MUSIC : THE GRAMMYS : Another Year of Mind-Boggling Academy Logic

Fourth annual Classical Grammys Pop Quiz:

(1) Which of the following chart-busting artists is most likely to carry off performance Grammys at Tuesday’s Radio City Music Hall bash: Itzhak Perlman, Kiri Te Kanawa, Placido Domingo, James Galway, Jessye Norman, Riccardo Muti or Luciano Pavarotti?

(2) What do the following composers have in common: Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, Howard Hanson and Charles Ives?

Answers: (1) None of them. They all failed to make the final cut. (2) They’re all American and the only composers represented in the best-classical-album category, where winning is most readily translated into sales figures.

So, as usual, classical Grammy time is mind-boggling time.

Consider: The late Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” (conducted by the composer) and music by Howard Hanson from Gerard Schwarz and his Seattle Symphony, two contenders for best classical album, failed to receive a sufficient number of votes to be finalists in their own generic categories, i.e., best opera recording and best orchestral performance, respectively.

1991 was inexplicably grim, Grammy-wise, for EMI/Angel, whose sizable crop of important recordings produced only one entry (Richard Strauss’ “Elektra,” conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch) among performance-category finalists. It was, however, the comeback year for RCA, long slighted by members of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. RCA had nine nominations among the finalists, topped only by Deutsche Grammophon’s 12.

To be noted again in ’91 were the actions of NARAS’ Committee of Eleven--that many pairs of veteran ears (mine included) charged with winnowing the dozen or so semifinalists in each category to half that number.

Among our dumpees were such non-classical product as Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman singing spirituals and Richard Westenburg conducting Christmas carols. Given the boot as well were “Horowitz the Poet” (enough already); Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore,” starring Fat Man With Hanky; Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” with crossover wanna-be Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and a Metropolitan Opera “Aida,” done in by Aprile Millo in the title role (with Placido Domingo among the innocent victims).

Noteworthy too was the committee’s adding to the list--as is its right--such valuable, shunned-by-the-mass-membership releases as Yuri Bashmet’s performance of the Schnittke Viola Concerto and Cheryl Studer’s recital of Mozart arias.

Lamentable, however, was the elimination by the NARAS masses of many distinguished recordings early in the voting process: Dvorak’s Sixth Symphony and Janacek’s “Taras Bulba” from the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi; the Ives violin and piano sonatas, played to perfection by Gregory Fulkerson and Robert Shannon; two major recordings of the towering String Quartet of Witold Lutoslawski, by Kronos and the Hagen Quartet; Beethoven’s Middle Quartets, resplendent in the hands of the Tokyo Quartet, and whiz-bang interpretations by Yoel Levi and his Atlanta Symphony of the Shostakovich Fifth and Ninth symphonies.

Then there was poor Mozart, the apple of the world’s eye, the most recorded composer of 1991, but a minor player in the Grammy finals, with the barest handful of entries and no recognition at all for such searching recorded interpretations of his music as those offered by fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, violinist Isabelle van Keulen and conductor Charles Mackerras.

But then, birthday boy Prokofiev was totally excluded from the final consideration.

So, who will cop the top prizes for 1991? Just ask me--or a throbbing bunion, or some chicken entrails. Logic has little to do with it.

In the best-classical-album category it’s a tossup between “Candide,” with its high recognizability among both the classical and pop-oriented membership of NARAS (members can vote in any category), and John Corigliano’s harrowing, much publicized AIDS-themed First Symphony, as recorded by the Chicago Symphony under Daniel Barenboim.

My contrarian vote went to the Leonard Slatkin-Saint Louis Symphony program of Samuel Barber, including the First Symphony and the Piano Concerto, with John Browning the dashing soloist.

While my bunion discounts this as being an Ives year, the nominated coupling of that composer’s First and Fourth symphonies, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Chicago Symphony, is a winner, Grammy or no. And although stranger things have happened in Grammy’s past, the Elliott Carter string quartets, magnificently played by the Juilliard Quartet, are simply too far out to win. That attractive Hanson program will probably suffer the same bridesmaid fate as previous SchwarzSeattle entries.

