusic, but so does everyone else. When you considerthe tastes of other record collectors, sound effectsenthusiasts are not that odd a breed.

Anyone who is serious about record collecting isfamiliar with W. Schwann's wishing book which isissued monthly and lists just about everything thatis available on records. It is all neady categorizedtoo. "Classical Music." listed by composer; "Col-lections"; "Popular Recordings"; "Jazz," and so on.But one must refer to Schwann's Supplementary Rec-ord Guide, issued tw_ce a year, for "Spoken andMiscellaneous," the category under which one willfind listings of unusual sound records. I wonder justhow many people search out these records? Howmany fans of pure ncise are there? Very few, I'm

Mr. Endres, an engineer for Station WPAT, Pater-son, New Jersey, recently made a cross-country tripto record train and other sounds.

by Eugene Endres

The exotic world ofsound -effects records.

afraid. But such anonymity is the lot of those whoseek the rare and unusual in the world today.

Railroad and train sounds are my particular fa-vorites, but my collection has gown until it includesmany other types of sounds. The recordings I discusshere are those that I find particularly appealing.

Sound Effects. Several record companies have issueda series of sound -effects records. Apparently theseare largely aimed at the people who make homemovies and collect slides and enable them to add ap-propriate sound effects to their pictures. Earliest inthe field were records by Folkways, Audio Fidelity's"Sound Effects" (DFS 7006), and Elektra's "Authen-tic Sound Effects," beginning with EKS 7251. Thelatter two series have grown; Audio Fidelity's setnow offers some ten records, w= -tile Elektra's has ex-panded to thirteen discs. Elektra's "Sound EffectsBox" (7313/4) has 133 of the ' most wanted" soundeffects and Audio Fidelity has now followed suitwith two new volumes of popular sound effects(7046/ 7).

Elektra issued a companion set of "Dramatic CueMusic and Mood Music" (EKS 75002/4) which,even though it is music, may appeal to the sound buffwith a passion for the ap: clich. It is interesting tomention here that Elektra's "Authentic, Vol. 9" fea-tures the blast of an atomic bomb. Apparently, manypeople are curious to hear the sound of Armageddon,for this particular cut has turned up on many otherrecords and soundtracks.

Other companies have issued some sound -effectsrecords. Major Records has a series in both monoand stereo. The series is notable in that the soundsegments are longer, making them more useful asbackground effects. This is a deficiency of othersound -effects records: it can be rather shattering togo from opening a bottle of pop to firecrackers to acircus carrousel in just a few seconds. True, there isa kind of existential sense in the montage of quicktransitions, very close to the kind of thing John Cage

JUNE 1971 61

has tried to do, but often it is more satisfying to havea long sound scene which creates a mood of its own.Sound -effects recordings are used by the broadcastindustry to replace the sound man of years ago andare considerably more convenient than dribblingrice grains on screening to simulate rain.

Cars, Boats, Motorcycles, Airplanes. The classicworks in this field were the documentary recordingsof the now -defunct Riverside Records. Riverside'sBill Grauer was the first to recognize that peoplewho follow the Grand Prix races might also like tohear the sounds of those races. Regrettably, theRiverside pressings of Grand Prix races, motorcyclescrambles, and even vintage sports cars are now outof the catalogue, and one has to haunt remainderedrecords shops to find them. This series led to whatwas, if you knew the sport, one of the funniest rec-ords associated with the field: Peter Ustinov's "GrandPrix of Gibraltar." The fantastic race took place overthe nooks and crannies of the Rock of Gibraltar,and the recording provided nutty driver interviews,race descriptions and even the sounds of the cars,all done by the famous actor. The current car re-cordings are put out by Capitol (drag races), MGM(Grand Prix races), and Audio Fidelity (just abouteverything that runs on two, three, four, or morewheels).

In pre -stereo days, recording specialist EmoryCook made a number of strange records-mostly ofsounds. He was the first to use high -quality equip-ment in the field. Cook's records boast the use ofstudio -type condenser microphones for recordingeverything from thunderstorms to jet planes. Cook's"Voices of the Sky" contains material that was re-corded aboard a commercial airliner. Though notall of the sounds on this recording are terribly in-teresting, the record does preserve the sounds of thepiston -type DC -6 as well as of the short-lived turbo-props. The unholy scream of a Lockheed Electra inyour living room is more out -of -this -world than thesounds of newer jets, and makes pictures on the wallvibrate and books fall off the shelf every time I playit. Needless to say, neighbors have a strong desire todestroy this record.

Other records featuring the sounds of aircraft andships are Audio Fidelity's "CVA(N) 'Enterprise' "and "U.S. Air Force." One record no longer availableis Riverside's "Fortissimo: Jets" (XK 8001). Thishas the best recording of a sonic boom I have everheard (gentle wind caresses the microphone until ajet suddenly explodes right between your two loud-speakers) and was unusual because the groove wascut from the "inside out": you placed the tone arm atthe center of the record and the grooves were cut sothat the arm moved toward the outside edge. This wassupposed to overcome the old bogey of "inner -groove distortion" at the end of a piece.

Bird Songs and Nature Sounds. There is a sizable col-lection of records devoted to the sounds of wildlife

in the field, forest, and jungle (yes, jungle). I supposethese are meant for bird -watcher types, who stalkabout the countryside, binoculars hanging albatross-

like about the neck, listening for the ululations ofthe Scaly -throated Leafscraper or the Bright-rumpedAttila (both real birds). The best records in this areaare by the Cornell Ornithological Laboratory, Sap-sucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York. The Fed-eration of Ontario Naturalists records the soundsof Canadian birds. These records are scholarly intheir approach, but I prefer those without a narrator.If you wish the sounds of birds and other life formswithout a narrator identifying every cry, shriek, orgroan emanating from the Cornell swamp, get their"Evening in Sapsucker Woods" or "Dawn in aDuckblind." It is true that on one side of each ofthese discs a narrator describes the birds and otherwildlife, but the flip sides are pure nature montage.These recordings are highly recommended for peo-ple who live on the 32nd floor of an apartment build-ing and feel that they are becoming detached fromnature.

Besides bird records, there are recordings of thesounds of insects from Cornell and Folkways. OneFolkways disc includes the sound of a spider walking(!) and of butterflies flying (!!). Cornell's "Voices ofNight" records the sounds of frogs and toads. I haveyet to hear this one in full.

Folkways has extensively covered the nature -soundfield. Their pressings include "Sounds of a SouthAfrican Homestead," "Sounds of the South Ameri-can Rain Forest," "Sounds of the American South-west," "Sounds of the Sea," and "Sounds of Sea Ani-mals." The last two are not what they might seemto be from their titles; they are actually scientificdiscussions of the sounds made by fish.

The most intriguing sound record to appear inmany years is "Songs of the Humpback Whale"(Capitol ST 620). The sounds were recorded "live"by Dr. Roger Payne of Rockefeller University, whoused a hydrophone (underwater microphone) low-ered off the side of a boat. Whales, it seems, not onlymake sounds that can be picked up underwater; theyalso sing!-mostly in high-pitched chirpings andwarblings, but with a definite and repeated songlikephrasing, all of it strange and haunting. Dr. Paynebelieves that, due to certain acoustic properties oflayers of ocean water, the singing is audible to otherwhales at great distances, perhaps hundreds of miles.Part of the disc's price is being used to help savethe whales from being hunted to extinction, whichis the least that can be done for these aquaticopera singers.

Finally, there are the sounds of natural phenom-ena. These are closest to the heart (or ear) of the truenoise lover. Thunderstorms, rain, wind, surf, forestnoises, and farm noises have all been recorded. Eventhough these are common sounds, the recorded pick-ings are slim indeed. Droll Yankees Records has aseries on the sounds of surf, boats, forests, and evenswamps. The selections on these records are lengthy.


After five minutes of rain or surf or whatever, oneforgets that it is just a record and begins to experi-ence the mood one would feel under the actual cir-

cumstances.Emory Cook also recorded the sounds of nature.

The most unusual is "Voice of the Sea." This hasbeen reissued in stereo but my copy is an old re-cording-a "Duplex," which was an early forerunnerof today's stereo record. It is really two records inone, meant to be played by a two -headed pickup arm,which gives two channels of sound from the twobands recorded on the disc. Unfortunately, thismeans the record contains only half as much as theusual twelve -inch record. I have taped the two chan-nels of this record onto a stereo tape and it doesyield a kind of crude stereo (really binaural sound).This recording also features the Queen Mary'swhistle, a collector's item now that the ship is nolonger in active service. Few records have the ex-tended surf sounds that are heard on this disc. I'veattempted to record surf myself, but achieving real-ism is not easy, and the near dousings of valuabletape equipment with salt water have made me doublyappreciative of the available commercial recordings.

Another unique recording released by Emory Cookis "Voice of the Storm" which has a rip-roaringthunderstorm on a clear, blue vinyl disc, as well asone full twelve -inch side of rain falling (plus a fewlittle surprises). Cook also made a binaural record-ing of "whistlers." If you put up a large radio an-tenna and attach a sensitive receiver, you will be ableto hear radio frequency whistles emanating frommeteorites falling through the upper atmosphere. TheRF is caused by ionization of the air. This naturalversion of Edgard Varese's Ionisation also includesa doppler effect as the meteor goes beyond the hori-zon. Cook recorded the two channels some hundredsof miles apart, setting what must be some kind ofrecord for stereo separation.

The piece de resistance of all the Cook recordingsmust be "The Compleat in Fidelytie." This recordhas all kinds of sounds, ranging from one of theloudest crying babies I have heard to a great cutof Mexican fireworks and church bells. As it sayson the cover, "If there is any trouble with this part,just tear off the top of your speaker cabinet, drop itin the nearest mailbox. .. ." These sounds are boundto get all the dust out of your grille cloth, if nothingelse. The other side is a half hour of wind noise,cooling and soothing even on a hot day. A sidelightof most of these records is that they really test theability of your system to produce natural sound.After playing the insect records, it might be a goodidea to spray the room just in case you've attractedsome stray bugs.

Psychologists have noted the benign effect ofnatural sounds and perhaps random sounds mayeventually replace the background music of today.When acoustical tile for ceilings was first introduced,each panel contained an identical number of holes,but it was found that people spent all their time

counting these holes. Then the holes were cut in arandom pattern which made the tile less obtrusive.

So it might be with sounds. If soothing randomsounds, rather than music, were used as backgroundmaterial, people might tall into the kind of relaxedmood they assume at the seashore or during a rain-storm. For instance, white noise has been used forits anesthetic effect in dentistry.

In the last year two companies have put out rec-ords in the field of environmental sounds. Atlantichas two recordings that feature the sounds of sea,birds, bells, and woodlands; Audio Fidelity has simi-lar material on two volumes titled "Ambience."

Railroads. This category is the most popular of allthe sound records. I suspect this is because there aremore train -sound nuts than just plain sound -recordnuts. Indeed, many people are so taken with theromance of railroading that they wear engineer'shats, red neckerchiefs, and ties emblazoned with rail-road emblems. Cameras in hand, they take fuzzyphotographs of the last run on the Pittsburgh, Mc-Keesport, and Youghiogheny connecting railroad.They also carry tape recorders.

Railroad records span the period from the early1950s to the present. They chronicle the decline andfall of a great institution and mark the passing ofone of the most commonplace sounds of small-townU.S.A.

Railroad recordings range from excellent moodpieces to the very worst stuff-much of it recordedon portable disc equipment, usually in a swayingrailroad car traveling at sixty miles per hour. Thisaccounts for the low fidelity and mild wow. Theprime ingredient of a good train record is theambience. The faint whistle of the last steam clunkeron the PMcK&Y is no good at all unless heard in itsoperating context. The recordings of the tiny trainswhich still run high in the Rockies are the best:you can hear and feel the presence of the moun-tains as well as the trains, the squeal of the wheelsas the train rounds a curve, and the echoes of thewhistle from canyon crags as the train disappearsin the distance.

Of particular note in the railroad field are therecordings of 0. Winston Link, who not only hassome of the highest fi going, but a good editingsense. When I first played one of his discs-a hugefreight engine working through a tunnel in Vir-ginia and then blasting past the microphone withlittle hoots on the whistle-I almost hid under thesofa, and there was a dimming of lights in townas my amplifier ate up electricity at a fearsome rate.For authenticity and interest I recommend four ofLink's recordings: "Sounds of Steam Railroading,""The Fading Giant," 'Thunder on Blue Ridge," and"2nd Pigeon and the Mockingbird." Link's record-ings are available by mail from 0. Winston Link,483 8th Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215.

Audio Fidelity was the first in the railroadingfield with a stereo record (it was one of the first

JUNE 1971 61

stereo records issued) called "Railroad Sounds-Steam & Diesel," which has very good sound. Whileit is probably the most widely sold train record, itsuffers from lack of variety.

The label most involved in train sounds right nowis Mobile Fidelity in Los Angeles. They have atleast eighteen different train recordings. The mostinteresting are: "Steam Under Thundering Skies," inwhich a train runs through a thunderstorm; "Mr. D'sMachine" (Mr. D is Rudolph Diesel, inventor of thediesel engine) which is surprisingly good and has alot of atmosphere; and "Interurban Memories," theonly record that contains the sounds of old trolleycars.

All this of course can lead to true esoterica. Forinstance, Argo has a series of records devoted to oldEnglish steam locomotives: "Rhythms of Steam" and"Trains to Remember."

Miscellaneous. In this category, you can place allother records of mere sounds. They are impossibleto categorize. For example, recordings have beenmade of experiments with a digital -to -sound trans-ducer hooked up to an IBM 7090 computer ("Musicfrom Mathematics").

Folkways' recordings have to be placed in a cate-gory all their own. They have more records calcu-lated to snare the collector of oddities than anyother label. Having preserved much of our ethnicmusic for future generations, Moses Asch of Folk-ways has also released such oddities as "Sounds ofthe Junkyard," "Sounds of Science Fiction" (whichincludes the classic hit Sound of Approaching Mis-sile or Creature), "Sounds of Medicine," as well asothers mentioned previously. But be warned: thematerial on these Folkways records is really eso-teric; in fact, it is so "far out" that it may be yearsbefore modern composers catch up with it.

Random sounds are what came before music. Nat-ural rhythms, dynamics, and sonorities need only tobe organized by the listener to become music. Orlet them remain atonal, arhythmic, or (shhh!) amu-sical. A mosaic of sound. Marshall McLuhan strikesagain! Audience participation! Pure sound, withoutperformers or interpreters to get in the way. Listen!Your ears are now open! Not only that, your car-tridge is melting and your speaker cabinets havecracked. But you don't care. Let the output transistorsburn! You've entered the world of pure SOUND!

A SELECTIVE LIST OF SOUND -EFFECTS RECORDINGS

Sound EffectsAssorted Sound EffectsAuthentic Sound Effects

Authentic Sound Effects

Background Music:Home Movies

Dramatic Cue Music andMood Music

Home Movie SoundEffects

Sound Effects

Sound Effects, Vol. 1

Folkways 6181*Elektra EKS 7251/63

(13 discs)Elektra EKS 7313/4

(2 discs)

Major 1040*Elektra 75002/4

(3 discs)

Audio Fidelity 7018Audio Fidelity

7006, 7010, 7011,7015, 7016, 7036,7038, 7043, 7046,7047

Folkways 6170*

Cars, Planes, and ShipsAirborne, Airborn All

the WayAlexander Hamilton of

the Hudson River DayLine

Big Sounds of the Drags

CVA (N) "Enterprise"Daytona Speedway

Gold Star 540*

Droll Yankees 15*Capitol ST 2001, ST

2146Audio Fidelity 7014Audio Fidelity 7031

Exciting Sounds of LeMans

Grand Prix RacingSounds

Gurney, DanMotorcycle Scramble1964 Pomona Drag

RacesSports Car RacesU.S. Air ForceVoice of the SeaVoices of the Sky

London 56007

MGM S 4457Mobile Fidelity S 101Audio Fidelity 7035

Audio Fidelity 7032Folkways 6140*Audio Fidelity 7012Cook 5011Cook 1075*

Bird Songs and Nature SoundsAfrican Birds

Ambience

American Bird Songs

Birds on a May MorningBird Songs in LiteratureBirds' World of SongsCommon Bird SongsCompleat in FidelytieDawn in a Duckblind

*Mono only

Cornell University(2 discs)*

Audio Fidelity 6237/8(2 discs)

Cornell University(2 discs)*

Droll Yankees 14*Houghton Mifflin*Folkways 6115*Dover 1829*Cook 1044*Cornell University

(10")*

64HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

Day at Flores Morades

Day in Algonquin Park

Federation of OntarioNaturalists 5*

Federation of OntarioNaturalists 2*

Paris ExpressPower of the PastRail DynamicsRailroad Steam and

Argo DA 49Owl 17:Cook 1270

Environments Atlantic 66001/2 Diesel Major S 1014(2 discs) Reading 2124 North Jersey S 1135

Evening in Sapsucker Cornell University Remember When? Mobile Fidelity 5*

Woods (10")* Rhythms of Steam Argo ZDA 28Farm Droll Yankees 18* Rods, Wheels, andFinches Federation of Ontario Whistles North Jersey 1131*

Naturalists 6* 2nd Pigeon and theLand of the Loon Gibson DGP 25* Mockingbird 0. Winston Link'Mexican Bird Songs Cornell University* Sound of Steam North Jersey 1200North American Frogs Folkways 6166* (2 discs)*Peterson Field Guide Houghton Mifflin Sounds of Locomotives, Folkways 6152/4

Series (5 discs)* Vols. 1-3 (3 discs)*Prairie Spring Federation of Ontario Sounds of Steam

Naturalists 1* Railroading 0. Winston Link*Sea at Castle Hill, R.I. Droll Yankees 15* Steam and Diesel Audio Fidelity 5843Songs of Insects Cornell University* Steam in the '60s Mobile Fidelity S 18/9Songs of Spring Federation of Ontario (2 discs)

Naturalists 1* Steam in the Snow Sherry AS 2*

Songs of the Forest Droll Yankees 16* Steam Power Along theSongs of the Chicago & NW

Humpback Whale Capitol ST 620 Railway Cuca 2466*

Sounds of Animals Folkways 6124* Steam UnderSounds of a South Thundering Skies Mobile Fidelity 8

African Homestead Folkways 6151* Sunday Only

Sounds of a South (Burlington Route) Mobile Fidelity 9

American Rain Forest Folkways 6120* Talking Giants Owl 18"

Sounds of Insects Folkways 6178 * Thunder on Blue Ridge 0. Winston Link

Sounds of Sea Animals Folkways 6125 * Trains to Remember Argo ZDA 48

Sounds of the SeaSwamp in June

Folkways 6121*Droll Yankees 17*

Twilight of Steam Mobile Fidelity S 13,15/7 (4 discs)

Symphony of the Birds Ficker 1002* Voice of 103 North Jersey 1202*Thrushes, Wrens, and Federation of Ontario Whistling Through

Mockingbirds Naturalists 8* Dixie Mobile Fidelity 6

Voice of the Storm Cook 1077*Voices of the Night Miscellaneous

(Frogs and Toads) Cornell University*Warblers Federation of Ontario Background Music Folkways 6110/1

Naturalists 4* (2 discs)*

Wild Bird Songs Boyes (2 discs)* Basic Major S 1016/30 (15discs)

RailroadsMusic from MathematicsSound of New York

Decca DL 9103ABC S 2269

All Steamed Up! Owl 9* Sounds for Camp Folkways 6112*

British SteamChicago, South Shore,

and South Bend

Sonologue 102*Railroad Record Club

SP 4 (3 discs)*

Sounds of Carnival,Merry Go Round

Sounds of Army BasicFolkways 6126*Gold Star 530*

Extra 1235 East Sherry AS 1* Sounds of Japan Elektra 7297The Fading Giant 0. Winston Link* Sounds of Jerusalem Folkways 8552*

Farewell to Steam HIFI S 901 Sounds of London Folkways 5901

Ghost Train Mobile Fidelity 10 Sounds of Medicine Folkways 6127*

Hear That Whistle Blow Mobile Fidelity 12 Sounds of ScienceMr. D's Machine Mobile Fidelity 11 Fiction Folkways 6250*

New York Central ,

Steam Locomotives Folkways 6155*Sounds of the JunkyardSounds of the Office

Folkways 6143*Folkways 6142*

JUNE 1971 65

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JUNE 1971 h7

The Biggs is utterly charming. It's thekind of album you might play for yourchild. Or you might play for yourself,simply because you love Bach.

The Newman is filled with excitingharpsichord virtuosity. Newman re-thinks everything he performs and fillsit with good surprises.

The Gould is what you're expecting ifyou own the previous five volumes of thisset-as Time put it, "breathtaking intel-ligence and musicianship." And if youdon't own some of the other volumes, thisis the perfect one to begin with.

The Kipnis is surprising because itgives you something you've never heard

M3 30517(A 3 -record set)

before : a new Bach Concerto (No. 8 in DMinor). Kipnis reconstructed it from afragment of the original manuscript,using the 35th Cantata as a guide. The setalso includes Brandenburg No. 5 andthe Triple Concerto.

