Catfish Row, Gershwin's little-heard Porgy and Bess suite, certainly makes a change from Robert Russell Bennett's familiar (and excellent) ''Symphonic Picture''—though I for one can't say I'm surprised that it has never caught on as a concert item in its own right. Essentially, Gershwin favours dramatic narrative over 'hit tunes': his five-movement composite spirits us through the feverish orchestral introduction, including the ''Jasbo Brown'' bar-room piano break (what a marvellous touch that is), pauses for a thumbnail sketch of Porgy combining ''I got plenty o'nuttin''' and ''Bess, you is my woman now'', before recalling the killing of Crown in Act 3 (''Fugue''), the ''Hurricane'' of Act 2 (replete with wind-machine and alarm-bell), and music from the final scene. Personally I would willingly forego the 'action' music—tie ''Fugue'' and ''Hurricane'' sequences (neither means very much divorced from the opera)—for just one brassy chorus of ''There's a boat dat's leavin' soon for New York''. Which makes me think that I'll be returning rather more often to the superb EMI Previn/LSO account of the Russell Bennett ( CDC7 47021-2, 8/84). But I don't want to give Slatkin and his excellent band anything less than their due for selling the score so wholeheartedly. The playing is very stylish indeed: from the supple-wristed xylophonist (according to Simon Rattle, that fiendish opening solo only came about because a stray violin part accidently found its way on to the percussionist's stand!) to the St Louis's concertmaster who substitutes so sensuously for Clara in ''Summertime'' (and a gorgeous 'sigh' Slatkin coaxes from his basses as the oboe goes to take up the melody).
The St Louis strings—smooth, warm-blooded—are a real pleasure throughout the disc. Nowhere more so than in the soLullaby—that delectably melancholic tango later to resurface as Vi's song ''Has anyone seen my Joe?'' in Gershwin's one-act theatre piece Blue Monday. Riccardo Chailly included it in his Cleveland-made Gershwin collection of last year (Decca 417 326-2DH, 2/87), and it's that disc and his versions of An American in Paris and Cuban Overture that I must say rather up-stage Slatkin. Chailly's audacity and sheer rhythmic swagger (aided and abetted by showy Decca sound) wins the day in both these irresistibly gaudy scores. Slatkin, whilst undeniably slick and, as ever, musical, sounds almost inhibited by comparison. I should like to have heard his euphonious St Louis brass—and in particular the trumpets—throw aside decorum and really indulge the Broadway brashness here and there (the Cuban Overture demands it). American in Paris is neither as cheeky nor as extrovert in manner as it might be. Again it is Chailly, the non-native, who swings and bends the rhythms more, who is bluesier, indeed more overtly 'American' sounding, in that richest of blues (Slatkin's solo trumpet is somehow too 'discreet'—a criticism one could never level at his almost indecent tuba and saxophone solos in the closing pages). But I don't want to labour comparisons. Frankly, I've never heard a better performance than Chailly's, and anyway comparisons don't arise if Catfish Row is your prime concern.
EMI have once again harnessed the inviting bloom of Lowell Hall, St Louis to impressive effect. You may require a little more volume than usual, but in so doing, beware the Hurricane bell.'