What a Year for Remastered Works on CDs

Nineteen-ninety was, among other things, the year of the compact disc reissue, with recording companies shedding the last vestiges of fear over the possible rejection by today’s listeners of yesterday’s recorded treasures.

Outstanding among dozens of praiseworthy remastered old-timers were three from EMI/Angel, all at mid-price: The 1939 Verdi Requiem, with Tullio Serafin leading the Rome Opera Orchestra and Chorus and a vocal quartet headed by Beniamino Gigli and Ezio Pinza (63341) in Golden Age form; Arturo Toscanini conducting the BBC Symphony in a 1935 Wagner-Debussy program with a measure of warmth and flexibility with which he is seldom credited (63044); and a 1950s coupling of Sibelius’ Second and Dvorak’s Eighth symphonies under Sir Thomas Beecham’s passionately inspired leadership (63399).

The period-performance movement remained a strong presence in 1990, with Roger Norrington and his London Classical Players offering dynamic, ear-opening clarifications of the Mendelssohn “Scottish” and “Italian” Symphonies (EMI/Angel 54000), and the Hanover Band, under Roy Goodman, gleefully projecting the rhythmic verve inherent in the eight Schubert symphonies (Nimbus 5270-73, 4 CDs).

Period Baroque was notably well-served by Monica Huggett, perhaps the most accomplished violinist the antiquarian movement has produced. Passion, scholarship and infallible technique marked her traversal, as a member of Trio Sonnerie, of Corelli’s Opus 5 Sonatas (Virgin Classics 90840, 2 CDs).

Stimulating, offbeat opera included Prokofiev’s deliciously nasty “The Love for Three Oranges,” exuberantly sung and played by Lyon Opera forces under Kent Nagano’s razor-sharp direction (Virgin Classics 91084, 2 CDs). And Handel’s amusing, poignant “Flavio” made its recorded debut some 250 years after its premiere in a lively period edition conducted by Rene Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi 901312/13, 2 CDs).

London Records’ reissues of the works of Benjamin Britten under the composer’s baton continued with his operas, among them the harrowing “The Turn of the Screw,” which in this 1955 original cast production remains one of the great opera recordings of the half-century (425 672, 2 mid-priced CDs).

Spunky young American orchestras continued to out-record our older, more glamorous bands. Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony added to their series of works by undervalued American composers a terrific coupling of the Second and Sixth symphonies of Walter Piston (Delos 3074) while Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony shamed bigger-name competition with clean-textured, athletic readings of the Shostakovich Fifth and Ninth symphonies (Telarc 80215).

Chamber music picks of 1990 include the Prokofiev Second Sonata and the Ravel Sonata, presented with bracingly cool precision by violinist Viktoria Mullova and pianist Bruno Canino (Philips 426 254); the sterling teamwork of violinist Kyung Wha Chung and pianist Krystian Zimerman in sonatas of Richard Strauss and Respighi (Deutsche Grammophon 427 617); and Haydn’s Opus 74 quartets done with dash and style by London’s Endellion Quartet (Virgin Classics 91097).

Leonard Bernstein, alas no longer with us, and the ubiquitous baritone Thomas Hampson would have to be considered dominant personalities of the year.

Composer Bernstein’s exquisitely airy “Arias and Barcarolles,” with its show-stopping turn for and by soprano Judy Kaye, bowed on recordings (Koch Classics 7000). And conductor Bernstein at his most vivifying propels the symphonies and concertos of Carl Nielsen in Sony Classics’ stunning remasterings (45898, 4 mid-priced CDs).

Among Hampson’s recent offerings, two recitals proved particularly rewarding: a gorgeous program of Schumann lieder with pianist Geoffrey Parsons (Teldec 44935) and a collection of “American Concert Songs” (EMI/Angel 54051) of the sort that invite camping-up but which Hampson and his sympathetic accompanist, Armen Guzelimian, treat with a winning combination of sturdiness, affection and low-key wit. Included are the likes of “Darling Nellie Gray,” “On the Road to Mandalay” and the utterly loony “Long Ago in Alcala.”

Speaking of ubiquitous, the Placido Domingo Recording of the Year was his alternatingly honeyed and stentorian contribution to “Cantos Aztecas,” Lalo Schifrin’s grandly evocative settings of Aztec poetry about gods, love and war, recorded live at the pyramids of Teotihuacan by excellent Mexican forces under the composer’s direction (Pro Arte 494).