The Ormandy gives you that luxurious(but disciplined) sound of the Phila-delphia Orchestra to produce a gloriousSt. John Passion.

And if all that music isn't enough, eachof these albums comes with a largeposter. And the posters are as differentas the performances.

On Columbia Records (Ik

The Riggs Bach BookE. INI%er Riggs

I, I rs.14., II; %IMO I 4,orroty. M.O.',

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M 30539*

M4 30540(A 4 -record set)

thenewreleases

OPERA!-that Golden Fleece of the musical world!Sooner or later, nearly every composer reaches outtoward it, for although the challenges and the risks aregreat, so are the rewards. Many of the most powerfuland influential musical developments of earlier centuriessurfaced first in opera, and the aesthetic -philosophicalstrife has always raged most furiously (if not alwaysintelligently) around musical theater, doubtless becauseeven mere literary men could find something moreeasily graspable here than in the abstract patterns of con-cert music.

Opera no longer occupies quite that exalted position,for a number of reasons, but it still tempts many. Oneof the most recent to succumb was the Polish composerKrzysztof Penderecki, whose The Devils of Loudun,based on John Whiting's play The Devils (in turn adramatization of a book by Aldous Huxley), was firstperformed in Hamburg on June 20, 1969.

Much of the expectation attendant upon that premierewas based on the success of Penderecki's St. Luke Pas-sion, widely acclaimed as a "highly dramatic" work. Asreaders of these pages may recall, I have for some timebeen one of the skeptics with respect to Penderecki's mu-sical significance; the means he employs, while occa-sionally spectacular in their novelty, show little morethan the most primitive organizational skills, and thefundamental principle is not far from that of Carl Orff,whose Carmina burana was the 1950s' version of "mod-ern music for people who hate modern music." Orffadapted the rhythmic procedures of Stravinsky's LesNoces to an easily acceptable harmonic context; his juniorPolish colleague took tone -cluster harmony and flashyinstrumental sound effects, and juxtaposed them formaximum shock value.

The musical gist of the St. Luke Passion is, I submit,hardly substantial enough to bear the comparisons withBach that have been made in some quarters: the basicstructural unit consists of the progression from a singlenote to a cluster of all twelve tones, a tightening of thescrew from repose to maximum dissonance, and the onlylarge-scale movement in the piece is the progress fromone to another of those single notes-all ending with aGreat Big G Major Chord, which has all of the associa-tions (but none of the functions) of a point of arrival.It is, to say the least, rather primitive-but its appealis bolstered by the warm, friendly sound of intermittentGregorian chant (and, no doubt, the sympathy that thecomposer wins as a Catholic from a Communist coun-try).

At the premiere of The Devils, the question waswhether Penderecki could turn his techniques to validuse in the theater, whether he would have developed newand more flexible means of organization. And, of course,the bigger question of how he would cope with theeternal problem: primacy to works or to music?

Huxley's The Devils of Loudun, and Whiting's drama-tization thereof, are based on a documented historicalevent, the trial and execution of a French priest, UrbainGrandier, for witchcraft in 1634. The interpretation im-plicit in both works, and in the opera as well, is thatGrandier, a brilliant but egotistical man, made manyenemies in Loudun-through his affairs with ladies of

John Reardon as Father Urbain in the 1969 SantaFe production of Penderecki's The Devils of Loudun.

The Tragedyof Father Urbain

Penderecki ternsHuxley's "Devils. into operatic

Grand Guignol.

by David Hamilton

JUNE 1971 69

the parish, his wit, and his pride-and on a nationalscale, by opposing Richelieu's policy of demolishing thetown's fortifications.

When the prioress of a local convent conceived a hys-terical passion for the handsome priest (who had neverseen her) and he rejected her offer of the post of direc-tor of the convent, her accusations of diabolic sexualpossession were taken up by Grandier's enemies as thebasis for trial, conviction, and burning at the stake.

Penderecki's opera follows the structure of the playfairly closely: numerous short scenes, many of themonly a minute or two in duration. Like other composersof the twentieth century from Debussy on, Pendereckihas taken over the text of the play (in Erich Fried's Ger-man translation) quite literally, making abridgements asnecessary and occasional changes of order. I noted twomajor insertions on the composer's part: yards andyards of liturgical Latin in the scenes of exorcism andtorture, and an extension of the episode where Grandieris prepared for execution, to present onstage the removalof his fingernails.

Viewed in terms of the classic words -music dichoto-my, The Devils comes down quite firmly on the side ofthe words; there can have been few operas since Ped'sOrfeo that surrender so abjectly to the requirements ofintelligibility-I use the term "surrender" with intent, sincethe extensive use of spoken dialogue (not Sprechstimme,but plain, ordinary everyday speech) here passes beyondthe bounds of a special effect and reaches the point ofbeing an evasion of the whole problem of opera. Manycrucial scenes are simply talked, over those interminablepedal notes or clusters: one might as well be hearing arecording of the play, on an audio system with a vari-able hum in the lower register!

What does the music do, then? Well, to some extent itcharacterizes; Grandier's lady friends have distinctiveidioms, the sisters (especially Sister Jeanne, the prioress)have their lyrical moments as well as their possessedululations, and the unsavory pair of surgeon and apothe-cary express themselves with embarrassing fluency in theidiom of their close relatives, the Doctor and Captainin Berg's Wozzeck. But otherwise the vocal writing is avery uncertain clue to identity; only after acquiring fa-miliarity with the vocal colors of the various singers (in-cluding Grandier himself) could I follow the actionwithout a libretto. And the vocal lines have great mo-notony of intervallic content, for they are made upprimarily, and often exclusively, of minor seconds andtritones.

Expectably, there is much use of the chorus-indeed,a backstage chorus seems to function as part of the or-chestra, sometimes echoing or amplifying sounds onstage, sometimes singing appropriate liturgical texts,often acting as instruments, singing bouches fermees.The material is-well, just like what the chorus does inthe St. Luke Passion.

The same might be said of the orchestra's duties: longpedal notes, short ejaculations, slowly moving clusters,fast-moving clusters. Except for the use of an electricbass guitar, there are no major instrumental innovationsin the score. Perhaps significantly, the rare episodes inthe opera that are musically memorable (I use that ad-jective in the strictest literal, nonevaluative sense) arepictorial in intent: what is surely the first -ever orchestralrepresentation of an enema (apparently an acceptedmethod of exorcism in the seventeenth century), theabove -mentioned episode of fingernail -removal (after all,isn't that what those repeated sul ponticello string notesalways reminded you of-teacher scraping her nails onthe blackboard?), and the burning at the stake.

In the long run what one finds really astounding aboutthis opera-and it is reinforced on records without the

visual diversion of the stage action-is the poverty ofthe score: there just isn't very much music in it, goodor bad. Rather than creating theater from music, as haveall the successful operatic composers from Monteverdi toStravinsky and Schoenberg, Penderecki has given ustheater with music-a species of incidental or back-ground music, where musical instruments and voices areused to make sound effects, and a monotonous style ofarioso sometimes intrudes on the drama.

You might then ask, "Well, what kind of theater doesit make?" (although this will not noticeably enhanceyour enjoyment of the recording). Not as good, I wouldsay, as Whiting's original play, since the abridgementhas stripped away many of the political overtones andnarrative points that gave the play its sense of dimen-sion. What remains is Grand Guignol: drama of horrorand sensationalism-a bare narrative of sexually moti-vated diabolism, pivoting around a series of ever moreelaborate possession scenes (rather reminiscent, in fact,of the classic structure of pornographic novels, in whicheach orgy surpasses the previous one in quantity, variety,and perversity). The Hamburg production was clutteredand conventionally "modern"; I understand that theshow has had better success elsewhere in proportion tothe extravagance of the staging-more skin, fewer bodystockings, I suppose.

With one exception, the cast of the recording is thatof the premiere, but the conductor is different. Scuttle-butt around Hamburg had it that Penderecki was nothappy with the work of the original conductor. A fewsingers should be singled out for special praise: TatianaTroyanos puts great intensity into the part of SisterJeanne, and her ear for pitches is obviously exceptional;Helmut Melchert's characterization of the royal com-missioner is much more specific than the composer hasany right to expect; and Ernst Wiemann, who nevermade much of an impression at the Metropolitan Operadoes very well as a fatherly old priest. Andrzej Hiolski,as Grandier, has an appealing tonal quality, but suffersfrom a certain vagueness of pitch. Janowski, who tookover the Hamburg production some months after thepremiere, keeps things moving along and secures goodattacks from the orchestra at critical points.

In an opera where the text has been so well treatedby the composer, a libretto is an absolute necessity.Philips has not failed to provide one, but I regret to saythat they have given us one of the most illegible speci-mens of the breed since Fred Rullman, Inc. retired fromthe field. Reproduced from typescript, it is printed onnasty brown paper of very low quality, full of spots thatimpede the already limited legibility. A high -intensitylamp should have been included with every set.

Where does The Devils stand in the history of opera?Somewhere in the region of such later Orff works asAntigone and Oedipus, I should say-but lacking theirgenuine (if limited) highmindedness. And its interest tothe record listener is very small, for it has few of theelements that sustain truly musical opera even whendivorced from its natural habitat; this is a case whererepeated listening is of little use, for everything is rightthere on the surface. That's all there is; there ain't nomore, as Ethel Barrymore used to say.

PENDERECKI: The Devils of Loudun. Tatiana Troyanos(ms), Jeanne; Horst Wilhelm (t), Father Mignon;Helmut Melchert (t), Baron de Laubardemont; KurtMarschner (t), Adam; Heinz Blankenburg (b), Man-noury; Andrzej Hiolski (b), Urbain Grandier; BernardLadysz (bs), Father Barre; Hans Sotin (bs), FatherRangier; Ernst Wiemann (bs), Father Ambrose; Chorusand Orchestra of the Hamburg State Opera, MarekJanowski, cond. Philips 6700 042, $11.96 (two discs).


by Donal Henahan

Schubert -Transcendental

Amateur

Wilhelm Kempff reflectively explores the complete" piano sonatas.

IT IS A SMALL THING, perhaps, to mention in a greatman's favor; but besides leaving the world an inexhausti-ble store of artwork, Schubert contributed to the employ-ment of untold numbers of musicologists. The disarrayin which he left his manuscripts has brought joyful laborto a mighty brigade that includes Eusebius Mandyczewskiand Julius Epstein (who edited the solo piano works inthe nineteenth century for the Breitkopf & HanelGesamtausgabe) and in recent times Otto Deutsch (Schu-bert's Michel), Maurice J. E. Brown, and Erwin Ratz.For more than 140 years, the scholarly scouting and cata-loguing has gone on, with results that can only be ad-mired for their efforts to give us the whole Schubert.

And yet the immediate question raised by WilhelmKempff's album of "complete" piano sonatas is: yes,but how complete? Although it is now generally knownthat Schubert wrote at least twenty-two sonatas (Brownrecognizes twenty-three, on the questionable grounds ofD 994, a thirty -eight -measure fragment in E minor),Kempff performs only eighteen.

He gives us, of course, the eleven indubitably completeand familiar sonatas published in Series X of the B & HUrtext and which one finds, for instance, in the standardPeters edition, plus virtually all the finished movementsof fragmentary sonatas. He omits, oddly, the authenti-cated scherzo to D. 566 as well as, more justifiably, thequestionable rondo. On the grounds of admitting onlycomplete sonatas or movements, Kempff therefore omitsD. 567, which is an earlier version of D. 568 as well asthe fragments numbered D. 570-571, D. 612-613, and

D. 655. He plays two of the four movements of D. 840(the Reliquie), two of the four of D. 566. Kempff seemsto break the self-imposed rule of completeness in D. 625,in which he plays the three movements to be found inthe B & H Urtert, although the first and fourth move-ments were not quite finished by Schubert himself. Healso ignores, in the same sonata, the adagio that somescholars, following Deutsch, place as the second move-ment. So it is easy to see that no matter what groundrules a pianist might set up for himself, completenessin the Schubert sonatas is a chimera unless he stopsshort at eleven or goes on to embrace all the fragmentsthat musicology has filed under the sonatas.

What Kempff gives us, then, is completeness compara-ble to the eighteen -sonata, nine -disc Vox mono set byFriedrich Wiihrer. He gives us, however, a subtler, moresonorously recorded interpretation, pervasively under-stated and relaxed (to the point at times of rhythmicflabbiness). Tempos, often quick enough, never empha-size keyboard virtuosity for itself; the Kempff approachto Schubert's score markings is always to avoid obviousdrama. The pianist tends to soften and blur, and habitual-ly to make the slight ritardando and the sudden diminu-endo that are synonymous with Schubertian intimacy formany listeners. There is little of the youthful joy andheroism that one hears in Schnabel's classic version ofthe final sonata, the B flat, Kempff being more in themood to stress, or suggest, the music's pathos. Kempff'srealization of the late, weightier sonatas is impressive,if one can accept his view of Schubert as a transcen-

JUNE 1971 71

dental amateur who scarcely looked beyond his Bieder-meier circle of friends for an audience.

There is, and some of us cherish him for it, that ele-ment in Schubert's piano music, and it is valuable to haveit explored so thoroughly by a pianist of Kempff's abilityand cultivated tastes. Even when the musical line is al-lowed to slacken off somewhat, or when one feelsKempff to be not so much conveying the intimacy of amovement as skating over its surface-as in the con mowof the D major, D. 850-there is never any doubt thatan authoritative musician is in control. He lets the musicreflect, and if the pensiveness sometimes seems morethat of the old pianist than of a composer who was, afterall, only thirty-three when he died, that is the kind ofleeway that one permits-demands-in an importantartist. In the formally weaker early sonatas, especially,but throughout the series, Kempff knows the differencebetween getting excited and conveying excitement, andthat is by no means the worst test. Schubert tends toslip away from "dramatic" pianists.

Kempff easily passes another reliable test of Schu-bertians: he never betrays impatience with the slightlyvaried restatements of ideas that the composer likes toponder over in his piano sonatas. Not that Kempff'sversions of the complete sonatas are so complete thatthey honor all repeats: his inclusion of the massive first-movement repeat in the last sonata, so welcome there,is not by any means followed up religiously, even whenin half a dozen instances the reasons are not self-evident.In the so-called Fantasy Sonata, D. 894, one would pre-fer a repeat at least in the andante if not in the firstmovement.

On balance, what Kempff has produced is a strikingportrait of the Schubert one knows from the songs andfrom sentimental accounts of his role in the Schubertiads.Here is the dreamer playing for himself and letting afew congenial friends overhear.

The single disc of miscellaneous Schubert piano piecesoffers some interesting things, particularly the Variationson a Theme of A nselm Hiittenbrenner, one of the com-poser's inner circle of friends. The theme, gravely lovely,is treated to rather gentle and unrigorous workings-out,but this is not the inconsequential piece that its raritywould suggest. Kempff is ideal in this sort of Schubert,never forcing effects and yet playing always with ex-traordinary shading of touch and tone. The Allegretto inC minor, which Schnabel admirers know so well; thethree Klavierstiicke, strangely vaporous pieces fromSchubert's last year of life that Gieseking and half adozen others have recorded without winning much pop-ularity for them; and the A major Klavierstiick roundout a disc worth any Schubertian's time. It is too much tohope, but could Kempff be planning to go on now andgive us all the fragments and miscellaneous piano pieces?Long life to him.

SCHUBERT: Sonatas for Piano: in B flat, Op. posth.D. 960; in A, Op. posth., D. 959; in C, D. 279; in Cminor, Op. posth., D. 958; in G, Op. 78, D. 894 ("Fan-tasy"); in D, Op. 53, D. 850; in A minor, Op. posth.143, D. 784; in A minor, Op. 42, D. 845; in C, D. 840,in A, Op. posth. 120, D. 664; in F minor, D. 625; in B,Op. posth. 147, D. 575; in E flat, Op. posth. 122. D.568; in E minor, D. 566; in A flat, D. 557; in A minor,Op. posth. 164, D. 537; in E. D. 459; in E. D. 157.Wilhelm Kempff, piano, Deutsche Grammophon 2720024, $40.50 (nine discs).SCHUBERT: Piano Works: Klaviersttick in A, D. 604;Allegretto in C minor, D. 900; Thirteen Variations on aTheme of Anselm Huttenbrenner, D. 576; ThreeKlavierstUcke, D. 946. Wilhelm Kempff, piano.Deutsche Grammophon 2530 090, $6.98.

Sills and Gedda star in an ideal Manon.

JULES MASSENET lived seventy years, worked steadily,wrote twenty-seven operas, and died rich. Long before1912, when he laid down his pen, he knew that Manonhad drawn out the best that was in him and that the1884 setting of. Prevost's story about a nymphet and hertormented nobleman-a plot that had already inspiredAuber and was soon to engage Puccini-had permittedMassenet to touch the hem of immortality.

In his mature and affluent years the composer enjoyedtracing the fortunes of his brainchildren on the popularitycharts of the day. Manon was always in front; by 1905the Opera-Comique had performed it 500 times. In casehis spirit still keeps track (from that old rest house upin the sky) he must surely find it strange that the recordcompanies chose to wrap up Thais, Werther, and sundryother works before putting a complete stereo Manon inthe catalogue.

Still, here it is at last, every living note of it (and more,as we shall see), to strain the purse with a four -disc heftand to massage the ear and the heart with melody andpassion. It is not only Massenet's masterpiece; it is adelicious and heartrending opera by anybody's standards.The music is fetching and secure, with only a few dullpages among hundreds of good ones. In this set the con-ductor's hand is deft, the singers are ideally cast (give ortake a quibble or two in the supporting roles), the or-chestra and chorus are all that one could ask, the tech-nology is adequate, and the brochure luxurious. Do youneed to know more?

Well, yes. If you live far from New York, you maycare to learn that this recording takes its impulse from a1968 production by the junior of New York's two bigopera companies, the New York City Opera; and thatsome critics declared this production (with the same con-ductor, soprano, and Guillot we have here) to be themost satisfactory realization of any opera in New Yorksince the war.

Beverly Sills has her critics-and her idolators. In theclassical bel canto roles there are some who prefer Suth-erland or Caballe; I don't agree, but listen respectfullyto arguments about singing style. Yet one thing is mightyclear: Miss Sills, as a singing actress, manifests a skillfar beyond the best efforts of the other ladies; indeed, askill that is rare in the entire operatic world. And asMassenet's Manon she gives a musical characterikation-on stage, and here on the record-which puts her besideCallas among the giants of her craft. Miss Sills, to beungallant, is no chicken. Yet in Act I she creates withtotal conviction a wide-eyed schoolgirl, innocent yet pos-sessed of enough guile to make sure she escapes the con-vent to which her guardians are sending her. In theapartment where she lives with Des Grieux she has al-ready become the sensual woman, unpracticed but eager-ly receptive-not only to Des Grieux's ardor but Guillot'smoneyed lechery. Her gilded entrance in the Cours-la-Reine scene is all splendor and triumph on the surface,but Sills shows us that there is another Manon beneath,one insecure enough to doubt that she can keep a man'slove; and for that reason she scorns Guillot's extravagant


by George Movshon

Massenet'sMasterpiece

swanking and runs off to Saint Sulpice to win back Des

Grieux. Once she has him safe, cupidity shows throughagain, and she drives him to the gaming table, wheredisaster overtakes them both. At her death, alongside the

road to Le Havre, she conveys some of Massenet's less

inspired passages as poignantly as the music allows.All of this Beverly Sills does with utter conviction

and total consistency of character. But more: she weds

it to a musical performance of breathtaking delicacy andassurance. The margins of my score are now defacedwith superlatives, alongside all of Manon's set -piece solos:"Je suis encore tout etourdie," "Adieu, noire petite table"(delivered with the requisite half -breathed agony, andnever permitted to build), the splashy Cours-la-Reine ariaand Gavotte, the infinitely seductive Saint Sulpice aria"N'est-ce plus ma main," and the plunging hedonismof "A nous les amours et les roses" whereby DesGrieux is induced to gamble. You can pick out theoccasional place where the Sills tone goes wiry, one ortwo infelicitous attacks, but they are so few and so un-important in the entire context of this awesome achieve-ment as to constitute Beckmesserism.

To check my own judgment I played the 1956 EMImono set of Manon (now on Seraphim) in which theheroine, the well -remembered and loved Victoria de losAngeles, gives a fine performance in her secure andmelodious fashion. It was for long the standard by which1 judged; but it is no longer Manon to my ears-just avery fine singing job by a mature lady. Comparison withsome of the great Manons of the past-Fanny Heldy,Ninon Vallin, Geraldine Farrar, and Galli-Curci-con-firmed the stature of Miss Sills's achievement. True,some of these ladies delivered the French words with adeftness not to be asked of one unborn to the tongue-though the Sills diction and pronunciation deserve veryhigh marks indeed.

But enough. Mr. Gedda deserves his innings now, forhis Des Grieux is surely as fine a conception of the roleas the world offers today. He is ardent and gleaming inthe Act I duet with Manon, tender and unfailingly humanin the letter duet of Act II ("On l'appelle Manon") andhis delivery of the two famous tenor arias Le Reve and"Alt! fuyez, douce image" is superb, though I felt onceor twice that he might well have benefited from a slightlymore urgent pace.

