Schwann Song for Your Favorite Music Catalogue

The chunky Schwann catalogue, beloved of music librarians, record collectors and trivia buffs everywhere, is no more. Or rather, it is now a triumvirate of publications, two quarterly catalogues led by a monthly magazine.

The first isssue of the magazine, inMusic, is out now. According to Gary Higgins, the production editor, the initial circulation was 10,000 copies, 60-70% to record stores and the rest to individual subscribers.

“We’re trying to get as much detail into the new releases as possible,” Higgins says of the magazine. “Basically, we’re trying to keep it to little notes and reviews, centered around the new releases.”

This is a far-flung endeavor, with the editorial and advertising offices in Boston, the publisher in Chatsworth, the printing facility in Santa Monica and the individual subscription office in Nashville. “We’ve got it under control,” Higgins laughs. “We do alot of faxing and overnight mailing.”

The bulk of the current 76-page issue is devoted to listings of new classical releases, in the format familiar to Schwann users. Look closely, though, and you’ll discover a wealth of informative editorial asides in fine print, blunt in opinion and breezy in style.

A sampling:

“Among this month’s avalanche of historic live broadcast releases are 11 Koussevitsky (mostly Boston Symphony Orchestra) CDs from Italy. . . . The 4th movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony sung in French with Koussevitsky conducting the French National Radio Orchestra & Chorus (AS Disc AS-555), for example, is marred by constant tape print-through, many sound dropouts, 15 seconds of what sounds like someone tinkling on a celesta or glockenspiel off-hall a little over 3 minutes in, a complete half-second break mid-movement, two repeated bars 23 minutes in as a result of a bad tape splice, and bits of extraneous conversation audible in two soft passages. . . . As a final fillip, the tape speeds up 25 seconds from the end, just as the chorus has begun its rousing finish, sending everybody up approximately 3/4 of a tone for the rest of the ride. Those excitable French engineers, I guess.”

“This is one (“Carmen” excerpts) of five releases on vanity label GDS--Giuseppe Di Stefano Records--from Italy. . . . The unauthorized recordings are of standard pirate (oh, sorry, we’re not supposed to say that anymore; make that ‘public domain’) quality sound, and reflect poorly on a great artist that he would lend his name to such an enterprise.”

“The back of this CD (vol. 2 of Szymanowski’s piano music by Andrzej Stefanski) bears the legend DIGITAL RECORDING in large bold type. It is not. The recordings are from 1978-1981 and the SPARS code is A-A-D. This information is also displayed on the back of the package, so perhaps it is not an attempt to mislead. We have seen the phrase ‘Digital Recording’ misused by several labels . . . often enough that we are persuaded that it is on occasion employed by certain record labels in a deliberate effort to falsely represent their product. More common is the use of the single word “Digital” printed on the front or back of the CD, usually, though not always, on analog recordings. Since all CDs are digitally mastered , signified by the (always ‘D’) third component of the three-letter SPARS code, the term conveys no information as to either the original recording or subsequent editing processes, and is, at best, meaningless, but confusing and misleading to the unwary. While most labels are not guilty of either practice, those irresponsible few that are do real injury to the reputations of all.”

Not your usual catalogue listings.

With inMusic concentrating on new releases in all fields, the traditional Schwann cataloguing will devolve to the quarterlies; Spectrum for pop musics, and Opus for classical recordings.

“In the past it’s been geared a lot toward the classical audience,” Higgins says. “We’re trying to broaden that audience.”

ON THE ROAD: The current North American tour of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater began in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, and continues through June, touching down on, among other stops, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles (at the Wiltern Theatre, May 8-13, sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Arts) and Washington, D.C. The tour is sponsored by the Philip Morris Companies, Inc. . . . The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, under Christopher Hogwood, its music director, embarks on its second European tour March 5. The tour begins in Geneva March 8 and ends in Zurich March 23. In between, the orchestra will play in East Germany, Liechtenstein, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. . . . In Adare, County Limerick, Ireland, the New Jersey Symphony, under its music director Hugh Wolff, will be a major participant in a new music festival to be housed in Adare Manor. The first Adare Festival takes place July 13-29.

PEOPLE: Pianist Rosalind Runcie, wife of The Most Rev. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, will make an appearance with the Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew’s in Pacific Palisades Feb. 23 to benefit the new Episcopal Diocesan Center to be built in Echo Park. Runcie will play Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on a program to be conducted by Thomas Neenan; the remainder of the agenda: Mozart’s “Coronation” Mass and Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending”. . . . Frederick Swann, Robert Preston, Peter Sweeney, Jacques Taddei and Ian Tracey are the international organists set to perform on the 1990 summer recital series at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Swann, organist at the Cathedral, opens the series May 4 with a program given in memory of Virgil Fox, who died 10 years ago, and who designed the Hazel Wright organ there. Preston, organist at First Presbyterian Church of San Diego, appears June 1 with a brass ensemble; Sweeney, organist at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland, plays July 12; Taddei, who succeeded Jean Langlais as titulaire of St. Clotilde in Paris, France, appears July 27. Tracey, organist at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in England, closes the series, Aug. 10.

BOOKSHELF: “We Build a School of Music,” written by the late USC professor Pauline Alderman, is an informal history of the 110-year-old USC School of Music. Filled with facts, pictures and Alderman’s observations, the 353-page book, originally intended for release during the school’s centennial in 1980, has just been published by the Alderman Book Committee.

After Alderman’s death in 1983, a group of volunteers assembled to complete the work.

“We didn’t write it. We just put it together,” said Dorothy Jean Hartshorn, retired music education chair from USC. “Her style of writing and usage of words is part of the charm.”

The book (at $24.95) can be obtained from Carol Skinner, 1806 Hollyvista, Los Angeles, Calif. 90027. Proceeds from the purchase will benefit the Alderman Scholarship Fund.

Daniel Cariaga and David Sweet contributed to this column. For the Record: In some editions of last Sunday’s Calendar, Martin Bernheimer’s byline was left off the commentary in the music section entitled “The Supertenor Calls the Shots in Los Angeles.”