February Records

Some phonograph records are musical events. Each month TIME notes the noteworthy.

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Hadley: Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (Victor Symphony Orchestra. Philip James conducting, with Eunice Howard; Victor: 3 sides). A warmhearted gentleman who spent much of his life applauding the music of other U. S. composers, the late Henry Hadley himself wrote well-tailored, gentlemanly music. Up to now, none of it has been recorded. Warmer and more interesting than his Brahmsian Concertino is the little semi-popular piece October Twilight, which fills out this album's fourth side.

Puccini: Tosco (Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Reale of Rome, Oliviero de Fabritiis conducting, with Maria Caniglia, Beniamino Gigli, Armando Borgioli and other singers; Victor: 2 volumes, 28 sides). Puccini's great operatic melodrama recorded complete by as lusty a group of Italian songbirds as can be found today.

Beethoven: Quartet, Op. 18, No. 2 (Coolidge Quartet; Victor: 7 sides). First modern (and topnotch) recording of an early-vintage Beethoven quartet.

Debussy: Nocturnes (Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; Victor: 8 sides). First complete U. S. recording of a shimmering Impressionist masterpiece. Conductor Stokowski gives it more fire than shimmer. Victor sound engineers record it magnificently.

Mozart: Symphony in G Minor, K. 550 (NBC Symphony, Arturo Toscanini conducting; Victor: 6 sides). Feverish Composer Mozart wrote his greatest three symphonies in six busy weeks. Maestro Toscanini and his NBC men give one of the three a brilliant, driving, but not too well-recorded performance.

Tschaikowsky: Nutcracker Suite (Chicago Symphony, Frederick Stock conducting; Columbia: 6 sides). A pioneer in the recording field, Frederick Stock's Chicago Symphony has not made a disc for ten years. In this famed, tuneful little Tschaikowsky suite it proves itself still one of the finest five U. S. orchestras. Superb recording.

POPULAR

Milenberg Joys (Tommy Dorsey: Victor). Best Tommy Dorsey that ever came out of the hot tap.

Ec-Stacy (Jess Stacy: Commodore*).

Five minutes of poetic blues piano improvisation in the best "Bix" Beiderbecke In a Mist tradition. A must for aficionados.

Would Ja Mind? (Orrin Tucker: Columbia). Fiery-sided purring by Vocalist Bonnie Baker, who mewed Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh! into its second incarmenation (TIME, Jan. 15).

Where Was I? (Ray Noble: Columbia). Sweet record of the month. Sounds like one of the good old tunes Britisher Noble played in his good old British days.

*Commodore Music Shop, No. 46 West 52nd St., Manhattan.

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