It is luxurious casting to give the role of Lescaut toone of France's greatest living artists, Gerard Souzay;and of course Manon's grasping and amoral cousin getsan expert portrayal. Gabriel Bacquier, another renownedFrench singer, does the part of Comte des Grieux withuncommon skill; but printing the word "bass" afterBacquier's name doesn't turn him into one. He is a bari-tone, and lacks the richer sonorities the part needs.

Nico Castel does the lecher skillfully, though the rolecan take a more quirky and individual character. DeBretigny is secure in Michel Trempont's portrayal, andthe three tiresome tarts no doubt do all that is expectedof them.

Beneficent is a good word to describe Julius Rudel's

command of the score. The New York conductor knowshow to get the very best out of this cast, and he has thekey to this melodious score, shaping the climaxes mostsatisfactorily. There is occasionally a want of thrust oracceleration, in apparent deference to a singer's comfort,but over-all this is a satisfying reading that stands upwell beside Monteux's classic 1956 realization.

The recording was made in England last summer, withthe help of EMI's technicians. It is a little short ofpresence-that art so well understood by the Decca/Lon-don engineers-and the big scenes are a bit smeared byecho. Strangely enough, two of the outdoor scenes,Amiens and Cours-la-Reine, suffer most from this wel-ter, creating a needless obstacle to the suspension ofdisbelief. In real life, you get almost no echo en pleb! air.

Nearly forgot to mention a bonus. On Side 8, afterthe end of the opera, you get Beverly Sills recording theFabliau, an alternate scene for Manon in place of thefamous Gavotte. This very challenging piece was writtensix years after the opera was first staged, as a sortof party -piece for a favorite soprano of the day. MissSills has previously recorded this item, on Audio Treas-ury 2002. She does it, both times, with brilliance and

élan.

MASSENET: Manon. Beverly Sills (s), Manon; MicheleRaynaud (s), Pousette; Helia T'Hezan (s), Javotte; Pa-tricia Kern (ms), Rosette; Nicolai Gedda (t), DesGrieux; Nico Castel (t), Guillot; Gerard Souzay (b),Lescaut; Michel Trempont (b), De Bretigny; GabrielBacquier (b), Comte des Grieux; Ambrosian OperaChorus; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel,cond. ABC Audio Treasury 20007/4, $23.92 (fourdiscs).

JUNE 1971 73

classicalreviewed by

ROYAL S. BROWN

R. D. DARRELL

PETER G. DAVIS

SHIRLEY FLEMING

ALFRED FRANKENSTEIN

CLIFFORD F. GILMORE

HARRIS GOLDSMITH

DAVID HAMILTON

PHILIP HARTDONAL J. HENAHAN

PAUL HENRY LANG

ROBERT C. MARSH

ROBERT P. MORGAN

GEORGE MOVSHON

H. C. ROBBINS LANDON

SUSAN THIEMANN SOMMER

BACH: Mass in B minor, S. 232. EllyAmeling, soprano; Yvonne Minton,mezzo; Helen Watts, alto; WernerKrenn, tenor; Tom Krause, baritone;Vienna Singakademie Chorus; StuttgartChamber Orchestra, Karl Miinchinger,cond. London OSA 1287, $11.96 (twodiscs).

Unlike the cantatas, passions, and ora-torios, the B minor Mass is essentiallya choral piece-of its twenty-seven num-bers, only six are solo arias and threeare duets; the remainder are for four-,five-, or six -part chorus or doublechorus. Furthermore, Bach's choral writ-ing is essentially instrumental in charac-ter-that is not to say unidiomatic, forhe always bears in mind the capabilitiesand limitations of the human voice; buthe obviously considers the chorus a"musical instrument" upon which he, thecomposer/conductor, plays just as heplays the organ or violin. I point outthis fact because here is the fatal weak-ness ' of this recording: the ViennaSingakademie is simply incapable of per-forming cleanly and articulately thescore's intricate polyphony and some-times dense textures which emergesounding massive, woolly, and ponderous.The group has been thoroughly rehearsed,and they sing with good intonation andas much precision as one could expectfrom so large a group; theirs is simplyan unacceptable sound.

It's a great pity, too, because in nearlyevery other respect this is an exceptional-ly intelligent, energetic, and capableperformance. We should expect no lessfrom Miinchinger who, with his Stutt-gart Chamber Orchestra and practicallythese same soloists, has already givenus absolutely first-rate readings of theSt. Matthew Passion, Christmas Ora-torio, Easter Oratorio, and the Magnifi-cat-all with different choruses, ofcourse.

Miinchinger gets us off to a verygood start here with a lively, energetic,and incisively articulated opening ritor-nello to the first Kyrie-London's rich,gutsy sound is impressive, too, althoughthe large body of strings often causeseven the orchestral music to soundopaque. Then the chorus enters with itssuperlegato and massive tone and in-terest begins to fade. Ameling andMinton are fine in the "Christe" andthe violins, all playing in unison, arebeautifully and distinctly articulated.

A little later on, Miss Minton has thestage to herself in the "Laudamus te,"and it cannot be said the piece offersher no difficulties: she is not alwayssquarely on pitch and the quick tempohas her gasping audibly here and there.The solo violin, recorded so closely thathis sound is as big as the full orchestrain the previous number, also has hisintonational difficulties. Ameling andKrenn are simply superb in the "DomineDeus": their conception and vocal quali-ties are in perfect accord throughout.The solo flute, however, is occasionallyblurred by the thick, luscious stringsound. An absolute highlight of the

entire performance, predictably, is HelenWatts's tremendously rich, expressivereading of the "Qui sedes," aided by asolo oboe player whose phrasing, articu-lation, and ornamentation are nearlyequally impressive, though again oftenburied in the opaque string sound. Thisis followed by a "Quoniam" that canonly be described as spectacular. Krauseis balanced perfectly with a horn, twobassoons, and continuo (no upperstrings!), and he sings with a beautifultone and a freedom and flexibility un-matched by his peers in the competingversions. Once or twice, however, hereand later in the "Et in Spiritum sanctum,"this rhythmic flexibility gets out of con-trol and causes him to arrive at a cadenceconsiderably ahead of his colleagues.It's the kind of imperfection that wouldpass unnoticed in a live performancebut is surprising in this context. The"Cum sancto spiritu" which followswithout pause, though it is markedvivace, is in the same tempo as the"Quoniam"; with a smaller, more agilechorus (or slower tempo in the earliernumber) a more satisfactory relation-ship would have been possible.

Miinchinger does an effective job withthe first Credo, a remarkable seven -voice fugue based on the plainsongchant (five -part chorus plus two inde-pendent violin parts), by accentuatingeach statement of the subject and sub-duing all the other voices. Again in the"Crucifixus" Miinchinger fastens on anoutstanding detail, the thirteen -times -repeated ground bass theme (get thesymbolism!) and emphasizes it whilesubduing the rest. The Ameling/Wattsduet, "Et in unum Dominum," isanother highlight of the set; they singBach's later version in which a muchshorter text is stretched (sometimesrather thinly) over all the original music.

The Sanctus is taken at a good tempoand it must be said that the effect isalmost overwhelmingly magnificent-ifonly you could make out some detailin that massively complex block ofsound. This number and the followingfugal "Pleni sunt coeli" (the two mightbe considered a prelude and fugue) areundoubtedly the climax of the entireMass and of this performance. Paradoxi-cally, Miinchinger gets his best choralperformance (relatively speaking) in thefollowing "Osanna," in which the textureincreases to double chorus and fullorchestra. The tempo is bracing and thechoirs and orchestra manage to get aquite infectious bounce in their step.Also, the stereo separation between thetwo choirs is excellent and Miinchinger

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The $95 Misunderstanding.It seems there's been some confusion about the

price that appeared in our first ad for the new KIN ModelThirty -Two loudspeakers. To clear up any misunderstand-ing, the price is, indeed, $95 the pair ($47.50 each). t

If you're wondering how we could make a KLHloudspeaker for $47.50, it's really quite -simple.

We had two choices.Either we could make a fair speaker and a lot of

profit. Or we could make a lot of speaker and a fair profit.We chose the latter. We always do. That's why KLH

speakers sound like KLH speakers.Of course our Model Thirty -Two won't deliver as

t Suggested retail price. Slightly higher in the west.A trademark of The Singer Company

much bass response as, say, cur Mcdel Seventeen. But thebasic listening quality of the rew KLH Thirty -Two is superbby any standard. In fact, we'll match the Thirty -Twoagainst any speaker it its price class: even against mostspeakers cost,ng twice ifs price. For when it comes tomaking reasonaaly-pricea speakers that deliver an in-ordirate amount of sound, that's really what KLH is allabout.

And about that, there can be no misunderstanding.For more irformation on the Model Thirty -Two, write

to KLH Research and Development Corporction, 30 CrossSt., Cambridge, Mass 02139. Or visit your KLH dealer.

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JUNE 1971CIRCLE 28 ON READER -SERVICE CARD

75

reduces forces to (I think) eight soloistsfor the echo sections at bars 104 and112; the contrast is very effective.

So it all amounts to a splendid per-formance played on a totally unsatisfac-tory musical instrument, further com-pounded by an aggressive and forcefulrecording acoustic that too often hindersrather than enhances clarity. What aboutrecommended alternate versions? Easy.The more I hear the smaller -scaled,original -instrument version by the Con-centus Musicus (Telefunken) the moreconvinced I become that their eighteenth -century sound is the best for eighteenth -century music, and their performance isevery bit as exciting and convincing asMiinchinger's. A very close secondchoice is Karl Richter's tremendouslyintense reading (its few interpretive per-versities notwithstanding) on Archive.If there remain a few old timers whofavor the "old -guard" style of perform-ance, needless to say they haven't agreedwith much I've said above. For themthe Klemperer version (Angel) wastailor-made. Klemperer approaches Bachwith devotion and a great deal of in-telligence; furthermore his all-star castis rehearsed to perfection. I simply can'tforce myself to sit still long enoughto listen to it. C.F.G.

BEETHOVEN: Quartets for Strings, Op.18 (complete). Guarneri Quartet. RCARed Seal VCS 6195, $9.98 (threediscs).BEETHOVEN: Quartets for Strings: Op.18 (complete). Juilliard Quartet. Co-lumbia M3 30084, $9.98 (three discs).BEETHOVEN: Quartets for Strings: No.2, in G, Op. 18, No. 2; No. 16, in F, Op.135. Flonzaley Quartet. Perennial 2003,$6.00 (available from the Record Un-dertaker, P.O. Box 437, New York, N.Y.10023).

The appearance of two complete re-cordings of Beethoven's Op. 18 quartetsat roughly the same time is an unex-pected and welcome occurrence underany circumstances; but when the re-cordings are by the Juilliard and Guar-neri Quartets, generally considered tobe the two finest American ensemblescurrently performing the standard quar-tet literature, it is an event indeed. Thesetwo groups provide the listener withparticularly interesting comparisons, forthey differ in almost every imaginableway. To begin with, the Juilliard hasnow been around for some twenty years,while the Guarneri is a relatively recentgroup. The Juilliard plays with a morestraightforward approach to the scores,whereas the Guarneri tends to shapethem in more obvious ways. And theJuilliard possesses a more neutral tonequality, while the Guarneri has a richer,sweeter sound, employing more vibrato.

It would be possible to list many suchdichotomies. Yet curiously, what struckme most forcibly in listening to thesenew discs is how much more closelyrelated the playing of the two quartetshas become since the last time I had

occasion to compare them. I think thisis mainly the result of a "softening" ofthe Juilliard's playing, which seems tohave less of the cutting edge that hadbeen a hallmark of its style. In addition,the readings are more relaxed and inti-mate than before, but without any sacri-fice in the quartet's well-known precision.For many, this change will undoubtedlyrepresent a gain, particularly in the per-formance of these relatively simple worksof the early Beethoven, but I must con-fess I miss the excitement and incredibledynamic thrust of, say, the old Op. 59recordings. Perhaps this has something todo with personnel changes: these re-cordings were made after Earl Carlysshad replaced Isidore Cohen on secondviolin, although Raphael Hillyer, nowdeparted, was still the violist. Or itmay simply be a question of mellowingwith age.

Be that as it may, we have here twofirst-rate groups of performances, andI would be hard put to make an over-allchoice. I find, for example, the syncopa-tions in the scherzo of the Op. 18, No.6 more effectively communicated by theJuilliard; but I prefer the Guarneri ver-sion of the delicate, pianissimo fourthvariation of the third movement of Op.18, No. 5. And I had similar reactionsthroughout: whereas both performanceswere uniformly excellent, I leanedtoward one or the other depending uponthe specific movement.

Although I think I would stay withthe Hungarian Quartet's revisions onSeraphim as my own personal preferencefor the Op. 18 group, I recommend boththese new sets to everyone interestedin this literature. It is heartening toknow that this music, which holds sucha special place for all devotees of cham-ber music, is currently in such goodhands. I have pointed out previously inthese pages that it is a literature whichseems to attract excellent performers.That this attraction is by no meanslimited to the recent past is suggested byanother new release, Perennial Records'reissue of performances by the FlonzaleyQuartet, originally recorded in 1925-26,of Op. 18, No. 2 and Op. 135. The

The Guarneri String Quartet in action.

Flonzaley Quartet was founded in 1903by the Swiss -American banker, EdwardJ. deCoppet, who provided the fourmembers with incomes on the under-standing that they would devote them-selves exclusively to developing theirindividual techniques and the ensembletechnique of their quartet. Thus theywere granted an ideal situation, with noteaching duties and only limited con-cert obligations. The present perform-ances, which were recorded shortly be-fore the quartet was dissolved, clearlyindicate the fruits of this unique arrange-ment: the players have an extraordinarysensitivity to one another and play witha beautifully matched ensemble tone.There are, to be sure, certain problems,many of which unquestionably resultfrom the quality of the original record-ings. (The transfers, incidentally, areon the whole quite good, although somesegments of Op. 135 are rather scratchy.)And although I am impressed by how"modern" their readings seem (for ex-ample, the tempos are remarkably con-stant), there are certain stylistic idiosyn-crasies that seem dated. Particularlynoticeable is the excessive portamentowhich, although not applied indiscrimi-nately, does tend to turn up at "ex-pressive" moments. And there is alsosomewhat more vibrato than we areaccustomed to today. Most irritating,however, is the insertion of an extrameasure just before the recapitulationof the first movement of Op. 18, No.2, thus destroying a very importantoverlap with which Beethoven clearlyintended to hide the formal seams ofthe movement. Still, the total effect isimpressive, and the disc provides afascinating document for those interestedin the history of musical performance.

Finally, to return to the Guarneri'sOp. 18 set, I should point out that thisbrings to completion their integral re-cording of the Beethoven quartets,which are available both in three sep-arate volumes (one each for the early,middle, and late quartets) and in aone -volume version (RCA VCS 100,eleven discs). R.P.M.

BORODIN: Prince Igor. Tatiana Tugari-nova (s), Yaroslavna; Yelena Obrazt-soya (ms), Konchakovna; Vladimir At-lantov (t), Vladimir; Aleksander Lattev(t), Ovlur; Valery Yaroslavtstev (t),Skula; Ivan Petrov (bs), Prince Igor;Aleksander Vedernikov (bs), Khan Kon-chak; Artur Eizen (bs), Galitsky; Kon-stantin Baskov (bs), Yeroshka; Chorusand Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater,Mark Ermler, cond. Melodiya/AngelSRDL 4116, $23.92 (four discs).

Here, in lieu of the Bolshoi itself, is thiscompany's new recording of Prince Igor.Borodin's opera, together with four otherstaples of the Russian repertoire, was tohave been performed at New York's Lin-coln Center this spring, but adverse polit-ical conditions led to a cancellation ofthe Bolshoi visit-a piece of bad luck foreveryone except the JDL. Well, at least


Tchaikovsky:He's even better when you read himin the original.

His operas.The Maid of Orleans-High-lights. Until this new release,no recording was to be had ofTchaikovsky's sixth opera. IrinaArkhipova sings the title, withthe Moscow Radio Chorus &Orchestra, conducted byGennady Rozhdestvensky.Hers will be a difficult Joan tofollow.

Eugene Onegin. Of this new re-cording of the Bolshoi Opera'sproduction, Opera News said,"Now we have an Onegin thatfully reveals the stature ofTchaikovsky's poetic composi-tion." Rostropovich's debut asconductor was "at the heart ofthis sensitive, probing per-formance."

The Queen of Spades. Again,the Bolshoi Theater Chorus andOrchestra, with Valentina Levkoand Irina Arkhipova. The onlyrecording of this opera, it iscomplete in a 4 -record boxedset. Or in highlights on 1 rec-ord. Martin Mayer, in Esquire:"A masterpiece of whollyVerdian quality."

Melodiya/Angel artistsspeak Tchaikovsky'slanguage. Culturally.Idiomatically. Musically.

It follows that thesealbums offer his musicwith an understanding,a clarity you mayprefer to any other.

His concertos.Violin Concerto. Take yourchoice of father or son-Davidor Igor Oistrakh. Choose Igor,and you gain the bonus of hisfather's conducting of the Mos-cow Philharmonic. ChooseDavid (with Rozhdestvenskyconducting the same orchestra)and you share his 60th birthdaycelebration.

Two of his Piano Concertos."His playing breathed light-ness, freshness, and youth."The pianist was 16 -year -oldGrigory Sokolov. Tne author,Emil Gilels, chairman of thejury that awarded Sokolov firstprize in the 1966 TchaikovskyCompetition. His recording of

CIRCLE 8 ON READER -SERVICE CARDJUNE 1971 76A

the beloved First Piano Con-certo, with the U.S.S.R. Sym-phony, breathes lightness,freshness, and youth. In theless familiar Second Piano Con-certo, Igor Zhukov, also a com-petition winner, performs therarely heard complete andoriginal version.

His symphonic cycle.Of his Russian-ness. Tchaikov-sky wrote Madame von Meck,"I grew up in the backwoods,saturating myself with the inex-plicable beauty of Russian folk -song, so that I passionatelylove every manifestation of theRussian spirit." No other com-poser has ever translated thatspirit so successfully. Almostwithout fail, his symphoniesbecome the first love for listen-ers, a love that seldom pales.Yevgeny Svetlanov conductsthe great U.S.S.R. Symphonyin the complete cycle. (Sym-phonies 1 through 6 and theManfred, on 7 albums.)

His songs.Russia's reigning prima conna,Irina Arkhipova, sings 15 ofTchaikovsky's 100 -plus ro-mances and songs. Americanaudiences discovered herglorious mezzo during over-whelmingly successful tours in1964, 1966 and 1969. This al-bum of Romantic TchaikovskySongs distils his romanticismwith exquisite tenderness.

His Life in Music.This specially -priced 3 -recordset with high points frommany of the complete worksdescribed here offers a com-prehensive portrait. Hand-somely boxed with booklet.

SWAN LAKE

And Swan Lake.No single recording fromRussia has won so much praiseas this one-the complete SwanLake. Judge its splendor fromStereo Review's comment: "Allis aglow with vigor, drenchedin the rich hues of the orches-tration, from which a veil seemsto have been lifted to revealthe thrilling integral effect thecomposer had in mind."

And more ...Romeo & Juliet, by Kiril Kon-drashin and the Moscow Phil-harmonic ... Serenade forStrings and Capriccio italien bySvetlanov and the U.S.S.R.Symphony ... Souvenir deFlorence with Rostropovicha program of Nine a cappellaChoruses by the SveshnikovChorus.

MEA0,41/151Newly Recorded 'n the USSR

LERMELODIYA ANGEL

we have the records, even if the perform-ance leaves a good deal to be desired.

More than most Russian operas, PrinceIgor requires voices of exceptional qual-ity. There is little plot, the characters(barring the two bass roles) are unde-veloped, while all the pageantry, exoticoriental coloring, dancing girls, etc. fur-ther contribute to the concert -in -costumeflavor. Take the Polovtsian act, for in-stance: four first-rate arias, a nice loveduet, and one of the most popular balletsequences in all opera-but after the cur-tain comes down one realizes that noneof this pleasant material has really servedany dramatic function whatsoever. So ifsix opulent, well -schooled voices are noton hand, you might just as well leaveIgor alone.

Melodiya's cast rarely measures up tothe optimum, although there is only oneout-and-out disaster. Tatiana Tugarinova'sYaroslavna stands out as the weakest everrecorded-and that's saying quite a lotconsidering that her three rivals on MK,Angel, and Richmond are uniformlydreadful. One has learned to put up withshrill, wobbly Russian sopranos over theyears, but Tugarinova offers very little tocompensate for such piercingly unat-tractive tone: Yaroslavna's two lengthylaments seem endless under these condi-tions. Yelena Obraztsova, on the otherhand, brings a solid, evenly focused mezzoto Konchakovna's music. The qualitymay not be as lush or seductive as onemight wish and the melismatic oriental -

isms of her aria do not always fall pre-cisely into place; but she is decidedly oneof the performance's assets.

