TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1985) Music </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1985 Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> January 6, 1986 MUSIC BEST OF '85 </hdr> <body> Voices from the Past The Mapleson cylinders preserve some of opera's legendary stars Their voices float eerily across more than eight decades, ghostly echoes of a fabled operatic golden age: Nellie Melba, Emma Calve, Jean de Reszke, Lillian Nordica and others, recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera by an enterprising music lover armed with an Edison cylinder machine. The sound is strictly low-fi, the scratchy surface noise is sometimes overwhelming, and the tantalizing fragments often break off abruptly with a singer in mid-phrase. But listening to them is thrilling, like hearing Lincoln recite the Gettysburg Address. Between 1900 and 1904, the Met's London-born librarian, Lionel Mapleson, immortalized dozens of performances from his perch in the prompter's box and, later, from a catwalk 40 ft. above the stage. But then he abandoned the project, and the fragile, two-minute wax cylinders were left to decay and, in some cases, break and disappear. As early as 1938, collectors began preserving the priceless vocal treasures. Now a team of two critics and a recording engineer, under the auspices of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, the Performing Arts Research Center and the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, has heroically rescued all 134 of the surviving playable cylinders and issued them in a $100, six-record set available through the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Here is the effortless technique of Melba, formidable in the mad scene from a 1901 Lucia di Lammermoor. Here is the Italian tenor Emilio de Marchi, the first Cavaradossi, ringing the rafters with a triumphant Vittoria! in a 1903 Tosca. Here too is the white-hot French soprano Emma Calve, a peerless Carmen; the Polish soprano Marcella Sembrich, who negotiates the Queen of the night's treacherous coloratura con molto brio in a 1902 Magic Flute; and the soaring American soprano Nordica (nee Norton), who must have been one of the most glorious Brunnhildes in history. And here, in his only extant recording, it the Polish tenor De Reszke; the legendary voice is frustratingly obscured, but his Wagner and Meyerbeer heroes glow with virile grace. Conventional wisdom has it that late Romantics were given to excess. But aside from a few interpolated (and exciting) high notes, there is nothing egregious about the performances. Indeed, as contemporaries of many of the operas--De Reszke was born in 1850, the year of Lohengrin's premiere--the old singers project a freshness and an unforced vitality that are often lacking today. For all the sonic limitations of the Mapleson cylinders, they are shot through with this authentic spirit. Paradoxically, their very primitiveness forces modern listeners through the sound barrier, to reach the heart of the music beneath. It is a region that deserves more frequent visits. -- By Michael Walsh BEST OF '85 Classical JOHN ADAMS: HARMONIELEHRE (Nonesuch). A confident orchestral work by one of America's best young composers. BACH: ST. MATTHEW PASSION (Philips). For Bach's tercentenary, the grandest of his passions gets a worthy realization from Conductor Peter Schreier. BACH: TWO- AND THREE-PART INVENTIONS (London). Pellucid pianism from Andras Schiff. BRAHMS: SONATAS FOR CELLO AND PIANO (RCA). Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Pianist Emanuel Ax make the gruff German master smile. MOZART: COSI FAN TUTTE (L'Oiseau-Lyre). Swedish Conductor Arnold Ostman leads this dashing comedy of manners, delightfully accompanied on original instruments. OCKEGHEM: REQUIEM; MISSA MI-MI (Angel). Two major 15th century Masses by a great contemporary of Josquin and Dufay, serenely sung by Britain's Hilliard Ensemble. TERRY RILEY: CADENZA ON THE NIGHT PLAIN AND OTHER STRING QUARTETS (Gramavision). Offbeat visions by a California minimalist, spiritedly played by the Kronos Quartet. SCHUBERT: SYMPHONY NO. 9 (Telarc). Christoph von Dohnanyi brings Schubert's sprawling last symphony to vibrant life. STEPHEN SONDHEIM: FOLLIES (RCA). A starry cast and the New York Philharmonic revive the glorious 1971 Broadway musical. VERDI: DON CARLOS (Deutsche Grammophon). The original five-act version, sung in French and blazingly led by Claudio Abbado. Pop ARTISTS UNITED AGAINST APARTHEID: SUN CITY (Manhattan). All-star street spirit gives a keen edge to the sharpest, funkiest protest music ever to slip into the mainstream. RUBEN BLADES Y SEIS DEL SOLAR: ESCENAS (Elektra). The title means "scenes," but Blades' lyrical reflections with a Latin jazz beat get straight to the heart in any language. RY COODER: ALAMO BAY (Slash). Southwest border funk, shimmering guitar elegies and raw roadhouse rock. BOB DYLAN: BIOGRAPH (Columbia). A spectacular five-disk retrospective, containing 53 songs and demonstrating that Dylan is rock's once... BOB DYLAN: EMPIRE BURLESQUE (Columbia)...and future king: an album of new material that moves Dylan in fine form toward tomorrow. JOHN FOGERTY: CENTERFIELD (Warner Bros.). His first record in nine years and a clear four-bagger. Welcome home. ARETHA FRANKLIN: WHO'S ZOOMIN' WHO? (Arista). Power to burn and soul to spare. THE JUDDS: ROCKIN' WITH THE RHYTHM (RCA). A mother and daughter put some gentle stomp back into country. TALKING HEADS: LITTLE CREATURES (Sire). Foxy rockers and narrative conundrums from rock's foremost brain trust. STEVIE WONDER: IN SQUARE CIRCLE (Tamla). Love songs, personal parables and political tidings so rhythmically infectious that the album should have been packaged with shock absorbers. </body> </article> </text>