4 - The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, January 20, 1994

Classical music made easy

By KIRK WETTERS
Buying classical CDs is always confusing, especially
considering the plethora of recordings available and the
prevalence of confusing hype and preconceptions. As an
antidote to these difficulties, here is a survey of some of
the best mainstream classical recordings of 1993.
1993 was a good year for classical recordings in
general, but it was a particularly good year for opera. More
excellent new opera recordings were issued last year than
in the five previous years combined. Topping the list is Sir
Colin Davis' new recording of Humperdinck's "Hansel
und Gretel." Wonderfully spacious recorded sound and
extremely sensitive conducting make this the most recom-
mendable version ever. This enchanting, tuneful opera is
immediately captivating and would be a great choice for
opera novices.
Among other new opera recordings, Bernard Haitink's
traversal of Britten's "Peter Grimes" tops the list. Haitink
is aided by the world's greatest tenor, Anthony Rolfe
Johnson, in a chilling, magnetic performance in the title
role. Rossini's often-problematic classic, "The Barber of
Seville" received its best recording in the last 30 years
(with Thomas Hampson as Figaro) with quirky but imagi-
native conducting from Gianluigi Gelmetti.
Unfortunately, last year was not as good for orchestral
recordings, with the usual onslaught of uninteresting and
unidiomatic performances. There were, however, excep-
tions. The ever-reliable Christoph von Dohndnyi came
through with several winners. His recording of the Mahler's
"Tragic" symphony stood out from the uninspired, self-
indulgent run-throughs which have become the norm in
Mahler. Also, Dohninyi's Bruckner Symphony No. 5 is
one of the most coherent in recent memory.
One of the year's biggest surprises came from the

usually perverse baton of Nicholas Harnoncourt. After his
exciting, but needlessly willful and exaggerated account
of the Beethoven Symphonies, his release of the Schubert
symphonies seemed unpromising. It turned out, however,
to be the greatest cycle of Schubert's symphonies yet
recorded. Harnoncourt shapes each melody perfectly, and
his approach has the seriousness which others often lack
in this music. In these recordings, Schubert's eight sym-
phonies emerge as the greatest exercises in symphonic
thought outside of Beethoven's nine.
Among recordings of modern music, Claudio Abbado's
recording of Luigi Nono's "Il Canto Sospeso" tops the list,
but Simon Rattle's rendition of the seventh symphony of
Hans Werner Henze is also extremely worthy. Among
recordings of music before Bach, Andrew Parrott's disc of
Josquin des Prez is utterly hypnotic, and Paul McCreesh's
"Venetian Vespers" recording is worthy of all of the
praise it has received.
Last year's best piano recordings were also Schubert,
by pianist Andrds Schiff. Schiff's first two discs of his
projected seven-disc Schubert series were models of
beauty, sensitivity and restraint. One of the most extraor-
dinary chamber music recordings of 1993 was the Chung
Trio's bracing, virtuostic disc of Beethoven.
The art-song, or "Lied," also flourished in 1993. The
retirement of the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was
the occasion for a flood of reissues of some of his finest
-recordings. Mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie von Otter's disc
of Grieg songs was breathtaking, as were recitals by
mezzos Cecilia Bartoli and Brigitte Fassbaender. Last
year also witnessed the release of a stupendous first
recording from a previously unknown baritone, Thomas
Quasthoff. His debut disc of Schumann songs will surely
win him a huge following.

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The punk band X, straight from the early '80s, is one of the groups featured in Nancy Spheeris's documentary.
Western civilization on the decline?

By MICHAEL BARNES
Next time you slide down the bas-
tard ice of late January, imagine or
maybe realize a downhill skid to-
wards the cold, metallic embrace of a
sewage drain dotted with icicles. In
pursuit of a career, love and money,
we stick like magnets to the grid-like
formation of the sewage grill escap-
ing the shit, piss and trash that swirls
below in the waste canals. There are a
few cursed souls that glide by us
though and pass through the empty
spaces of the grill like runny potatoes,
dropping into the oblivion of down
below.
You will find these men and
women of anarchy skidding away on
societal sleds of chaos in Penelope
Spheeris' "Decline of Western Civi-
lization," a documentary about the
notorious punk bands of the early
1980s - Black Flag, Fear, the Circle
Jerks and X to name a few. The film
is an anthem to decadence, drugs and
the promise of lewd behavior; things
that are now nothing but a dreamy
mirage to all us 20-year-old zeros
searching for just the bare threads of
some security blanket lost amidst the
petty prospects of the future. Spheeris
captures the real, unadulterated angst
of L.A. punks who have nothing and
really don't give a fuck. A job to the
members of Black Flag is downing a
"40" and scratching the tattoos on
their arms. The lead singer of Germ
stage-dives into the throttling masses

of skinheads and derelicts while look-
ing for a beer and lands on a broken
bottle only to rip his throat out; "The
Decline of Western Civilization" begs
for understanding from a young '90s
audience somewhere between confu-
sion and the hopes of an unmaxed
credit card.
The film is quite funny. The man-
ager of Germ explains that the band
smeared peanut butter on the walls
and screamed into the mike when
"The Decline of
Western Civilization"
begs for understanding
from a young '90s
audience somewhere
between confusion and
the hopes of an,
unmaxed credit card.
they first started out because they
really didn't know how to play their
instruments. Germ's lead singerjokes
about finding a dead guy in his back-
yard and pulling out the Polaroid to
snap a few party pictures around the
sprawled-out stiffy. Spheeris throws
in interviews with various punks to
break up the monotony of concert
footage. One kid with a shaved head
deplores having to beat the shit out of
his friends while dancing the Pogo, an
ancestor to moshing. The mild-man-
nered owner of a punk bar describes
the Pogo as something akin to acrowd
of ultra-violent thugs plugging away
on bouncing Satan sticks.
The movie is at its best when the
camera pokes beyond the concert
montage of broken bottles and bustled

heads into the real lives of these young
entertainers heading nowhere fast.
"Decline" loses its documentary-ish
subjectivity and becomes a degenera-
tive form of hero worship when the
front man of Black Flag whips out
panties from within the confines of a
closet where he lives for $16 a month
and dangles the groupie garments in
front of the camera for all to see.
The real beauty of the film is how
it exposes the underlying sociocul-
tural factors behind the punk move-
ment. As one kid explains, smashing
around a dance floor to the roar of
hyperspeed music is nothing more
then a release from pent-up rage. It is
also worthy to note the differences
between early punk and its current..
appendage, grunge. There is no ob-ti
noxious Eddy Vedder-ish posing for
these bands, nor is there the pathetic
MTV gloss and promnise of mass com-
mercialization to send a group like X
to rock star heaven. The incessant'
whining we hear nowadays from
grunge stars is nothing but mindless
babble that rings low on the angst'
scale when we see the truly fucked-up
behavior and thriving anger of the
early punks bands.
So if you have dreams of havoc
much delayed, catch Penelope
Spheeris's next film, "Suburbia," of-
fered by the Ann Arbor Film Co-Op
next week. It is a sequel to "The
Decline of Western Civilization" and.
documents the fictional happenings*
in the lives of real LA punks. Our
civilization is not yet in decay, but it'
ain't bad sitting in a dark room and-
dreaming about it on screen.

DU qlx

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