Vladimir Atlantov made a generallypositive impression on Melodiya's recentOnegin recording as Lensky. Here his oneopportunity is Vladimir's love song inAct II, delivered with plenty of thrustand metallic luster; it's not especiallystylish, though, and he has a bad habitof singing just under the note. Ivan Pe-trov abandons his customary role ofKhan Konchak to sing Igor on this re-cording-a step in the right directionsince the comparatively stolid prince suitshis forthright manner far more than thesubtle Khan; the high baritone tessiturapresents few problems for his lightishbasso cantante. Even at that, much ofthe plush ripeness that once character-ized his voice has departed and there arenow signs of unsteadiness.

Galitsky and Konchak are often sungby the same artist, a practice justifiedonly if a virtuoso interpreter such asChristoff is on hand. Melodiya wiselyuses two well -differentiated basses andthey are excellent. Eizen limns the high -living Galitsky with raucous, bluff humorand Vedernikov's black tone strikes justthe right note of menace as the despoticKhan. The Bolshoi chorus is predictablysuperb, but Mark Ermler obtains a strict-ly routine performance from the orches-tra. Part of the problem may be due tothe engineering, which conjures up thebad old days of Russian recording: thesonics have little body or impact and thebasic ambience is shallow, shrill, andoverresonant.

Like Richmond's recent reissue of Bel-grade's Prince Igor, the opera is givenabsolutely complete including the oftenomitted Act III. Richmond offers bettersound and a lower price, but the singingthere does not even come up to the varia-ble level set by the Bolshoi. Angel's se-verely abridged Igor of a few years backhas only Christoff to recommend it, whilethe ancient MK edition is virtually im-possible to locate. This Russian record-ing from the Forties would still be mychoice, faded sonics and all, simply forthe high-class singing of Reizen (Kon-chak), Lemeshev (Vladimir), Ivanov(Igor), and Borisenko (Konchakovna).Otherwise, if a complete recording ofPrince Igor is wanted, the new Melodiyaentry will have to suffice, warts and all.

P.G.D.

BUSNO S: Chansons: Amours noustraicte . . . Je m'en vois; A une dame;Bel acueil; A que ville; Terrible dame;Maintes femmes; Seule apart moy;Acordes moy. Diana Tramontini, so-prano: William Zukof, countertenor;Alan Titus, baritone; Kenneth Wollitz,recorders and krummhorn; Lucy Cross,lute; Richard Taruskin, viols; CynthiaSchwan, recorder; Joshua Rifkin, dir.Nonesuch H 71247, $2.98.

Hats off to Joshua Rifkin, talented andversatile young musician and musicolo-gist, who has produced this enchantingbird's-eye view of chansons by AntoineBusnois, a composer who died in thesame year that Columbus discoveredAmerica. Busnois usually appears inhistories-and in my mind at least-ashalf of a tandem, Busnois and Ockeghem,in which the gloomy Ockeghem over-shadows his more congenial contempo-rary. With this fine recording Busnoisfinally gains an independent profile,and a handsome one it is, too.

"Thank y,,u J. Rifkin"-from A. Busnois.

A member of the early Renaissance,pre-Josquin generation, Busnois showsboth his conservative medieval inheri-tance and an experimental approachtoward musical techniques, foreshadow-ing developments of the sixteenth cen-tury. The simultaneous use of separatetexts and melodies in Amours noustraicte is a device which harks back ahundred years, as is the surprising ap-pearance of a hocket in Acordes moy.The intricate construction of Maintesfemmes also hints at fourteenth -centurythinking.

Busnois' favorite texture is usuallycomprised of three voices: two luxuriousserpentine melodic parts and a supple-mentary instrumental voice which hopsabout filling out the harmony. Occasion-ally, in Acordes moy for example, heexpands to four voices, widening therange and trying out contrasting registersfor effect. Terrible dame exploits thislast device to create a spirited dialoguebetween the suitor and his heartless lady.Like Ockeghem, Busnois is sometimespartial to the newly popular lower regis-ters-Bel acueil pairs a baritone and abass viol most felicitously-but withoutthe dark muddied sound of his fellowcomposer. Imitation, another hallmarkof the generation to come, makes anappearance here, notably in the Josquin-esque pairs of Acordes moy, but againas a tasty side dish rather than a sub-stantial main course. The stylized emo-tion of courtly love also gives way toa more personal statement in the poig-nant expressivity of Seule apart moy,an exquisitely modeled canon of elon-gated supple lines and contained passions.

The performers, a group of NewYorkers assembled by Rifkin, are uni-formly good, but special mention shouldgo to the spring sky-blue countertenorof William Zukof. The delicate phrasingand unobstrusive elegance of the instru-mentalists in the extended rondeaus Aque Wile and Seule apart moy are alsoextraordinary, and make this disc amust for connoisseurs. The recordingitself is satisfactory although I foundthat some adjustment to balance voices(which were too loud, especially thesoprano) and instruments enhanced thefinal effect. Otherwise, everything isexemplary: the notes are literate andinformative; the translations downrightbeautiful. Both Busnois and his twen-tieth-century audiences owe Nonesuchand Mr. Rifkin a vote of thanks forthis delightful recording. S.T.S.

DVORAK: Sextet for Strings, in A, Op.48; Quintet for Strings, in A minor, Op.1. Members of the Berlin PhilharmonicOctet. Philips 839 754. $5.98.DVORAK: Quintet for Strings, in G, Op.77.SPOHR: Quintet for Piano and Winds,in C minor, Op. 52. Walter Panhoffer,piano; Members of the Vienna Octet.London CS 6673, $5.98.

Chamber works poured from Dvofik asfreely as songs from Schubert, and fur -

76B HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

IN THE ZANY world of records,"new" (like "complete") is a singu-larly elastic term. The present Co-lumbia/Ormandy 1812 is adver-tised-and a special sticker on thedisc jacket cover italicizes theclaim-as an "exciting new ver-sion." But if "new" means withinthe last couple of years, this can'tbe: every discophile knows that thePhiladelphians' last recordings forColumbia (before their currentRCA series) were made on May 19,1968. Maybe new in this casemeans within the last decade-butagain the term is inapplicable. It'sgeneral knowledge-and Colum-bia has not officially denied it-that the present orchestral perform-ance was first released on MS 6073in the fall of 1959 and presum-ably was recorded in the spring ofthat year. So, what's new?

Well, like the curate's egg, partsof this 1812 are indeed fresh. WhatColumbia has done is to re-edit itstwelve -year -old Philadelphian 1812with substitutions and additions.For the opening two pages of thescore, the Mormon TabernacleChoir sings (in English) the orig-inal string parts of the Russianhymn, God, Preserve Thy People,apparently with an organ supplyingthe woodwind chords toward theend of the hymn. Then for the lasttwenty pages or so, the parts forband, cannon, and bells are over-dubbed by, respectively, a militaryacademy band, "authentic" cannon,and "Russian Church Bells"-thefirearms obtained from 20th Cen-tury -Fox Studios, the bells of un-specified provenance.

Is there anything novel or"wrong" in these procedures? It's amoot question. Comparable audiorevamping is not entirely uncom-mon, even in so-called classicalmusic, and of course the reissuingof older recordings-often withoutcalling attention to their age-is aregular practice nowadays. But withthe present-day concern for con-sumer protection, such practicescertainly provide persuasive evi-dence for the need of a Truth in(Sonic) Packaging law.

As a matter of fact, though, inthis case the consumer is morebamboozled than actually gypped.The 1959 orchestral sonorities stillare impressively "big," if consider-ably heavier and thicker than gen-erally preferred nowadays. Thechoral, band, and sound -effects up-datings are undoubtedly expansiveand thunderous enough to satisfya mass public's insatiable appetitefor "spectacular" stereo. But formore discriminating tastes at least,what was a heavy-handed, stilted,dramatically unconvincing readingback in 1959 remains just that,new sonic costuming notwith-standing. And while there is noaudio updating of the overside1961 Serenade for Strings, a simi-

OrmandyDeclares War

(On Himself)

by R. D. Darrell

lar interpretative heavy-handed-ness makes the sumptuously richPhiladelphian strings sound preten-tiously pompous. Moreover, thisversion (like the earlier mono oneit replaced) is unashamedly, if un-admittedly. brutally cut. Ormandydeletes 119 of the first movement's293 bars, 208 of the finale's 449.So, Caveat Auditor!

Still smarting from the adversecritical comparisons of its first(1968) Philadelphia recordingswith those from Columbia up tothat time, RCA (which has sincefound better solutions to most ofthe technical problems involved)has naturally exulted in the chanceto provide a demonstration ofwhat it claims, with some justifica-tion, to be the "only truly newPhiladelphia 1812 Overture in overa decade." Recorded last Novemberin the Town Hall (rather than theAcademy of Music), this versionalso is embellished with choralsinging-not only in the introduc-tory hymn but also in its returnnear the end of the work (but not,to my regret, at the folkish pas-sages, on pp. 44f. and 64f. of theEulenberg miniature score, whichwere effectively sung by childrenin the 1968 Buketoff version forRCA). And of course there are thenow familiar military band, bell,and cannon augmentations of theclimactic finale. Here, electroni-cally simulated cannon shots ad-mittedly are used (the kind of bellsused is not stated), but where sonic"authenticity" is concerned there'slittle significant difference betweenthe "real" thing and its electronicfacsimile. What's much more im-portant is that in this version therecorded sonics (orchestral andother) are far more luminous, airy,refined, vivid, and indeed "natu-ral."

In an RCA press release Or-mandy is quoted as saying that "Onthis new RCA recording, we havethe most natural sound to comeout of Philadelphia." In an adver-tisement his testimonial reads "Thisis the best sound the Philadelphiahas ever received in a recording."To more objective ears, such super-latives/absolutes claim too much:fine as the recording is, it still fallsshort of ideal-as, for example,in the loss of some delicate pianis-simo percussion details. And, moreimportantly to nonaudiophile mu-sic lovers, the genuine technicalprogress represented here is notmatched by any measurable inter-pretative improvements. Ormandy'sreading still lacks, to my taste,vivacity, grace, and infectiousgusto. And I find the same defi-ciencies in the overside BeethovenBattle Symphony. Neither of thesefrank showpieces warrants beingtaken as grimly seriously as theyare here-by me, perhaps, as wellas by Ormandy and both hisformer and present recording com-panies.

TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 Overture,Op. 49; Serenade for String Or-chestra, in C, Op. 48. MormonTabernacle Choir; Valley ForgeMilitary Academy Band; Cannon;Russian Church Bells (in theOverture); Philadelphia Orches-tra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Co-lumbia M 30447, $5.98.TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 Overture,Op. 49. BEETHOVEN: Welling-ton's Victory, Op. 91. Temple Uni-versity Choirs; Philadelphia BrassBands; Bells (in the Overture);Electronic Cannon; PhiladelphiaOrchestra, Eugene Ormandy,cond. RCA Red Seal LSC 3204,$5.98. Tape: 131 R8S 1180,$6.95; RK 1180, $6.95.

JUNE 197177

thermore, they provide an index to thedevelopment of his musical thought. Thethree pieces considered here, which spana seventeen-year period, are a case inpoint. The Op. 1 quintet, with two violas,composed in 1861 when Dvoilk wasnineteen, finds him a very conscientiousdisciple of classicism-if we may stretchthe term to include both Mozart andSchubert. The opening movement, withno great degree of melodic attractiveness.nevertheless manages to convey a senseof purposefulness and confidence becausethe scoring is well worked out and every-body is kept honorably busy, involved ina goodly amount of interaction; the violasong which leads off the second move-ment shows Dvofik aware of instrumen-tal color right from the start-creditable,even though this particular movement,long -limbed in melody line, is also long-winded. The finale is notably varied intexture-one of its most attractive fea-tures, as a matter of fact-and there isan almost Brahmsian quality in its in-ner tensions and its atmosphere of strain:the instruments seem to be pushed al-most beyond the limits of their capacities.But the movement works, and creates asense of conviction.

Leaping chronologically over the quin-tet on the London disc, which is next inline among these three works, we cometo the sextet of 1878, in which national-ism has grown to full force, though with-out the sacrifice of classical affiliations.This is by far the most fun of the threepieces, and it is easy to understand whyJoseph Joachim liked it so much that he

introduced it to Berlin audiences in 1879;it was the first chamber work of Dvoffik'sto be performed outside his own country.It was also the first in which he made useof two traditional folk elements, thedumka (a Ukrainian folksong alternat-ing between passages of tender contem-plation and fiery explosiveness) and thefuriant, a Czech dance. Though there isquite a bit of sequential side-stepping inthe first movement, the motivic develop-ment keeps things fairly tight -knit; thefinale presents a grave and lovely violatheme that undergoes an absolutely clas-sical set of variations. The Berlin Octetgives robust and well -shaped perform-ances of both works, and keeps abreastof the big -boned, Brahmsian sonorities.

We go backward in time to the Op. 77Quintet, on the London disc, which wascomposed in 1875 as Op. 18 (it was theBerlin publisher Simrock who issued itthirteen years later as Op. 77 over thecomposer's objections). Dvoffik national-ism is less overt than in the sextet, buta bumptious Czech dance (scherzo)shows the direction in which he was mov-ing. The quintet was written for a com-petition (it won), and whether the com-poser was setting himself some specialchallenge by including a double bass isan interesting question. It doesn't blendvery well, and it doesn't contribute any-thing characteristic except some very lowvibrations. The first movement, full ofshort thematic bursts, fails to sustaincontinuity, but this we can afford toignore, as did the judges of the competi-tion.

"I have never heard Mozart's incredible scoring so wellcaptured on a recording." NEW YORK MAGAZINE

April 5, 1971

Mozart's Latest Hit!London's marvelous recording of

THE MAGIE FLUTEGEORG SOLTI

conducting The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Pilar Lorengar, Stuart Burrows,

Cristina Deutekom, Hermann Prey,

Martti Talvela, Dietrich Fischer-DieskauOSA-1397

.. 'The Magic Flute' of a great conductor and a con-summate Mozartean ..." CHICAGO TODAY

0OTDOI©RECORDS

The Royal Family of Opera

Ludwig Spohr wrote rarely for thepiano (it is no accident that this quintetis the only work with piano to be found inthe current catalogue), and it comes as asurprise to find the keyboard writing soidiomatic, so free-flowing-even, in thelast movement, virtuosic. The piece as awhole is easy in spirit, amiable, and,as they say about politicians these days,"low -profiled." Its exceptional grace andgood humor, in addition to its razzle-dazzle finale, ought to win friends. Nosmall credit to pianist Walter Panhoffer,who keeps the flow and pulse movingwith some very clear -fingered pianism.The Vienna Octet members are a bitroughshod in the Dvoffik (unisons aren'talways exactly unisons), but in generalthey make a good case for both works.

S.F.

HANDEL: Israel in Egypt. HeatherHarper, soprano; Paul Esswood, coun-tertenor; Alexander Young, tenor; LeedsFestival Chorus; English Chamber Or-chestra, Charles Mackerras, cond.Deutsche Grammophon 2533 057,$13.96 (two discs).

Israel in Egypt has no plot and no dra-matic characters; juxtaposed excerptsfrom Exodus and the Psalms serve as textfor the choruses, which outnumber thearias and duets by almost ten to one.The oratorio was a complete failure atits first performance in 1739. This largework, unique in the Handelian catalogue,was never really finished; it is the onlyoratorio with two instead of three "acts,"and it is the most heavily padded of allof Handel's major works. Almost halfof the pieces in Israel are borrowed,some of them in toto, Handel helping him-self from Stradella, Kern, Erba, Urio, hisown Chandos Anthems, even from earlyworks composed in Italy. A man of un-compromising integrity while in the actof creation, but of ruthless and evendestructive pragmatism when switchingto the role of impresario, Handel maimedthe oratorio within a week after the dis-astrous reception. He not only cut thescore but laced it with Italian songs! Thislast remedy gives us the clue to the rea-son for its initial failure, which of courseapplies in our own case too: such a con-glomeration of weighty choral numbers,barely relieved by a few arias and duets,produces a cumulative effect of fatigue,of saturation. Yet despite its weaknessas an oratorio, Israel in Egypt is rich ingreat music, for it contains some ofHandel's most tremendous choruses. Fora concert performance, liberal cutsmight well be made (most of the solosand duets are expendable) and a few in-strumental numbers inserted to separatethe groups of choruses. But a completerecording is welcome because at homeone can listen to it in installments.

Handel gets underway slowly; thereis no overture, only a six -measure recita-tive to introduce the first big chorus,and most of the borrowings are in thefirst half of the work. Let us immediatelydispose of the issue raised by the borrow-ings. In the eighteenth century this was



For $279.we giveyou engineering.For an extra$20we throw insome furniture.

To call the Rectilinear Ill apiece of engineering is a rathervigorous understatement.

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JUNE 1971CIRCLE 7 ON READER -SERVICE CARD 79

not a question of plagiarism-the saintedBach borrowed as much if not more thanHandel. When a theme, a passage, oreven a whole composition suited the oc-casion in mood and feeling, it was takenover quite openly. It often required farmore work to adjust a borrowing thanto write a new piece, and posterity hashad difficulty in understanding why thesegreat masters, whose invention was inex-haustible, spent so much energy and in-genuity recomposing "used" material. Butthe age believed implicity in the powerof affective expression, and if an emi-nently suitable "affect" from any sourcepresented itself as a flash from thecomposer's memory, he instantly annexed

it. It was the nineteenth century, withits insistence on individuality and orig-inality, that saw a nonexistent moralissue in this age-old method of compo-sition that was the norm in earlier cen-turies. Handel's musical transplant sur-gery is so amazingly inventive in mostinstances that a comparison of the orig-inal with the adjusted composition couldserve as a wonderful treatise on the artof composition.

Then in the second half of the oratorio,Handel rises to the summit of his cre-ative imagination and hurls at us themightiest eight -part anthems, supportedby an unusually large orchestra consist-ing of strings, flutes, oboes, bassoons,

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trumpets, trombones, timpani, organ, andharpsichord. It is amazing to see howcomprehensive was his knowledge of thechoral literature. These choruses, surelythe acme of choral composition, testify tohis acquaintance not only with the pres-ent, and with the immediate past repre-sented by Carissimi or Purcell, but alsowith the German cantor's art and withthe vocal polyphony of the sixteenthcentury. Mozart, who first heard Israelwhen he visited London as a boy, musthave retained lasting impressions of thiswork, for one can follow them in theC minor Mass and in the Requiem.

Deutsche G tammophon had the goodsense to record the oratorio not only inthe original language but with an all-British crew, for judging by other Handelrecordings, a German choir would havesung Israel in the German cantata tradi-tion. The work is prefaced with an over-ture-a good move, though perhaps oneof the fine overtures to forgotten operaswould have been better than the familiarone to Solomon. The soloists are allgood, but they have little to do, for theprotagonist is the chorus. The Leeds Fes-tival Chorus, steady, always on pitch,and expressive, deserves all the encomi-ums we can muster, and the EnglishChamber Orchestra functions admirably.Charles Mackerras, the conductor, knowsand understands this style, and there isnot a single instance of a lapse from im-peccable taste. There are no asthmaticritards, not one Luf tpause, the embellish-ments are few, the rhythm solid, and thedynamics well proportioned. The harmonyis never missing because the continuo(organ or harpsichord or both) is usedintelligently. The always difficult taskof recording a mixed choir was herecompounded because in Israel Handelwrote in his most sonorous style: widelyspaced eight -part settings. Few are therecordings in which choral euphony, par-ticularly choral dynamics, are reproducedwith as much fidelity as instrumental mu-sic. Somehow, when a good-sized chorusunloads a genuine forte, there is usuallydistortion, or an unpleasant shrillness, oragain a marked decline in timbre andintensity as the monitor interferes toavoid the expected distortion. That goodand natural choral sound can be achievedhas been demonstrated, but complete suc-cess is rare. Even in this excellent record-ing there are few spots where the chorussounds dense rather than euphonious,though most of the time the sound isadmirably clear.

Perhaps DGG, having found the rightformula, will proceed to replace the oldrecordings of Belshazzar, Saul, JudasMaccabaeus, and others by new onesemploying this fine group-and also thesame engineers. P.H.L.

HOLST: The Planets, Op. 32. John All-dis Choir; London Philharmonic Or-chestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips6500 072, $5.98.HOLST: The Planets, Op. 32. NewEngland Conservatory Chorus; BostonSymphony Orchestra, William Stein -


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berg, cond. Deutsche Grammophon2530 102, $6.98. Tape: CB 3300 106,$6.98.

One doesn't have to be a chauvinist tobelieve that certain music is best inter-preted only by compatriots of the com-poser. Conductorial skill alone hasn'tbeen enough in the past where this pop-ular Hoist suite is concerned-as dem-onstrated by the failure of Stokowski,Von Karajan, and (most recently) Ber-nard Herrmann to match the suitabilityof so thoroughly "British" readings asthose by the composer himself (long agofor Columbia) and Sir Adrian Boult forAngel. The latter still remains the pre-ferred version among Hoist aficionados,but for the first time, in this music atleast, the British -is -Best principle hasbeen doubly challenged.