Barber-Saint Louis was deemed good enough for best-classical-album consideration but again didn’t make it into best orchestral performance. The Slatkin-Saint Louis Copland Third Symphony is, however, among the finalists, where its chances are minimized by the double-barreled Chicago onslaught: Corigliano-Barenboim and Ives-Tilson Thomas.

The old-timers’ sentimental favorite in this category is sure to be a gloriously mellow Smetana “Ma Vlast,” for which Rafael Kubelik came out of retirement to conduct the Czech Philharmonic. Its chances for wider recognition are, however, slim.

The choices for best opera recording, with not a single entry from the Italian repertory, mirrored the mediocre standards prevalent on world stages, except in the fledgling area of period performance, where Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” with some fresh, young voices (outstandingly that of mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter) under John Eliot Gardiner, made a heartening appearance.

The money contenders, however, are dominated by their conductors: James Levine, who leads a Metropolitan Opera production of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung,” and Charles Dutoit, fronting the Montreal Symphony in a so-so-sung Debussy “Pelleas et Melisande.”

Top-dollar conductor Claudio Abbado is unlikely to win his first Grammy with either of his entries, Mussorgsky’s dimly known “Khovanshchina” or Schubert’s downright obscure “Fierrabras.”

Best performance of a choral work is tenanted by two entries--likely to cancel each other out--from erstwhile Polish avant-gardist Krzysztof Penderecki, who conducts his own sacred music; works by Dvorak and Janacek from the fine Atlanta Symphony Chorus under Robert Shaw’s lightweight direction; that lumbering Bach B-minor Mass led by perennial Grammy finalist Georg Solti, and a gripping reassessment of the Beethoven “Missa Solemnis” from J. E. Gardiner and his period paragons.

Forget about just desserts. It’ll be between Shaw, who is at least a bona fide chorus master, and Solti, whose Chicago chorus was trained by Margaret Hillis.

In other categories:

Best performance, instrumental soloist with orchestra: Bashmet’s Schnittke has gained attention but won’t be involved in the major duking-out, which will involve Yo-Yo Ma’s Tchaikovsky; Pinchas Zukerman’s Bartok on Violin and Viola, with Slatkin’s vote-enticing support, and Stanley Drucker playing the Copland Clarinet Concerto with Bernstein conducting. I lean ever so slightly toward Drucker.

Best instrumental soloist, without orchestra: Pianist Murray Perahia has the best chance of copping the big one for his “Aldeburgh Recital,” with substantial competition from Alicia de Larrocha doing what she does best, Spanish music, and a brilliant showing by a newcomer, pianist Evgeny Kissin, with his “Carnegie Hall Debut Concert.” My own vote--one of few, no doubt--went to Rudolf Firkusny’s masterly Janacek program.

Best chamber music performance: This category lists the can’t-lose Brahms Piano Quartets by the all-star ensemble of Issac Stern, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, with the multiple-nominated Juilliard-Carter scoring some backup points. The darkest of horses, a Bartok-Gubaidulina-Schnittke program from Britain’s Arditti Quartet (on the teensy Gramavision label), may not win a prize, but it’s already won some influential hearts.

Best classical vocal performance: Thomas Hampson should take the gold with his gorgeously sung, Bernstein-conducted Mahler program, heading off challenges from Studer’s solid Mozart, Dawn Upshaw’s sweetly monotonous “The Girl With the Orange Lips” (after a song by Earl Kim), Samuel Ramey’s macho Copland-Ives recital and a lovely, low-key program of Americana sung by Sanford Sylvan.

The absence from the final list of the irresistible Rossini song recital by mezzo phenom Cecilia Bartoli constitutes criminal oversight.

We’ll skip the time-honored Perennial Losers finale, the lineup of major performers who have never won Grammys, in favor of a short list of composers who won’t figure in this year’s Grammys: Haydn, Verdi, Britten, Vivaldi, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Puccini, Handel.