One challenger is a Dutchman, Ber-nard Haitink, who has been shrewdenough to make use of an English rather

than a Dutch orchestra and to studycarefully (I'd be willing to bet) Boult'sapproach. His is no slavish imitation, ofcourse, but it avoids the idiomatic errorsof other "foreigners." And if Haitink isnot quite as heart -twistingly moving inVenus or as ruddily roast -beefy in thebig Jupiter tune, he is still very goodinterpretatively, while in other respects-rhythmic crispness, lucidity of inner -voice details, and recording transparency-his is an even better recorded perform-ance. Moreover, it has some special doc-umentary interest as the first recordingto use a revised score published in 1969which embodies a number of Hoist's laterchanges in the suggested dynamics as wellas at least one "vital wrong -note cor-rection." Actually, however, there's littleif any readily apparent difference, sothis feature is not likely to be as im-portant to home listeners as it may beto musicologists.

The other challenger is a German -

"The Greatest Orchestrain the World"by Robert C. Marsh

STANDARD PUBLIC RELATIONS andfund-raising techniques among themajor orchestras today producethe conflicting claims that thisgroup or that is, veritably, theworld's greatest orchestra. Formany professional observers ofAmerican musical life, the effecthas now reached the point whereone can only be embarrassed bythe self-defeating naiveté of theprocess. Purely as a matter oflogic, it is difficult to imagine anorchestra so trained that it couldplay instrumental music of allstyles and periods with the samedegree of skill.

The Cleveland Orchestra underthe Sze11 regime was singularlyadept in reminding one of itsmerits without resorting to a"world's greatest" formula. Andin one respect it clearly was theworld's greatest, for Szell's insis-tence that the ensemble traditionmust be based on the principles offine chamber music produced anorchestra that (under the conduc-tor's comprehensive view) listenedand responded to itself in a man-ner quite unequaled anywhere else.If that sounds like an extremestatement, I will defend it as aconnoisseur of orchestral rehears-als who has heard nearly everyorchestra of great reputation atwork in preparatory sessions andcan attest that Cleveland rehears-als consistently revealed refine-ments of self-awareness in the en-semble that seemingly had nocounterpart elsewhere.

And if this is not everything ittakes to make a group the great-est orchestra in the world, it isthe key to Haydn and Mozart per-formances of superlative quality.A colleague, in fact, has calledSzell and the Clevelanders thegreatest Haydn -Mozart orchestra inthe world, and I agree.

But although Sze11 and hisplayers offered a great deal ofthis literature, they recorded onlya relatively small sample of it-especially in stereo. This is atragic loss for those who lookupon the phonograph as a meansto document great achievements inthe realization of music in per-formance, so every disc becomesdoubly valuable.

The present record offers thefirst two of the Salomon sym-phonies in order of composition.(Nos. 93 and 94 are, in fact,works from the following year.)The notes and texts are from H.C.Robbins Landon, and the recordedsound brought to my living roomthe most miraculous evocation ofmornings in Severance Hall whenI heard this sort of playing as partof a small audience of staff andfriends of the orchestra.

As for the performances, theyare pure Szell. For anyone whoknows what that means, nothingmore need be said.

HAYDN: Symphonies: No. 95, inC minor; No. 96, in D ("Miracle").Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell,cond. Columbia M 30366, $5.98.

born and trained American conductorwho has had the independence to ignoreHolst-Boult-British traditions entirely andto direct his Boston players and singersas if they were tackling a brand-newscore. The results will be startling toconfirmed Holstians, but they well mayattract new partisans for The Planets.Most of the faster movements and pas-sages are taken much faster than usualby Steinberg (his 6:28 Mars is almosttwo minutes faster than Haitink's!), butthey are most thrillingly exciting asreadings as well as more spectacularlybravura as performances than I've everheard before. Not surprisingly, however,the slower, more poetically atmosphericmovements and passages fare less wellinterpretatively than in either the Haitinkor Boult versions; yet even here theorchestral timbres and sonorities (andenchanting vocalism in Neptune) have amagic all their own-credit for whichmust also be shared with the engineersresponsible for the truly superb stereo-ism. These sonics are at once warmerand more spacious, as well as more vivid,than those in the fine but apparentlymore distantly miked Philips recording.

No Holstian should discard his prizedBoult/Angel version, but neither shouldhe fail to investigate what Haitink andSteinberg do with the work. At the veryleast both new recordings, each in itsown way, will enable him to hear moreof, and perhaps also more in, The Planetsthan he's ever heard before. R.D.D.

IVES: "American Scenes - AmericanPoets." The Things Our Fathers Loved;Walking; Autumn; Maple Leaves; At theRiver; Circus Band; The Side Show;Charlie Rutlage; Tom Sails Away; TheyAre There; In Flanders Field; Two LittleFlowers; The Greatest Man; There Is aLane; The Last Reader; The Children'sHour; Walt Whitman; The Light That IsFelt; Serenity; Thoreau; Duty; After-glow; The Housatonic at Stockbridge;Grantchester. Evelyn Lear, soprano;Thomas Stewart, baritone; Alan Man-del, piano. Columbia M 30229, $5.98.

Virgil Thomson, talking not long agoabout Ives's prodigious but carelesslycrafted output, thought it a shame thatIves went through life writing pieces and"throwing them over the back of his chair-you have to be Rembrandt to splashthe paint on that way." One can easilyagree, faced with the sizable samplingof his songs contained on this record,that the composer cared more for in-spiration than perspiration, without los-ing respect for his best work. Anyonewho looks through the "114 Songs" islikely to be by turns beguiled and an-noyed at the interweaving of high artist-ry and outright fiasco, and the Lear/Stewart disc accurately reflects thatreality.

But this is an exceptionally valuableIves song sampler, and in some waysthe singers are ideal: they are Ameri-cans, they are intelligent musicians whopossess first -quality voices, and they seem


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An infinitechoiceof speeds.The variable control Lenco manualturntables offer an infinite selection ofspeed-a continuous sweep from 30to 86 rpm. At the standard 16-2/3,33-1/3, 45 or 78.26 rpm, there areclick stops that can be precisely setor adjusted at any time.

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willing to abandon themselves to Ives'speculiar, patch -quilt aesthetic. They lov-ingly embrace its schoolboy enthusiasms,its embarrassing sentimentality, its old-style flag-waving, and its nostalgia-above all, its nostalgia. Stewart is justright for the quintessentially Ivesiansong, The Things Our Fathers Loved, forinstance. His failures are oftener thoseof the composer than his own, as inEdgar A. Guestish numbers such as TheGreatest Man or jingoist ones such asThey Are There. But there are ways tominimize badness, not often discovered:Stewart's attempt at gruff pathos doesnot work for In Flanders Field, wherehe parodies the doughboy bravado ratherthan trying to empathize with it. Lear'ssuccess with the difficult Tom SailsAway is noteworthy, and she is good,too, in the seven -measure Duty, one ofthose epigrams that Ives liked so much(Vita and Ann Street are others).

She finds The Children's Hour heavygoing, both vocally and interpretively,partly because it is an indigestible nou-gat, all too faithful to Longfellow. Leartakes the song a tone higher than theoriginal, presumably to avoid the lowDs, though in Grantchester she opts forthe original key, which has not only thelow D but a C as well. Except for TheChildren's Hour, the songs are in theirproper keys. Like Stewart to some ex-tent, Lear sometimes adopts an art -songapproach to Ives that cannot be defended.For her, "blend and blur" becomes"blend and blaar"; she encourages peo-ple to "take my hahnd." Such manner-isms, founded on every singer's prefer-ence for vowels, surely should be droppedfor Ives.

There are suggestions of haste in thealbum. Stewart phrases awkwardly in Atthe River, possibly betrayed by Ives'sfailure to notate exactly at "flowing bythe throne of God." And there is oneclear misreading of the text by Stewart,when in The Greatest Man he reads"though" as "thought."

The album lacks texts of the songs,which is unfortunate in view of bothsingers' periodic failure to convey thewords clearly. One cannot discover fromthe jacket, either, whose poem is usedfor any specific song, though not a ser-ious complaint in The Children's Hour,perhaps. But who among us would knowthe author of Serenity (Whittier), After-glow. (James Fenimore Cooper), or TheLast Reader (Holmes)? Strangest of all,the final song on the "American Poets"side is Grantchester by Rupert Brooke,its inclusion explained on the groundsthat Lear and Stewart felt "stronglydrawn" to the work.

Mandel, the pianist, is both sym-pathetic to Ives and an expert in theidiom. His success can be measured bythe fact that he almost manages to evokethe distant mists in The Housatonic atStockbridge, which Ives suggested so deli-cately with muted upper -string soundsin the orchestral original. D.J.H.

LOEWE: Songs and Ballads: Der getreue

Eckert; Wanderers Nachtlied; Im VorU-bergehen; Canzonette; FriihzeitigerFrithling; Ich denke dein; Freibeuter;Der Zauberlehrling; Der Totentanz; Gut-mann und Gutweib; Turmwachter Lyn-ceus zu den Fassen der Helena; Lyn-ceus der TOrmer; Wenn der BlUtenFriihlingsregen; Die wandelnde Glocke;Gottes ist der Orient. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jorg Demus, piano.Deutsche Grammophon 2530 052,$6.98.

Fischer-Dieskau's second Loewe programfor DGG is a resounding success, notonly for the baritone but for this neg-lected Lieder composer as well. Mostof these songs (all to Goethe texts) havenever been recorded before, althoughat least six poems will ring a bell ofrecognition because of the more familiarsettings by Schubert, Schumann, andWolf. Loewe needs no apologies though-his Gutmann und Gutweib expressesthe point of the poem far more succinctlythan Wolf's overblown version, whilethe impish humor of Die wandelndeGlocke, the attractively melodic Lynceusder Tiirmer, and the noble Gottes ist derOrient outstrip Schumann by some dis-tance. The two poems also set by Schu-bert result in very different but not neces-sarily inferior songs: Loewe turns Wan-drers Nachtlied into a sensuous, yearn-ing statement, and his Ich denke dein(Ndhe des Geliebtens) is, unlike Schu-bert's version, a through -composed large-scale setting with a considerable amountof imaginative word painting.

Among the ballads, Der getreue Eckartis well known and one of the best, andDer Totentanz, with the dancing skeletonsand howling wind graphically illustratedin the piano part, is in the delicious patterstyle of Hochzeitslied. Oddly enough, DerZduberlehrling makes a very tame effect-the tale of the sorcerer's apprenticeshould have been a natural for Loewe'snarrative gift but the musical inven-tion is too thin to sustain interest. Theremaining six songs are short but fullof characteristic touches-the mirror -poetic construction of Freibeuter, for in-stance, is cleverly suggested by the juxta-position of rising and falling vocal lines-against falling and rising accompani-mental figures.

Except in Der Zauberlehrling wherehe is rather cavalier about the pitches,Fischer-Dieskau does a brilliant job:all the songs lie well for his voiceand of course the interpretations areas lively and sensitively nuanced as onewould expect. Demus' deftly playedaccompaniments couldn't be better andDGG's neatly balanced, mellow engi-neering is ideal. The only flaw withthe production-and it's a serious oneconsidering the unfamiliarity of the ma-terial-is the lack of English translations.

P.G.D.

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Timm 1971CIRCLE 27 ON READER -SERVICE CARD *Mr

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Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel,cond. For a feature review of this re-cording, see page 72.

MAYR: Medea in Corinto. Marisa Gal-vany (s), Medea; Joan Patenaude (s),Creusa; Molly Stark (s), Ismene; AllenCathcart (t), Giasone; Robert White (t),Egeo; Thomas Palmer (b), Creonte;Chorus and Orchestra of Clarion Con-certs, Newell Jenkins, cond. CardinalVCS 10087/9, $17.94 (three discs).

One cannot read an account of Italianopera from the first third of the nine-teenth century without coming acrossthe name of Simon Mayr (1763-1845).Every contemporary journal, correspond-ence, and memoir mentions him as thegran maestro of the age, and every his-tory of music states that from Rossini toVerdi all composers were indebted tohim. "No one surpassed him in his life,"reads the epitaph on his grave. His repu-tation must have been tremendous,for his works were sung not only allover Italy, but from Vienna to Dresden,and from London to St. Petersburg. Liter-ary men, among them Goethe and Stend-hal, followed his career with interest, adozen musical and learned societieselected him to honorary membership,the city of Bergamo caused a medal tobe struck in his honor on his seventy-eighth birthday, and Napoleon offeredhim the supreme musical position inParis. operas, like Ginerradi Scozia, held the stage for decadesin the face of the triumphs of Rossini,Donizetti, and Bellini. Yet all of Mayr'sachievements are hearsay to us, becauseaside from a few small excerpts, we donot know his music, the scores slumberin manuscripts, and none of his workshas been played within memory. NewellJenkins and Vanguard deserve the great-est praise for making this legend an audi-ble reality, and a fascinating reality it is,for this brilliant score is like a topo-graphic map of an important phase of op-eratic history, more enlightening than allthe books. Even the least scholarly mindedreader of HIGH FIDELITY can follow thismap without any difficulty and marvelhow musical history is made and howcruel this history can be.

In his lifetime Mayr's influence wasdecisive on the emerging Romantic grandopera. He was the founding father ofthe Romantic opera orchestra, demandingquite modern effects at the time whenBeethoven composed his First Symphonyand Berlioz was not yet born. Wellacquainted with contemporary music, heutilized every new idea, and a largeshare of credit goes to him for the re-introduction of the chorus in Italianopera. To the Neapolitan and Frenchelements he added his German heritage,based mainly on Mozart and Haydn.This Bavarian -turned -Italian greatly de-veloped the accompanied recitative, hischoral settings are sensitive, often sur-passing even Gluck's, and his large scenesare well constructed. All in all, fromRossini to the young Verdi, even includ-

Newell Jenkins: Simon Mayr rediscovered.

ing Meyerbeer and Berlioz, the mostsignificant composers avidly studied thesequalities and made them their own.

Unfortunately, along with these im-portant achievements there were con-siderable artistic flaws, most of thempresent in Medea. Mayr was a bornmusico-dramatist, but he often suc-cumbed to the Italian routine, and thenthe pleasant melodies lose their profileand become shallow. Donizetti learnedfrom him those fatuous runs of two flutesin thirds and sixths. His fine orchestra canbecome noisy, and his use of the brasses,and especially of the big drum, to this

for the conductorsof Rossini and early Verdi. His mindwas stocked with every known operaticcliché, to which he added many newturns that were to become clichés in thehands of most composers who followedhim.

In Medea Mayr assigns an unusuallyprominent role to the chorus, and sev-eral of its numbers are very impressive.The body of the opera consists of con-stantly changing accompanied recitatives,elaborate and dramatic, the kind withindependent thematic material symphoni-cally developed by the orchestra. Manyof these are stunning, though the uneven-ness of the work is noticeable. For in-stance, Creusa's recitative and aria in thesecond act, "Grazie vi rendo," is madeof commonplace turns, the sentimentalharp solo lending it a lachrymose air;but the aria is immediately followed bya string of starkly dramatic accompag-Halos. Some pieces, like Aegeus' ariain the first act, are as good as Donizetti,and Medea's great monologue, "Come?. . . sett riede," almost reaches Cherubini'stragic intensity. So Mayr often attainsa high plateau, but he cannot rise abovethe average of his best competitors andimitators. He had everything but genius.

Both performance and recording aregood. Only one of the singers is top-drawer, but all of them pull their weight,forming a creditable ensemble. JoanPatenaude (Creusa) is first-class; herpleasant soprano shines and she has agood dramatic sense. Marisa Galvany(Medea) has temperament and a bigvoice which she uses well in quiet pas-

sages, but when agitated the voice be-comes a little unsteady, and the lowtones, which she forces a bit, assume analtogether different color. Giasone isacceptably sung by Allen Cathcart, whilethe other tenor, Robert White (Egeo)does well within the staff, but above ithe has trouble, including a couple ofpainful derailments. Thomas Palmer(Creonte) has a little difficulty with thelow tones, but his baritone is adequate.Molly Stark (Ismene) completes thecast satisfactorily. Orchestra and chorusare very good. Jenkins maintains flexiblediscipline and a commendably dramatictone; the ensembles and finales are pre-cise, the tempos good, and the balancebetween "stage" and "pit" excellent. Theconductor keeps a weather eye on thatdangerous tamburo grande, and the manywoodwind solos are nicely phrased. Ifyou like a good historical novel don'tmiss its musical counterpart, Medea inCorinto. P.H.L.

PENDERECKI: The Devils of Loudun.Tatiana Troyanos, mezzo; Horst Wil-helm, tenor; Helmut Melchert, tenor;Andrzej Hiolski, baritone; Hans Sotin,bass; et al.; Chorus and Orchestra ofthe Hamburg State Opera, Marek Jan-owski, cond. For a feature review ofthis recording, see page 69.

PROKOFIEV: They Are Seven, Op. 30;The Gambler: Portraits and Epi-logue, Op. 49; Love for Three Oranges:Suite, Op. 33b. Yuri Yelnikov, tenor;Moscow Radio Chorus (in They AreSeven); Moscow Radio SymphonyOrchestra, Gennady Rozhdestvensky,cond. Melodiya/Angel SR 40157, $5.98.

At last! Prokofiev's "Chaldaean exor-cism" They Are Seven has finally re-ceived its premiere recording. Also knownas Seven, They Are Seven (from theFrench translation, in which it was firstperformed), this awe-inspiring cantatamust stand not only as one of Proko-fiev's major compositions, but also asone of this century's most stunning ex-amples of musical "primitivism." Al-though it belongs to the same generalcategory as the Second Symphony andthe Scythian Suite, They Are Sevencreates a unique atmosphere of violenceand upheaval which has its roots deeplyburied in the Russia of 1917 whenProkofiev composed this "exorcism."

There is not an instant during theshort work (it lasts, appropriately enough,around seven minutes) that does notseethe with an intensity that few com-posers could ever match. In musically re-creating a "Chaldaean prayer for exorcis-ing demons," Prokofiev literally pulledout all the stops in a style that is soaudacious that it took, if I am not mis-taken, over fifty years before the workwas first performed in Russia. Besides thebrutal and decidedly spasmodic rhythms,there are innumerable coloristic effects,including frequent glissandos in the brass,in the harp (used with particular bril-


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liance in this work), and even in thechorus. Much of They Are Seven con-sists of jolting fortissimo passages inwhich the instruments often play at thehighest extremes of their ranges, whilethe chorus as well rises to apocalypticheights. But there are also some ominous,obsessive quiet moments that throw therest of the music into even sharper re-lief. The cantata ends, for instance, witha sustained but subdued section for per-cussion alone, followed by a passage inwhich the low male voices chant a grim,final incantation before the music simplystops. Prokofiev concluded his reworkedversion of the Konstantin Balmont poemthat forms the basis of the cantata withseveral verses of his own. Since they havebeen omitted from the liner notes andconsidering the profound and seeminglyprophetic nature of these lines, it mightbe well to quote them here: "They shrinkthe heavens and the earth/ They enclosewhole countries behind heavy doors/They crush the people as the people crushgrain. . ./ Spirit of the heavens, exorcisethem!"

In this performance, Gennady Rozh-destvensky proves once again that he isboth one of Russia's greatest conductorsand one of the world's foremost Proko-fiev interpreters. They Are Seven literallycreates revolution in seven minutes, andthere must be few conductors who couldsustain the necessary concentrated inten-sity. Rozhdestvensky has not only accom-plished this by inspiring his performersto the peak of their abilities, but he hasalso managed to delineate an amazingnumber of the ingenious musical details.The stereophony for this particular workis rather extreme, no doubt deliberatelyso. The chorus is divided between rightand left speakers, and the orchestra alsotends to be sharply separated. On theother hand, the tenor solo, expertly sungby Yuri Yelnikov but somewhat weaklyrecorded, is centered in the middle. Thegeneral quality of the sound is nonethe-less superlative.

The Four Portraits and Epilogue fromProkofiev's second opera, The Gambler( which predates They Are Seven), in-volved such a reworking of the musicalmaterial that Prokofiev gave the suite anew opus number when he made thisarrangement much later, in 1931. Thatthe Four Portraits represents somewhatof a patchwork job is borne out by theexcellence of the Epilogue: the latter,based on themes from the original or-chestral interludes, entailed much lessediting and is by far the most inspiredmovement of the suite. Nonetheless,Four Portraits is far from uninterest-ing: particularly noteworthy is the orig-inality and refinement of its scoring.

I am tempted to grumble at the in-clusion of such a chestnut as the Lovefor Three Oranges Suite on this disc,particularly since Soviet recordings oftwo other Prokofiev cantatas, Zdravitsa(Op. 85) and The Ballad of the Un-known Boy (Op. 93)-never previouslyrecorded-are yet to be released in this


88



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country. However, there is no denyingthe excellence of the Love for ThreeOranges Suite, and it receives such acompelling performance and such mar-velous engineering here that it is a wel-come addition to the five currently listedversions. But the They Are Seven workalone should have you running to yournearest record dealer. R.S.B.

SCHUBERT: Sonatas for Piano (com-plete); miscellaneous piano works.Wilhelm Kempff, piano. For a featurereview of these recordings, see page 71.

SCHUMANN: Songs: Frauenliebe andLeben; Widmung; Mignon; Volkslied-chen; Schone allege; Er 1st's; Heissmach nicht reden; Lust der Sturmnacht.Leontyne Price, soprano; David Garvey,piano. RCA Red Seal LSC 3169, $5.98.

Although infrequently sympathetic to theefforts of operatic divas in the concertroom, I found myself pleasantly sur-prised on first hearing this record. MissPrice does not overdo things tonally, noris she self-indulgent with respect to de-tails of rhythm and phrasing.

On the other hand, after further lis-tening one realizes that she does verylittle that is positive with these songs,either-a little husky tone here and therein the Frauenliebe totion, but otherwise not much tonal varia-tion, not much effort to clarify the rela-tionships among phrases or to impartanything more than a generalized shapeto the individual pieces. Furthermore,the cumulative effect of minor flaws ofGerman (carelessness, I suspect, sincethe basic Kiang of the language is gen-erally present) and of a persistent tend-ency to sing the slightest bit sharp iswearying. Only in Er ist's does one heara truly personal touch; that band, atany rate, is quite charming.

The repertory is not unusual, save fortwo of Schumann's Mignon songs; for-tunately, these are both available (alongwith two companion pieces) on HelenWatts's fine recital of last year, whichalso boasts the services of the finestLieder pianist to come along in manyyears, Irwin Gage (Telefunken SAT22515). One need only compare Mignon(Kennst du das Land) in the two record-ings to see what is missing in the Price/Garvey version: note the rhythmic re-lationship between the piano's openingphrase and the voice upbeat.

Miss Price takes the Frauenliebe anda couple of other songs up a semitone-a harmless transposition, inasmuch as itis applied equally to the entire cycle.Full texts and good translations by PhilipL. Miller are provided. D.H.

SPOHR: Quintet for Piano and Winds,in C minor, Op. 52-See Dvofak: Sex-tet for Strings, in A, Op. 48.

TALLIS/BYRD: "Cantiones Sacrae."Cantores in Ecclesia, Michael Howard,cond. Oiseau-Lyre SOL 311/3, $17.85(three discs).

In 1575 Queen Elizabeth I granted hertwo court organists, Thomas Tallis andWilliam Byrd, a special license to "im-print set song or songes in partes, eitherin English, Latin, Frenche, Italian, or anyother toungue that may serve for musickeeither in Church or chamber, or other-wise be plaid or soonge." The first pub-lication of Thomas Tallis and WilliamByrd was a joint effort, the CantionesSacrae of 1575 here recorded for thefirst time in their entirety. The patenthad provided a wide variety of possi-bilities and the choice of a collection ofLatin motets was a bold one for twoavowed Catholics in the newly Protestantcountry.

The thirty-four motets in the collection(seventeen by each composer, perhaps asubtle compliment to the seventeenthyear of Elizabeth's reign) are recorded inthe order of publication, and are sur-prisingly effective in this arrangement.The collection opens and closes with aseries of deeply penitential motets in-cluding Tanis' beautifully moving state-ment of confidence, In mantis was ("IntoThy hands 0 Lord I commend my spirit")and Byrd's dramatic setting of the fa-miliar melody from the Requiem Mass,Libera me, Domine de morte aeterna.

Tallis, the older man whose careerreached back into the reign of HenryVIII, is predictably more conservative andmore formal in his motivic treatment butcompletely up-to-date in his brilliant useof color as an expressive device. Thesomber majesty and dark, almost oppres-sive sound of the penitential In jejunio etfletu are balanced by the web of stained-glass colors in which Tallis clothes histribute to the Trinity, Virtus, honor etpotestas. I was particularly delighted bythe radiant sonorities of his second set-ting of the familiar cantus firmus Salva-tor mundi, and the exquisitely meltingprogressions which describe the Lord'scompassion for even the most wicked inDerelinquat me make a persuasive pleafor conversion. Tanis uses the cantusfirmus principle as a natural extensionof his musical ideas; in Dum transissetSabbaturn, for instance, it floats serenelyover surging motives describing the prep-aration of Christ's body for the tomb.

But while Tallis described himself as"verie aged" in applying for the publish-ing license, William Byrd was a compara-tively young man in 1575, in his earlythirties with almost half a century of lifeahead of him. Byrd's feelings and beliefswere expressed more naturally by the in-dividual shapes of the melodic motivesthemselves and in the dramatic interplayof musical ideas. Aspice Domine ("Be-hold Lord how the city is made deso-late") stretches out in one continuousline, graphically depicting a barren land-scape with long, grinding suspensionsaccentuated by grey and mournful melis-mas. Not that all of Byrd's motets are


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quite so gloomy. No shadow dims thejoyous antiphonal spirits of Laudate,pueri, Dominum, and even works whichopen with sobering reflection often closeon a note of triumphal affirmation. WhenByrd indulges in formal device it is oftenfor symbolic purpose; for example, in0 Lux beata Trinitas, in which threevoices are in canon "tres parses in una,"a musical illustration of the Trinitariandoctrine-three contained in one.

For the enormous pleasure this record-ing of the Condones Sacrae has affordedme, I wish I could thank Michael How-ard and the Cantores in Ecclesia singerspersonally for one of the most movingperformances I have heard in years.Howard's approach to the motets isfrankly romantic and in his case, I think,this is completely successful. It is not astyle I would recommend to everyone;like a delicate Viennese pastry it mustbe done just right and with a most deli-cate hand or the result will be a cloyingindigestible mass. Howard is quite aban-doned in his use of crescendos and di-minuendos both within phrases and inmore extended passages. He asks thechoir to use a whole range of tricks: sud-den staccato attacks, for instance, em-phasize the meaning and contour of in-dividual lines which taken out of contextmight sound like the awful Fred Waringchoral arrangements of my youth. Butall the devices are subordinate to How-ard's idea of the whole piece, which hasa shape, form, and passion all its own in

his interpretation. The diction and in-tonation of the chorus are magnificent.

One final note dims an otherwise glo-rious picture. The texts of these workswere very important to the composersand they are essential to an understand-ing of the music itself but not a word isincluded in this rather expensive package.For the really assiduous, I can reportthat both texts and music are available(in libraries only, I fear) in Vol. I ofBryd's Collected Works and, for Tallis,in Vol. 6 of the series Tudor ChurchMusic. Oiseau-Lyre has done a grave dis-service to Messrs. Tallis, Byrd, and How-ard by omitting the texts, but I hopetheir message will come through to youin spite of it. S.T.S.

recitals c&miscellanyVICTORIA DE LOS ANGELES: "Span-ish Folk Songs." Victoria de los Ange-les, soprano; Miguel Zanetti, piano; Os-car Ghiglia, guitar; Jean-Claude Gerard,flute; Annie Challan, harp; Trio a CordesFrancais. Angel S 36716, $5.98.

Another delight from this charming art-ist. The notes tell us that Federico Garcia

Lorca took down thirteen of these folk -songs, mainly in Andalusia, and scoreda simple and authentic accompanimentfor them. They have a fragile appeal andare handled in the singer's gentle man-ner, with a piano accompaniment tomatch. There are two songs here com-posed by De Falla and they call De-bussy to mind. The first one is a courtlyperiod piece for solo voice with stringtrio, harp, and flute; the second, a son-net to the words of Gongora accom-panied by harp alone.

But the eye-opener of the record is thecollection of ten Sephardic Songs, ar-ranged by Manual Valls and sung inthe ancient Jewish dialect of Spain. Whenthe Jews were expelled from Spain in1492, they took with them all over theMediterranean (and even to the Nether-lands) a form of the Castilian tongue anda melodic tradition with strong elementsfrom Moorish and Christian Spain. TheSephardic communities ("Sefarad" wasthe Jewish word for Spain) preserved thismusic for centuries and, so says the an-notator, the phonetic softness of fifteenth -century Spanish speech now survivesonly in the Jewish tradition. It is fascinat-ing melody to follow and to speculateupon: a form of musical archeologymost pleasing to the ear. G.M.

GOR KIPNIS: "Austrian Music for-larpsichord and Clavichord." MOZART:Twelve Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-

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je, maman," K. 265; Minuets (5), K.1-5. POGLIETTI: Canzona and Capric-cio on the Cackle of the Hen and theCrowing of the Rooster. FUX: Ciacconain D. BEETHOVEN: Six Variations on"Nel cor pi6 non mi sento," WoO. 70.FROBERGER: Suite No. 26, in B minor.HAYDN: Sonata No. 13, in G (Hob.XVI /6). Igor Kipnis, harpsichord andclavichord. Odyssey Y 30289, $2.98.

How can one adequately extol the charmof this sensitively played harpsichord/clavichord collection? The best I cando is to briefly describe the contents andurge the reader to sample the delightsfor himself.

Kipnis has gathered a variety of pieces,mostly lightweight in character, span-ning about 150 years from the mid -seventeenth to late eighteenth centuries;the unifying factor is that the composersall lived and worked in Vienna at onetime or another. The Froberger suiteand the Fux ciaccona aspire to a some-what loftier purpose than the other ma-terial, and provide just the right amountof weight to balance the whimsical Pog-lietti evocation of cackling hens androosters and the six -year -old Mozart'sminuets. The Mozart set of variationstwinkles nicely, while the Beethoven isfilled with warmth and love. In the lastBeethoven variation Kipnis accomplishesthe most startlingly beautiful crescendo -decrescendo effect I've ever heard on an"inexpressive" harpshichord-whether bythe gradual adding and retiring of a setof strings or by a subtle manual change

breathtaking, however it was done.Kipnis plays the Froberger, Haydn,

and Mozart early pieces on an unidenti-fied clavichord and draws from this del-icately expressive instrument all the ten-der, lyrical charm that only a clavichordis capable of supplying. Even the Mozartminuets, which are really quite sillypieces when performed on a piano, havequite a different effect here. But in theFroberger sarabande and in the Haydnadagio one has the feeling that Kipnisis speaking straight from the heart tothe listener with no interfering mechani-cal contrivances. Only a singer is, on rareoccasions, able to communicate so di-rectly and so intimately, and the effecthere is quite unforgettable. A large shareof the praise must go to the engineerswho have produced the most nearly suc-cessful recording of a clavichord I'veever heard. Somehow they've managedto retain the close-up intimacy of theinstrument without making it seem larg-er than life. It helps, of course, to loweryour own volume control somewhat, butthe recorded level is already lower thanon the harpsichord side. The harpsichord,by the way, is Kipnis' own 1961 Rut-kowski & Robinette, a beautifully warm -sounding instrument in the eighteenth -century French tradition, and is similar-ly recorded with an ideal balance be-tween close-up clarity and realistic per-spective. Every detail of this sensitivelyproduced recording is thoroughly cap-tivating and I cannot recommend itwarmly enough. C.F.G.


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repeatperformance A SELECTIVE GUIDE TO THE MONTH'S REISSUES

BEETHOVEN: Cantata on the Death ofthe Emperor Joseph II, WoO. 87. IlonaSteingruber (s), Alfred Poell (b); Aka-demiechor; Vienna Symphony Orches-tra, Clemens Krauss, cond. TurnaboutTV 34399, $2.98 (rechanneled stereoonly) [from Vox PL 6820 or Lyrichord107, 1950].

This is a useful reissue, if only becausethere are so few Clemens Krauss re-cordings left in the catalogue. Krauss,to my mind, extracts more of the Can-tata's somber, Brahmsian qualities thanThomas Schippers, who is rather pedanti-cally dry and metronomic on his de-leted CBS version (undoubtedly due toreappear on Columbia before long). Forsome weird reason, the Schippers per-formance is sung in Latin; the Turnaboutedition uses the original German text,adding another point in its favor. Ofcourse, the twenty -year -old rechanneledsound here is no match for CBS's modernengineering, but even at that, the disc isperfectly listenable. For the time beingthough, anyone who wants to add thisremarkable early Beethoven work to hiscollection has no other choice.

BRITTEN: Serenade, Op. 31; Les Illumi-nations, Op. 18. Peter Pears, tenor;Barry Tuckwell, horn; London Sym-phony Orchestra (in the Serenade);English Chamber Orchestra (in Les Il-luminations), Benjamin Britten, cond.London OS 26161, $5.98 [the Sere-nade from London CS 6398, 1964; LesIlluminations from London OS 26032,1967].BRITTEN: The Young Person's Guide tothe Orchestra, Op. 34; Variations on aTheme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10. Lon-don Symphony Orchestra (in TheYoung Person's Guide); English Cham-ber Orchestra (in the Bridge Variations),Benjamin Britten, cond. London CS6671, $5.98 [The Young Person's Guidefrom London CS 6398, 1964; theBridge Variations from London OS26032, 1967].

London has arranged these four Brittenperformances into a more logical se-quence, coupling the two orchestral songcycles on one disc and the two sets ofvariations onto another. Devotees of thecomposer will need both recordings re-gardless of the ordering-all four worksare immediately attractive, while Pears'ssensitive singing, Britten's incisive con-ducting, and the superb orchestral workmake these versions definitive. The cy-cles are musically more substantial per-haps, but the heady élan of The YoungPerson's Guide and the precocious witof the early Bridge variations are diffi-

cult to resist especially when so spar-klingly played and brilliantly recorded.

ELGAR: Pomp and CircumstanceMarches, Op. 39. BLISS: Suite: Thingsto Come; March: Welcome to theQueen. London Symphony Orchestra,Sir Arthur Bliss, cond. Stereo TreasurySTS 15112, $2.98 [from RCA VictorLSC 2257, 1958].

Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marchesare virtually foolproof: each one con-tains such fine, gratefully written tunesthat even the most jaded orchestral mu-sician can hardly fail to respond withequal amounts of vigor and enthusiasm.Perhaps Barbirolli's versions on Angelare a shade crisper and more striding,but at the asking price, Bliss's perform-ances leave little to be desired.

Sir Arthur's own contributions on Side2 are less distinctive but the suite fromthe H. G. Wells film has its modest at-tractions and the beefy, red-bloodedmarch, written in Bliss's capacity as Mas-ter of the Queen's Music (a welcome -home tribute to Queen Elizabeth afterher 1954 Commonwealth tour), is aworthy follower in the Elgarian tradi-tion. Excellent, robust sound.

MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde. Ker-stin Thorborg, mezzo; Charles Kullman,tenor; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,Bruno Walter, cond. Perennial 2004,$6.00 (mono only; available from theRecord Undertaker, P.O. Box 437, NewYork, N.Y. 10023) [from Columbia M300, 1936].

This recording, the first of Walter's threeDas Lieds, is that of a live performancein Vienna on May 24, 1936. In his linernotes, Steven Smolian presents a per-ceptive and well -reasoned case for itsbeing the finest of the three. Opinionswill differ, of course, but there is nomistaking the special qualities of Wal-ter's propulsive reading: the conductorpoints up the harmonic, rhythmic, andinstrumentational angularities of Mahler'sscore far more than in his later Londonand Columbia versions, which sound al-most sentimentalized in comparison. Amost revealing view of Walter before hiscanonization as a "musical saint."

I'm not entirely convinced by the solo-ists, although they are clearly immersedin the mood of the music. Patzak,Hafliger, and Wunderlich, for instance,seem far superior to Kullman both interms of sheer tonal allure and textualpenetration; Thorborg begins weakly, butshe does give an extraordinarily con-trolled, movingly inflected account of the

long Abschied movement. The sound,naturally enough, occasionally under-mines the over-all excellence of the VPO,but the dubbing has been accomplishedwith care and considerable skill. Studentsof Mahler and his principal "disciple"should hasten to acquire this valuablereissue.

MOZART: Concerto for Violin and Or-chestra, No. 4, in D, K. 218. MEN-DELSSOHN: Concerto for Violin and Or-chestra, in E minor, Op. 64. JaschaHeifetz, violin; Royal Philharmonic Or-chestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond.Seraphim 60162, $2.98 (mono only)[the Mozart from RCA Victor LM 1051,1947; the Mendelssohn from RCA VictorLM 9016, 1949].

The combination in this music of Heifetzand Beecham could hardly fail to pro-voke beautiful sounds: the Mozart is allelegance and suavity, infused with a dis-arming lyrical sweetness and sentiment;the Mendelssohn shares these qualities,as well as an added measure of romanticpassion thatexpansive character. The tone is one ofmilk and honey served up in the mostcivilized and cultivated fashion. For somereason the 1947 conics in the Mozartsound fuller and more contemporarythan those of 1949, but the engineeringin each case is more than satisfactory.

PROKOFIEV: Concerto for Piano andOrchestra, No. 5, in G, Op. 55; Sonatafor Piano, No. 8, in B flat, Op. 84;Visions fugitives, Op. 22: Nos. 3, 6, and9. Sviatoslav Richter, piano; WarsawPhilharmonic Orchestra, Witold Rowicki,cond. (in the concerto). Deutsche Gram-mophon 2538 073, $6.98 [the concertofrom Deutsche Grammophon 138075,1960; the sonata from Deutsche Gram-mophon 138766. 1962; the Visions fu-gitives from Deutsche Grammophon138950, 1965].

The material on this disc never actuallyleft the catalogue, but DGG has nowwisely repackaged it to form an all-Prokofiev concert. Richter's playing ofthe concerto is stunning-graceful andcolorful, yet clean -lined and sparklinglyarticulate. Rowicki's springy accompani-ment is perfect, while the crystalline re-production faithfully mirrors the fineperformance. The gnarled Eighth Sonatais probably the composer's most denselypacked composition for solo piano andRichter endows this problematical scorewith shape, logic, and considerable elo-quence. For a brief encore there are the


three little Visions fugitives from a liveconcert. A superb disc in every way.

PROKOFIEV: Sinfonia Concertante forCello and Orchestra, Op. 125. MstislavRostropovich, cello; Royal PhilharmonicOrchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond.Seraphim S 60171, $2.98 [from Capi-tol 7121, 1958].

Prokofiev's last major work, the SinfoniaConcertante, is essentially a revision ofthe 1938 Cello Concerto with lots ofextra padding. Not a strong piece in anycase, it really takes a virtuoso like Ros-tropovich to make the music sound con-vincing. The cellist almost succeeds here,although he is not helped much by Sar-gent's lumpish conducting. Both Rostro-povich's older mono disc with Sanderling(Monitor or MK) and Samuel Mayes'sversion with Leinsdorf and the BSO(RCA) are preferable in this respect, butthe former has very faded sonics and thelatter offers a dullish account of thesolo part. So in view of Seraphim's budg-et price, the sturdy engineering, and ex-cellent playing from Rostropovich, thiscurrent reissue wins by default. The bar-gain might have been made more attrac-tive had a filler been found for Side 2,which only lasts ten minutes.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Concerto for Piano andOrchestra, No. 1, in B flat minor, Op.23. Vladimir Horowitz, piano; NBC Sym-phony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini,cond. RCA Victrola VIC 1554, $2.98(mono only) [from RCA Victor LCT1012, 1941].

Both the Horowitz/Toscanini versions ofthe Tchaikovsky First are now listedsomewhere in Mr. Schwann's dizzyingcollection of supplementary catalogues,and the collector can make his ownchoice between these two mono classics-or get both if he is curious. Victrola'scurrent reissue is the 1941 Carnegie Hall"studio" recording while RCA LM 2319documents the Carnegie Hall "live" per-formance of 1943. Either one is an in-dispensable supplement to any of theinnumerable fine modern versions: thisdynamic partnership galvanizes and re-vitalizes the old warhorse with suchvigorous musical excitement that all otherreadings pale in comparison. Perhaps thein -concert performance is a shade moreoverwhelming as a totality, but the Vic-trola disc, sounding quite good for itsyears, will do very nicely.

WAGNER: Lohengrin. Eleanor Steber(s), Astrid Varnay (s), Wolfgang Wind-gassen (t), Hermann Uhde (b), HansBraun (b), Josef Greindl (bs); Chorusand Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival,Joseph Keilberth, cond. Richmond RS65003, $14.90 (five discs, mono only)[from London A 4502, 1953].

My delight at seeing the 1953 Bayreuth

JUNE 1971

Lohengrin back in circulation was con-siderably dampened after playing thefirst couple of sides: Richmond's re -

mastering here is not up to the label'susual high standards. While the originalLondon issue may not have been a

pinnacle of engineering art (even theirParsifal of 1951 sounds richer and morespacious), the agreeable mono sonics pre-sented a reasonable facsimile of thefamed Bayreuth acoustics; the new discs,however, are afflicted by a general out -of -focus watery ambience, occasional dis-tortion, and a slight but audible high -frequency hum. Perhaps the high-levelrecutting is partly to blame-any flawson the master tape would automaticallybe emphasized under these conditions.

Too bad-the performance is a fineone, comparable in most respects toAngel's later stereo version. The ladiesare especially good. Steber's luscioussoprano was at its ripest during theseyears and she floats Elsa's lines with un-failing tonal beauty, poise, and character.Varnay's Ortrud may not be as evenlysung as Christa Ludwig's on Angel, buther mordant portrait of this vicious,scornful, scheming woman is really amagnificent piece of work. Windgassensounds well as Lohengrin-a little squareand sluggish here and there perhaps-while Uhde's forthright Telramund,Greindl's solid King Heinrich, andBraun's Herald are competent if vocallyunexceptional. Bayreuth's orchestra wasmade up of Germany's finest players inthose days, and Keilberth takes advantageof the fact, obtaining a dramatically aliveand warmly expansive reading.

JAN PEERCE: "Wonderful World Fa-

vorites." Bluebird of Happiness; ADream; Kashmiri Song; When You andI Were Young, Maggie; Song of Songs;May the Good Lord Bless and KeepYou; Bless This House; Silver ThreadsAmong the Gold; Ah, Sweet Mystery ofLife; Because; Oh Promise Me; Sing,Everyone, Sing. Jan Peerce, tenor; var-ious orchestras and cond. RCA Vic-trola VIC 1553, $2.98 (mono only)[from various RCA Victor originals, re-corded between 1945-51].

Any tenor worth his salt is invariablyasked to record lots of Kitsch and Peercehas certainly had his innings before themicrophone. All of this cornball stuffwas taped twenty to twenty-five yearsago, which makes little difference as faras the Peerce voice is concerned: if hehad recorded this collection yesterday, itwould probaby sound much the same.Each song gets the same dignified, open-hearted treatment-even in those sac-charine mid -verse talk-overs ("It's a lifeof smiles, and a life of tears; It's a lifeof hope, and a life of fears . . .," etc.),Peerce never condescends to the ma-terial. The sound is variable but decentenough; my "unwarpable" Dynaflex discwas so warped that the tone arm refusedto track. PETER G. DAVIS

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thetape BY R.D. DARRELL

deckThe New Realism. There has been littlereason to repeat my recent fanfarescelebrating the open reel's new lease onlife. That renaissance, which started offso well late last year, has made relativelylittle progress. Ampex continues to re-lease only a few Angel, DGG, and Lon-don programs in reel format; the flowof RCA 33/4-ips tapes-so far devotedto reissues of best-seller programs avail-able earlier in 71/2-ips versions-hasslackened; while Columbia's few recentreels have been confined exclusively topop programs. That discographic bible,the Schwann catalogue, accurately re-flects the situation in its new tape list-ings by recognizing only cartridge andcassette formats-a decision justified bypowerful economic factors.

An even greater problem for reelcollectors is in obtaining current as wellas past releases from local dealers. Po-tential purchasers even in large metro-politan areas have trouble finding whatthey want; those in smaller towns oftenfind ordering by mail equally unsatis-factory. Various mail-order "clubs"sometimes fill in this distribution gap,but there still remains a genuine needfor Ampex's new "Reel -By -Mail -Service"that promises shipment the same dayorders are received. Limited of courseto Ampex -produced tapings-and even atthat to a selected repertory-this serviceis not intended to compete with retaildealers who carry comprehensive tapestocks, but simply to provide a sourcefor collectors who are without easy accessto a dealer. For information, write toAmpex Stereo Tape Service, 1000 SunsetRidge Road, Northbrook, Ill. 60062.

AstroStereo: Still Flying. One type ofopen -reel production still going strongis that featuring American Airlines' three-hour -long 33/4-ips "AstroStereo" pro-grams. Since I last reported on theseextraordinary musical cornucopias therehave been two new "classical" examples,programmed as well as announced byWQXR's Bill Watson, and outstandingfor their musical substance as well asvariety (Ampex CW 231 and CW 235,$23.95 each). The former features rela-tively recent recordings from the Deccacatalogue, including some unexpectedcontemporary works by Schuman, Men-nin, and Webern, as well as "standards"by Mendelssohn (Son and Stranger Over-ture), Tchaikovsky (Sixth Symphony),Bizet (Symphony in C), and Faure (aconsiderable part of the Requiem); plusolder pieces by Bach, Couperin, and LePetit. The performers include conduc-tors Rudolf and Waldman, the New YorkPro Musica ensemble, and soloists An-dres Segovia and Sylvia Marlowe.

1 he CW 235 reel of mostly recentPhilips/Mercury/World Series recordingsboasts two real novelties: the RichardStrauss Parergon on Symphonia Domes-tica themes and George TempletonStrong's Chorale on a Theme of Hassler.The "standards" are Beethoven's SeventhSymphony and the Op. 31, No. 1, PianoSonata, and Bartok's Music for StringInstruments, Percussion, and Celesta.Older repertories are represented byBach's S. 1007 Cello Sonata, Vivaldi'sP. 143 Concerto for Strings, Loeillet'sFlute Concerto in D, Telemann's Re-corder Concerto in C, and two Solerharpsichord sonatas. The performers in-clude conductors Alessandro, Barshai,Hanson, Dorati, and Marriner; soloistsare Arrau, Somer, Starker, Puyana, Ram -pal, and Krainis.

Up Against the Wall. Since the state ofthe real world is so much worse than thereel world, it's hardly surprising thatmost contemporary composers feel thatthey lead lives of true desperation-which in their case need not be asquiet, or as inarticulate, as those of uswho have less talent for self-expression.Perhaps no other age but our own couldhave produced music like Shostakovich'sFourteenth Symphony, in which he car-ries the Dostoyevskyan despair-andnear-Dostoyevskyan eloquence-of theThirteenth (Babi Yar) Symphony to aneven more intense pitch of poignance.Whether it's the personal protest of anartist imprisoned in a totalitarian state(as some musical Kremlinologists main-tain) or merely a protest against uni-versal human predicaments, it's a pro-foundly disturbing psychological docu-mentation of how this one-time saucy"bad boy" of music has grown. The workis a unique kind of song -symphony, basedon texts by Apollinaire, Lorca, Rilke, andthe comparatively obscure Kiichelbecker.It is scored for bass and soprano soloistswith an instrumental ensemble of stringsand percussion; the work's demands aremet with impressive authority by YevgenyVladimirov and Margarita Miroshnikovawith the Moscow Chamber Orchestraunder Rudolf Barshai (Melodiya/Angelcassette 4XS 40147, $6.98; text leaflet onrequest). The very antithesis of "easy"or cheery listening, this work providessuch a powerfully gripping emotionalexperience that only fanatical audiophilesmay pause to appreciate the timbralvariety and vividness captured in a mu-sicassette which surely is a close sonicreplica-with its touch of high -frequencyoverintensity-of the disc edition.

A younger contemporary composer,Luciano Berio, not only experiments withelectronic music but also develops new

and daring ways of writing for conven-tional instruments, the better to burst the"limitations" under which musical com-position has long existed. Conservativelisteners well may find Berio's linkedSequenza VI, Chemins II and /// pro-gram (a kind of apotheosis of thetremolo-first for viola alone, then inchamber -ensemble and full -orchestra"transformations") only too representa-tive of today's nervous tensions. Certain-ly even the more sophisticated will findthis an ultrastrenuous aural workout. Butthe dramatically powerful performance(by violist Walter Trampler with theJuilliard Ensemble and London Sym-phony Orchestra under the composer'sdirection) holds spellbinding sonic fas-cinations (RCA Red Seal cassette RK1167, $6.95).

Escapes to the Near or Far Past. How-ever valid the Shostakovich and Berio re-flections of the current human conditionmay be, most home (and mobile) lis-teners want no part of anything that re-minds them of the troubles and fears oftheir quotidian lives. What else can ac-count for the recent success of ultra -romantic films like Love Story and Songof Norway? Devotees of the latter, orof Grieg's engagingly lyrical music be-fore it was mass -popularized, can relaxcomfortably with "Grieg's Greatest HitsMade Popular in Song of Norway," anRCA anthology (cassette RK 1174; 8 -track cartridge, R8S 1174; $6.95 each)which comprises the complete Cliburn/Ormandy 1969 version of the Piano Con-certo, the March of the Dwarfs andthree Peer Gynt excerpts (one with EileenFarrell) conducted by Fiedler, the Nor-wegian Dance No. 2 conducted by Gould,and the considerably older Mario Lanzaperformances of I Love Thee and theWright -Forest Strange Music. For en -route cartridge listening, in particular,all this is pleasant enough tonal escapismexcept for the misguided revival ofLanza's two incredibly vulgar examplesof vocal exhibitionism.

For myself, I usually find that yester-day, or even the nineteenth century,doesn't provide enough psychic distancefrom the present. Going further back is atonce a more complete escape and a kindof time -shift opportunity for a wider anddoubled view: a way of seeing todayfrom the perspective of the past as wellas seeing the past from the perspectiveof later centuries. The seventeenth andearly eighteenth centuries were particular-ly rich in grandly ceremonial musicwhich at its best gives present-day lis-teners a remarkable sense of timelessnessand infinite space. Listen, for example,to the magnificent works for trumpetand organ in the collection "La TrombaSacra" by Adolf Scherbaum and WilhelmKrumbach (DGG cassette 3300 020,$6.98). Except for Purcell, the com-posers' names will be unfamiliar, butthe eloquence and nobility of these so-natas da chiesa combined with the ex-pansive ambience for the soaring hightrumpet and pealing organ will prove tobe incomparably thrilling.


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Toronto -A New Nashville?LAST JANUARY 18 the Canadian Radioand Television Commission-the govern-ing agency of Canadian broadcasting-effected a regulation that went unnoticedin the United States, except by people inthe record industry. But, almost certainly,its effects are soon going to be felt allover the continent in the form of a newwave of music from Canada.

The CRTC's ruling requires that hence-forth thirty per cent of the music playedon Canadian radio be Canadian. At pres-ent, any of four criteria will qualify arecord as "Canadian content": words by aCanadian; music by a Canadian; per-formance by a Canadian; or productionof the record in Canada. A year fromnow, a disc will have to meet two of thestandards to qualify. The impact of theruling has been the instant overexposureof Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfooton Canadian radio stations. Still, theauguries are that the ruling will in timemake Toronto a major recording center,and new studios are already being builtin or near the city by both independentoperators and the major American andEuropean record companies. Columbia,for example, will put a large new plantinto operation here early this summer.

Canada's radio stations are, by andlarge, unhappy about the ruling. LikeAmerican stations, they've been quitecontent with a passive money -makingprogramming based on record salescharts. And that has meant mostly musicfrom the U.S. Canadian artists hadn'ta hope of exposure unless they were re-corded in the United States by an Ameri-can company. This has meant, over theyears, a constant drain of Canadian tal-ent. Robert Farnon lives in England; sonow does Maynard Ferguson. RobertGoulet and Percy Faith live in the UnitedStates. Joni Mitchell had no big successin Canada until her songs became famousin the United States. The same can besaid of Leonard Cohen. When Anne Mur-ray was being interviewed on a Canadiantelevision show recently, she was toldthat Canadian disc jockeys had giventremendous support to her recording ofSnowbird. "Yeah," she said matter-of-factly, "after it had sold 500,000 copiesin the States."

All that has changed. Indeed, U.S.country-and-western singer George Ham-ilton IV now comes to Toronto to record.(Canada has long had a big country-and-western music movement, though itmight better be called country -and -east-ern, since much of it emanates from theAtlantic provinces.) And Ian and Sylvia,both Canadians, now say they'll recordin Toronto, rather than Nashville.

Jazz composer, arranger, and saxo-phonist Gerry Mulligan and his actresswife, Sandy Dennis, are thinking seri-ously of taking residence for at least partof each year in Toronto, where Mulligan

is tentatively set to begin work on thescore of a musical. Indeed, Miss Dennishas made four films in Canada in recentyears, an indication of the possibility thatpart of the film industry may be takingresidence north of the border too. Varietyrecently reported that fifty-six featurefilms will be shot in Canada in the nextyear, and Vancouver is showing signs ofbecoming a motion picture center. Thismeans film -scoring, and that is furtherincreasing the quantity of recording beingdone in Canada.

Americans are little aware of the con-tribution Canadians have made over theyears to the American arts, includingfilms. Canada has contributed notablesfrom Mack Sennett and Marie Dressler toWilliam Shattner and Donald Sutherland.Chad Mitchell, Hank Snow, and, yes,Guy Lombardo were born in Canada, aswere sundry members of the Mamas andPapas, Buffalo Springfield, Steppenwolf,the Lovin' Spoonful, Blood, Sweat andTears, and The Band. Lighthouse and theGuess Who are Canadian groups.

theleesside

But all sought and found their successin the United States. Then, and onlythen, would Canadians accept them.There is little doubt that Oscar Petersonand Glenn Gould, both Canadians, wouldnot have the celebrity they enjoy in Cana-da had they not first been marked okayby American listeners and critics. (Gouldand Peterson both live in Toronto.)

Now Canada is launching its own art-ists, and exporting their records, ratherthan the people, to the U.S. And a gooddeal of talent is coming home, partlybecause of the improved creative climatein Canada and partly because of disillu-sion with life in the United States thesedays.

One of these is Dennis Murphy, ayoung independent producer who spentseveral years with Elektra Records inNew York. "There was nowhere to learnhere when I left," he says. "Now Canadahas become an exciting place to breaka record."

When he left three years ago therewere insufficient recording facilities. Notso now. He says there are five studiosthat can stand up to almost anything inthe United States.

The city has something else it lackeda few years ago: a body of superb studiomusicians, comparable to those of Los

Angeles and New York City, some ofthem reportedly earning more than$100,000 a year.

Glenn Gould cautiously agrees withthose who think Toronto may be on itsway to becoming a major musical cen-ter. "What I can see," he says, "what Ithink must be, is a decentralization ofall recording, not only as an emergencymeasure, but as a means of restoringsome sort of reality." Significantly,Gould has negotiated a new contractwith Columbia Records: excepting ses-sions with symphony orchestras, he willnow make all his recordings in Toronto.

RCA Canada Ltd. has boosted itsCanadian recording budget from $2,000a month last year to $5,000 a monththis year. Columbia has boosted its budg-et for English -language recordings aswell.

But the two most active recordingprograms are being carried on by thebroadcasting industry itself-one by theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation, thepublicly owned national broadcastingnetwork, and the other by an organiza-tion called the Canadian Talent Library.The CBC has made fifteen albums inthe last six months, most of them thework of a gifted young producer and pia-nist named Dave Bird. The CTL hasmade twenty albums in the last year.CTL is financed and supported by 204radio stations. Both CBC and CTL re-cordings were originally made as trans-scriptions for radio use, but the CBC hasstarted leasing some of its product torecord companies for public release andCTL now has a commercial label.

You can feel the excitment in theToronto musical world-a sense of op-timism and of going forward. Nor is itconfined to the record industry. Torontohas developed a tremendously vital live-music scene as well. Within a few recentweeks, for example, Toronto was able tosee and hear Peggy Lee, the Woody Her-man and Stan Kenton bands, concerts byRod McKuen, Leonard Cohen, and TonyBennett, the jazz groups of Al Cohnand Zoot Sims, Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt,Cannonball Adderley, Junior Mance,James Moody, Freddy Hubbard, OscarPeterson, and Bill Evans, All this in ad-dition to the classical music scene, whichis itself an active one.

Why is there so much more live musicin Toronto than in New York? The rea-son, probably, is that people aren't afraidto walk the streets at night, or go intothe midtown entertainment area. Thecity's center has not decayed, as havethe centers of so many American cities.

The feeling in the Toronto musicbusiness is that the city is on its way tobeing another Nashville, only one witha broader musical base, for all kinds ofmusic is being written, played, and re-corded here. GENE LEES


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thelighter

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JOHN GABREE

JOHN S. WILSON

* symbol denotes

an exceptional recording

104

NO, NO, NANETTE. Original cast re-cording. Ruby Keeler, Patsy Kelly, JackGilford, Bobby Van, Helen Gallagher,and Susan Watson. Columbia S 30563,$5.98.

Vincent Youman's score for No, No,Nanette bubbles with melody and in-cludes two of the great pop songs of thecentury-/ Want to Be Happy and Teafor Two --along with a couple of pleas-ant surprises. This musical, which firstturned up on Broadway in 1925 after aforty -nine -week run in Chicago, has morebasic, happy, communicable songs in itthan we usually find in contemporarymusicals.

The fact that most of the songs soundmore or less alike does not necessarilydetract from the pleasure of hearing thebright and lively score. The prototypicalmelody is the opening song, Too ManyRings Around Rosie, which establishes abouncy -bouncy -bounce style that echoesthrough I've Confessed to the Breeze;No, No, Nanette; Waiting for You; andYou Can Dance With Any Girl (the lat-ter, however, is given some differentiationby the resilient singing of Bobby Van).I Want to Be Happy and Tea for Twoalso ring some variations on the bouncybeat. The only song that breaks out ofthe general mold is "Where Has MyHubby Gone" Blues, which Helen Gal-lagher turns into a definitive demonstra-tion of a Twenties' torch song.

Despite all this, the recording can con-vey only a dim idea of the impressionthat this current staging of No, No, Nan-ette makes in the theater. The wonder-fully sunny colors with which RaoulPene du Bois has drenched the produc-tion are missing of course. The pano-ramic parades of Busby Berkeley chorusgirls are evoked only when a chorus oftap dancers suddenly start rat -tat -tattinglike rhythmic machine guns during IWant to Be Happy.

The essential loss in the transfer, how-ever, is the period aura that comes part-ly from telling touches in the librettobut most importantly from the presencein the cast of Ruby Keeler and PatsyKelly. On this recording, Miss Kelly isrepresented by only two lines, raspedout in her file -scraping voice. Miss Keelerhas a few more lines, a part of one song(she still sings with more expression thanshe can put into her spoken lines), anddoes a tap dance to I Want to Be Happy(something that is better seen than heard).

J.S.W.

JIMI HENDRIX: The Cry of Love. JimiHendrix, vocals and guitar; instrumen-tal accompaniment. (Freedom; Drifting;Ezy Ryder; Astro Man; Angel; fivemore.) Reprise MS 2034, $5.98. Tape:

M 82034, $6.95; MB M 52034,$6.95.

Like Janis Joplin's last album, JimiHendrix's final LP is something of a dis-appointment, especially because his talentwas more considerable. Hendrix, afterall, is the man who gave us a recordthat, for almost everyone who cares about

rock, ranks among the several greatestalbums. And he was so consistently in-novative throughout his career that atape of his first major appearance, at the1967 Monterey Festival, could manageto be one of the more interesting re-leased last year.

Hendrix's fascination with Dylan leadshim into what seems to be unconsciousparody on My Friend, which doesn'twork even though he gives it everythinghe has. For the rest, the songs are gen-erally not worthy of the performance,nor does the star receive the kind ofsupport he deserves. Hendrix also seemsto have been listening to Sly Stone, whoseinfluence is not a pernicious one. A fewof the songs are somewhat subdued, in-dicating that Hendrix may have beenmellowing like so many of his con-temporaries. There is not much new ordifferent here. But as the final statementof one of the few truly great performersthat rock has produced, it is one of themost important LPs of the year. J.G.

DAVID CROSBY: If I Could Only Re-member My Name. David Crosby, vo-cals and guitar. (Orleans; Laughing; Mu-sic Is Love; five more.) Atlantic SD7203, $4.98. Tape: le TP 7203, $6.95;4111 CS 7203, $6.95.

No one knows for sure whether the re-tirement of Crosby, Stills, Nash, andYoung is temporary or permanent. Cer-tainly the group is missed. On the otherhand, they're giving us powerful conso-lation in the form of separate albums:several Neil Young records are out; lastmonth Stephen Stills put out a superbalbum (joined by members of the formergroup); now David Crosby presents hisown effort, and it's excellent.

David Crosby was the romantic mem-ber of CSNY. He wrote most of theirbest ballads, such as Guinnevere; WoodenShips (written with Stills); Long TimeGone; and Deja Vu. Many tracks in thisset are in that same lissome, meltingmood: Cowboy Movie (over eight min-utes); Tama!pais High; Song With NoWords. There is also a moving, dramatic,highly personal study called Traction inthe Rain.

The last track, I'd Swear There WasSomebody Here, is a remarkable butunfortunately incomplete idea. It is aseries of overlayered, overlapped, elec.--tronically altered vocal tracks withoutwords. Under its spell, one hears influ-ences ranging from Gregorian chant toBerio to Ravel and all the way to rock.Crosby's brilliant and intricate sense ofharmony combined with his steady earand simple, earthen voice create in thismoment an exquisite, hopeless child's cryin the dark. The problem is that the trackdoesn't have a proper ending. It juststops with a jar, as if it had been thrownin half-baked to fill the remaining space.The album has much more music thanit has words, with many songs hummed,one track over the other.

These flaws are minor. David Crosby'snew album is certainly among the mostimportant of the current releases. It


David Croshl. Imam e. sensitive, romantic.

should be owned and known by thosewho are either captivated by or inter-ested in the more mature and sensitiveinfluences in pop music. M.A.

JOY OF COOKING. Toni Brown,

_-vocalsand keyboards; Terry

Garthwaite, vocals and guitar;rhythm accompaniment. (Hush; DownMy Dream; If Some God; Dancing Cou-ple; Red Wine at Noon; five more.)Capitol ST 661, $4.98.

Opportunities for women musicians areso rare that this record would be note-worthy even if it weren't terrific. Usu-ally, if they get to perform at all, womenare relegated to playing folk music(Baez, Collins, and Mitchell), to sexingit up (Janis Joplin), or to fronting a

band (Genya Ravan). Jackie De Shannonand Carol King, as well as such superbunknowns as Elyse Weinberg and Bar-bara Keith, would not have had to strug-gle nearly so hard to be heard had theybeen male. Grace Slick is the proverbialexception, the only woman in hard rockto attain secure superstar status.

Joy of Cooking, led by two women,is a five -piece band that has been gig-ging around the Bay area for the lastcouple of years. I don't know why theywaited so long to record. By the spit andpolish of this album, it's easy to see thatthey might have been prepared to makea first record long ago. The tunes, mostof them by Toni Brown, are inventive,and the playing of the sidemen solid.The band is paced by Brown's rollingpiano, but it is Terry Garthwaite's vig-orous vocals that hold it all together. Thesound is blues -tinged hard rock, with alittle country mixed in. The second-bestfirst album of 1971. J.G.

ARGENT: Ring of Hands. Argent, hardrock quartet. (Celebration; Sweet Mary;Chained; Rejoice; five more.) Epic E

30128, $4.98.

FACES: Long Player. Faces, hard rockquintet. (Bad 'n' Ruin; Tell Everyone;Richmond; On the Beach; Jerusalem;four more.) Warner Bros. 1892, $4.98.Tape: fla M 81892, $6.95; M51892, $6.95.

By now, I suppose, we are into our fourthor fifth generation of rock players. Rockhas been around long enough for groupsto be born, live normal lives, spawnwhole schools of successors, and die. Eachof the Beatles is on his own. The Buf-falo Springfield gave birth to Crosby,Stills, and Nash; Neil Young; Poco;Steve Stills; Crosby, Stills, Nash, andYoung; David Crosby, and soon, I hear,Graham Nash. Other groups, the Yard -birds, for example, have been as fertile.What's more, a number of musicians andgroups have proven that they can surviveas professional musicians without thestimulus of superstardom or massivesales. They do it by working hard, striv-ing to he as exciting and entertaining asthey can. Many of them-Poco, KeithReif. Livingston Taylor, Linda Ronstadt,Tracy Nelson, Grass Roots, First Edi-tion, Gordon Lightfoot, the Tremeloes,etc.-succeed admirably. Sometimesgroups like the Hollies and Kinks slipbelatedly over into something approach-ing the superstar category.

Having said all this, I wish I had nicerthings to say about the albums at hand,both products of two of my favorite rockpersonalities. Rod Stewart was the leadsinger for the Jeff Beck group (a Yard -birds spin-off) and turned out two of ihebest of last year's albums on his ownbefore joining up with Small Faces, afairly long-lived but relatively unknownBritish bard, on their last album. RodArgent was the leader of the Zombies,one of the most consistently satisfying ofthe B+ English groups until it broke upa couple of years ago. "Ring of Hands"is the second outing of the successorgroup.

Both albums are very workmanlike,and neither is really marred by any un-forgivable flaws (though Stewart doesengage in some histrionics on these liverecordings that he has never allowedhimself in the studio).

I can't imagine anyone disliking eitherrecord, nor probably will anyone getvery excited about them. Argent andFaces are both quite obviously talentedgroups, but neither album was able tocatch fire this time out. They wouldn'the out of place in any record collection,but they aren't likely to he worn outeither. J.G.

EUGENE ORMANDY: Love Story.Earl Wild, piano; Philadelphia Or-chestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond.

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Boston Pops, and since it apparentlyhasn't had too much success with Man-cini/Philadelphia Pops substitutes, Or-mandy and the Philadelphians are beingrushed to the rescue. But where light -symphonic specialists like Fiedler or, say.Carmen Dragon and Frederick Fennellcan persuade their listeners that theyreally relish playing quasi -pop fare, Or-mandy takes it so seriously and dutifullythat he just can't avoid giving the impres-sion of a kindly but condescending socialworker distributing charity to slumdwellers.

The gifts he bears are rich ones, to besure. His Philadelphians demonstrate thefull range of tonal glories for which theyare deservedly famous, with some ele-gant solo, as well as massed, string play-ing-all enhanced by well-nigh ideallyglowing stereoism. But score couturierArthur Harris has whipped up suchsumptuous Viennese/Hollywoodian cloth -of -gold costumes for the Lai, Lennon -McCartney, Legrand, Rota, and Grusincorn -fed ingenue tunes here that whenthe parade of such beautiful but dumbclotheshorses gives way to real musicalbeauty in the form of the Andante fromMozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 and theLiebestod from Wagner's Tristan andIsolde, even the latter inevitably take onan associative touch of artificiality orsleaziness. Anyway, my instinctive reac-tions shift scenes to a Fifth Avenue de-partment store front where an earnestwindow dresser, oblivious to a gapingsidewalk public, is dispassionately en-casing plastic mannequins in the lateststyles of hot pants. R.D.D.

OHIO KNOX. Peter Gallway, Vo-cals, guitar, and piano; rhythmaccompaniment. (Abigail Archer;

Land of Music; That Lady; Taking ItEasy; seven more.) Reprise RS 6435,$4.98.

It's been a heavy month for the releaseof meaningless albums by faceless popgroups, the Glass This and the MagentaThat. Ohio Knox is a blessed exception.

The group is headed by Peter Gallway,who sings, plays guitar and sometimespiano, and writes all the material. Gall -way is joined by a heavyweight rhythmsection made up of pianist Paul Harris(also a fine arranger); drummer DallasTaylor (who played for Crosby, Stills,Nash, and Young and other majorgroups); and bassist Ray Neapolitan, awell-known Los Angeles studio playerwho can handle anything but whoseheart is happiest in really good rock.Even the album photographs by GuyWebster are a dozen cuts above the usual.

Peter Gallway is a strong writer whocan work in several styles without losinghis individuality. There Comes a Time(with horns arranged by Paul Harris)touches on jazz; Give Me John Ford(with guest John Sebastian on harmonica)leans happily toward country; CalamityJane is in the best of mainstream rock;Baby Sox Knox nods to The Band. Myfavorite track is a lilting thing calledTaking It Easy. At times one hears a


heavy flash of Laura Nyro. Quite pos-sibly the tribute is deliberate, since it is

most evident in a tune called NorthCountry Laura. How refreshing to runinto an occasional artist who is notafraid to admit to his influences.

Peter Gallway and Ohio Knox cele-brate sunshine and happiness. They doit so well that it will draw you in likea special smile. The album is highlyrecommended. M.A.

AN ASTROMUSICAL ODYSSEY: SoundsGalactic. Unidentified chorus, orches-tra, and sound effects; John Keating,arr. and cond. (Theme from "2001";Spinning Wheel: Aquarius; Nocturne;Across the Universe; five more.) Lon-don SP Phase 4 44154, $5.98.

The come-ons here are the title andhandsome double -folder packaging soamply illustrated that there's no roomfor personnel identifications. There areno program annotations, either, butthat's reasonable: what could be saidabout these crude attempts to capitalizeon the fame of the already hackneyed200/ soundtrack? The opening StraussZarathustra "Sunrise" passages, plus thefilm's notion of what outer space mightsound like if it could transmit audio fre-quencies, are candid steals; most of therest is an immiscible concoction of eerieeffects with routine pop tune plugging.Worst of all is Kevin Martin's disar-rangement of Clair de lune, the tremu-lous vibe -rations of which must set De-bussy spinning in his grave. There's gen-uine animation only in a driving versionof Joe Meek's Telstar. But, for whatevercompensation they may provide, thesonics throughout are Phase 4's biggest,brightest, and most palpably solid.

R.D.D.

DON EVERLY. Don Everly, vocals, in-strumental accompaniment (Eyes ofAsia; My Baby; My Friend; Omaha;Safari; February 15th; five more.) Ode70 SP 77005, $4.98.TIM ROSE: Love, a Kind of Hate Story.Tim Rose, vocals; instrumental accom-paniment. (Dimlight; Sad Song; Sym-pathy; Ode to an Old Ball; Jamie Sue;five more.) Capitol ST 673, $4.98.

Don Everly and Tim Rose have been inthe pop business for a long time butthat is about their only point of simi-larity. Don is moonlighting from theEverly Brothers, one of the most success-ful rock acts of the late '50s and early'60s. Tim Rose was one of the leadersof the rock revival in New York in theearly '60s (out of which came JohnSebastian and the Lovin' Spoonful. TimHardin, Fred Neil, the Mamas andPapas, etc.), but somehow, despite sev-eral albums, success has eluded him.

Don Everly's album is delicate coun-try -flavored rock, so lovely and precisein fact that words like exquisite come tomind to describe it, even when it is

highly rhythmic. All of the tunes butthree-Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Don Gib -son's Sweet Dreams of You, and the

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Louvin Brothers' When I Slop Dreaming-are originals, and they are inventive inboth melody and lyric. The band in-cludes people like Ry Cooder, CurtisAmy, Chris Ethridge, Jim Keltner,Sneeky Pete, and Spooner Oldham.

Tim Rose is hard and craggy whereEverly is sweetness and light. He has arough, shouter's voice with which hedoes in fact shout his songs, most ofwhich are concerned with being unhappy.The band, unidentified, takes the samehard -edged approach as the leader. Lis-tening can be an exciting and unnervingexperience. Rose's albums have an un-relieved tension about them which somelisteners find unpleasant, but on the otherhand, a great deal of enjoyment can behad listening to these sad, raucous songs.The program includes several of his ownsongs, one by Peter Sarstead, and theBee Gees' I've Gotta Get a Message toYou. Rose's earlier LPs, on Columbia,are worth digging up, but "Love, a Kindof Hate Story" is his best yet. J.G.

jazzBENNY GOODMAN: Today. Benny Good-man, clarinet; Johnny McLevy andDerek Watkins, trumpets; Bill McGuffie,piano; orchestra. (Willow Weep for Me;String of Pearls; Roll 'Em; Blue Skies;fifteen more.) London Phase 4 SPB 21,$11.96 (two discs).

On the surface-that is, the surface pre-sented by the covers of this two -disc set-there seems to be no reason whateverfor one more set of recordings by BennyGoodman of his big hits of the SwingEra. The titles leap at you-Don't BeThat Way, Stealin' Apples, Sing SingSing-and the band, spread across a vastgreen lawn, stares at you. Why gothrough it all again with some band withwhich Benny "recorded live in Stock-holm"? Aside from this note, and the pic-ture, the titles, and the leader's name, weare given no more information on thejacket.

The set is not quite what it appears tobe, however. Yes, there are some of thosefamiliar arrangements, in most casesplayed with crisp competence by a bandGoodman picked up in England (al-though this is not mentioned anywhere)and recorded with the depth and presencefor which London Phase 4 is noted. Butthere is also considerably more.

The recording opens as though thiswere going to be a small group session,with two pieces-Sweet Georgia Brownand If I Had You-played by Bennyand a good rhythm section. Goodman'sclarinet sounds fresher and more happilyinvolved in the playing than his recordshave suggested in many, many years. BillMcGuffie's strong piano solos supplementhim. Then comes another quintet selec-tion, with Johnny McLevy on trumpet,before the full band finally appears toplay Stealin' Apples. For the rest of theway the warhorses are interspersed with

feature spots for Goodman's British side-men, as well as another quintet number,Poor Butterfly.

All told, this is the best appearanceBenny has made on records in a long,long time. J.S.W.

EARL HINES: All Star Session. EarlHines, piano; Muggsy Spanier, cornet;Darnell Howard, clarinet; Jimmy Archey,trombone; Pops Foster, bass; Earl Wat-kins, drums. (Mood Indigo; Pops'Blues; Baby, Won't You Please ComeHome; six more.) Jazz Trip 3, $4.98.

Out of the blue appears this sound ofEarl Hines from what might be consid-ered his dark decade, the Fifties, whenhe settled in San Francisco and-so faras the rest of the world was concerned-seemed to have disappeared. This is theonly recorded evidence of the superbband he led at the Hangover Club. Itwas previously released on the relativelyobscure Vintage Jazz Music label and,consequently, was probably unfamiliarto all but the most intrepid Hines col-lectors.

Jimmy Archey, one of the most ba-sically stirring trombonists in jazz and amusician who received too little attentionon recordings during his lifetime, is insplendid form all through the disc, com-plementing the freshness and enthusiasmof Hines and Muggsy Spanier. Some oftheir freshness comes from their playingof old material in new terms. Hines'sMonday Date leads off with sparklingsolos by Spanier and Darnell Howardbefore Hines comes swinging on. Similar-ly, Muggsy's familiar Relaxin' at theTouro is colored by the presence ofHines. Backing them up is a wonderfullybuoyant rhythm team-Pops Foster andEarl Watkins.

This is part of the first batch of re-leases on the Jazz Trip label (1135 WestElizabeth Ave., Linden, N.J. 07036, ifyou can't find them in stores). Two aremade up of air -play shots: "Webb on theAir" (JT 5) with the Chick Webb bandof 1940 (and Ella Fitzgerald), playingwith smooth, swinging power on BlueLou, Limehouse Blues, and the Webbtheme, Swing Out; and "Waller on theAir" (JT 4) with Fats and His Rhythmenthusiastically going through tunes hehas recorded many times, like Crazy'Bout My Baby, It's a Sin to Tell a Lie,and Honeysuckle Rose. On both of thesediscs, the low -fidelity air -check record-ing and the noisy surfaces require someaural adjustment. Once that has been ac-complished, the two sets, particularly theWebb, are rewarding.

The series also includes "Kings ofNew Orleans" (JT 2). On one side is aquartet led by Jimmie Noone in 1941and of interest only because of Noone.The other side features a band BunkJohnson led early in his 1944 comebackin San Francisco and, again, of interestessentially because of Johnson's presence.

And there is a set of Jelly Roll Mortonpiano rolls (JT 1) which seems to havebeen taken from the same rolls as therecently released Biograph 1004Q. There


10S HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

are striking differences in sound andtempos between the two releases. TheBiograph LP is bright and clear, withstrong presence, while Jazz Trip's soundis dim and muddy. The Biographs aregenerally slower than the Jazz Trips. TheBiograph sound is infinitely preferable.but I rather like the livelier Jazz Triptempos.

Jazz Trip apparently has access tosome fascinating material, but its re -mastering could be a lot better, At theasking price, there is no excuse for theshoddy material with which Jazz Trip ismaking its discs. J.S.W.

TURK MURPHY'S JAZZ BAND. LeonOakley, cornet; Turk Murphy, tromboneand washboard; Phil Howe, clarinet;Pete Clute, piano; Jim Maihack, tuba;Dick Speer, banjo. (Alligator Hop;Buddy's Habits; Swipesey Cakewalk;seven more.) Merry Makers 105, $5.00(Merry Makers Record Co., 945 LarkinSt., San Francisco, Calif. 94109).

This is, incredibly, the first recordingmade by Turk Murphy's band in tenyears and evidently the band has notchanged much. They still play at the SanFrancisco club, Earthquake McGoon's.and they still have the same brash, gutsystyle cued by Murphy's trombone attack.Leon Oakley is a strong, punching cor-netist, and Phil Howe's clarinet-bub-bling, twisting, singing, mellow-is amainstay all through the set. Pete Clutetakes some lighthearted piano solos anddoes a polished job on a lively versionof Blame It on the Blues.

It's a bright collection, studded withKing Oliver numbers. Murphy's bandmanages to hang loose even when it isputting out its typically heavy sound,which occasionally (on Alligator Hop)becomes a solid, flat-footed stomp thatalways gives me a mental vision of aband of ducks swinging down BourbonStreet in double time. J.S.W.

MAYNARD FERGUSON: M. F. Horn.Maynard Ferguson, trumpet, flugel-horn, and valve trombone; AlanDowney, Martin Drover, John Huck -ridge, and John Donnelly, trumpets;Billy Graham, Chris Pyne, and AlbertWood, trombones; Pete King, DannyMoss, Brian Smith, and Bob Watson,saxophones; Pete Jackson, piano;George Kish, guitar; Dave Lyanne, bass;Frank Ricotti, conga; Randy Jones,drums. (If I Thought You'd Ever ChangeYour Mind; Eli's Comin'; four more.)Columbia C 30466, $4.98.

This release is the work of an Englishband that Maynard Ferguson had beenleading for two years at the time of therecording. It's a big, solid, swinging bandthat has more depth and range than anyof the others that he had led in theStates. There are echoes of those Ameri-can bands in some of the shrill passagesthat turn up here, just as there are oc-casional echoes of Ferguson's days withKenton. These are very legitimate ek-

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ments in his growth and, taken in balanceand as colors, they contribute positivelyto this set.

What is most exciting in the disc, how-ever, is the polish and maturity withwhich Ferguson plays. This comes outmost strongly in the first two selections,Laura Nyro's Eli's Comin' and Ballad toMax, which give Ferguson opportunitiesto play valve trombone, trumpet, and flu-gelhorn in a middle range. This range isvastly superior to his shrieking high -notephases (and there are, unfortunately,some of those here too).

Stylistically, there is a lot of varietycrammed into these two sides-a touch ofraga on Chala Nata, some free -form dis-sonance on L-Dopa, some overblown pro-duction stuff on a very long (far, far toolong) MacArthur Park, and provocativesolos by Pete King on alto saxophone.There is some of the best playing herethat Ferguson has ever put on records.

J.S.W.

in briefJOHN MAYALL: Back To The Roots.Polydor 25-3002, $9.96 (two discs).It would be appropriate to call JohnMayall the British Paul Butterfield ifthe implications weren't so flattering toMayall. Butterfield, after all, is a masterof blues harp, while Mayall is merelypedestrian on his various instruments.And Butterfield, despite some personnelchanges over the years, has maintainedone of the finest contemporary bluesgroups while Mayall's publicists havebeen left trying to make a virtue of hisinability to hold a band together. Hisgroups have included some of the bestBritish rock stars, but rarely do theydo their best work while in his company.This latest outing with some of hisformer sidemen is no exception. Aboutone quarter of the four sides is interest-ing, not nearly enough to save the show.

J.G.

PORTER WAGONER AND DOLLY PAR -TON: Two of A Kind. RCA Victor LSP4490, $4.98.Dolly Parton is one of c & w's bettercomposers and she is also half of itsbest duo. Porter Wagoner is a funkymainstream c & w crooner. About athird of this month's batch of RCA'swarp -proof Dynaflex, superthin recordwafers were warped. Beware. J.G.

BESSIE SMITH: Empty Bed Blues. Co-lumbia G 20450, $4.98.Columbia's program of re-releasing theirpriceless Bessie Smith collection proceedsapace. Here are thirty-two from 1924and 1928, including Me and My Gin,House Rent Blues, and the title tune.

J.G.

MARY. Warner Bros. WS 1907, $4.98.This is ihe debut solo album of MaryTravers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Shecannot be said ro have the voice of thecentury. But a dozen or so years of work

and success have taught her a great dealabout what's important in singing. Thisis a sincere, warm, well -made, and al-together charming album. M.A.

JOE SIMON: The Sounds of Simon.Spring SPR 4701, $4.98.Joe Simon is highly regarded as sort ofa black Joe South. He is as subdued asJerry Butler but lacks his authority.Polished, but too polite. Includes YourTime to Cry, his latest hit. J.G.

STAPLE SINGERS. Stax STS 2034,$4.98.The Staple Singers-Pop and threedaughters-were rousing, committed gos-pel singers long before they saw thattheir survival called for the transitioninto secular music. This pop album isa little slick, but the group does a finejob. I can't help missing the gospel years.

M.A.

WANDA JACKSON: I've Gotta Sing. Cap-itol ST 669, $4.98.Wanda Jackson probably wouldn't beflattered if I called her the grand oldlady of c & w, but that's the way I thinkof her. Her singing is one of the thingsthat first attracted me to country music.This time out she offers readings of top -40 standards like Break My Mind, ThoseWere the Days, and Bridge Over Trou-bled Watery. Recommended. J.G.

CRAZY HORSE. Reprise 6438, $4.98.This is a good group, but not as goodwithout Neil Young as they were withhim. There are a lot of Crazy Horses andvery few Neil Youngs. M.A.

GENE CHANDLER & JERRY BUTLER:One & One. Mercury SR 61330, $4.98.Both of these artists, Jerry Butler es-pecially, have cults of devoted followerswho are treated every three or fourmonths to a disappointing album. Here'sanother, with two icemen for the priceof one. Butler's departure from Gamble -Huff still hasn't paid off. But buy thisanyway-even when he's not at his best,he's better than the rest. I don't jest.

J.G.

PETULA CLARK: Warm and Tender.Warner Bros. WS 1885, $4.98.What worked for Dusty Springfield andfor Lulu has now worked for Pet Clark-dropping her into soulful circumstances,that is. Carol King, Laura Nyro, CryLike A Baby, etc., on her best albumever. Arif Mardin produced. J.G.

THE RASCALS: Search and Nearness.Atlantic SD 8276, $4.98.I didn't pick up on the Rascals tillGroorin' and now they've lost me again.A very lackluster effort. J.G.

JOHN CALE & TERRY RILEY: Church ofAnthrax. Columbia C 30131, $4.98.Two of rock's presiding genii punch inwith a mostly instrumental effort thatfails to hang together. Mostly I suspectit's Cale's fault, despite his very success-ful recent vocal LP, because Riley hasdone this sort of thing quite well beforeby himself. Get the solo releases though;they are terrific. J.G.


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Oscilloscope pattern of the frequency response of the TEAC A-24 'Reprinted by permission from 197i) Tape Stereo Magazine)

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