New Records

Milhaud: Symphony No. 1 (Columbia Broadcasting Symphony, Darius Milhaud conducting; Columbia, 7 sides). France's Composer Milhaud, like Brahms, waited until he was past 40 to write his first major symphony. He finally wrote it in 1939, at 47. The result is technically brilliant, bright and dry as enamel. Symphonies for Small Orchestra (Concert Hall Society Chamber Orchestra, Darius Milhaud conducting; Concert Hall Society, 4 sides). By comparison, these four little symphonies (Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5) seem like, and are, youthful practice flights. Performances: excellent.

Buxtehude: Organ Music (Carl Weinrich, organist; Musicraft, 8 sides). As a young man, Bach tramped 200 miles on foot to hear Dietrich Buxtehude play the organ. Some of the old master's music, here superbly played by Princeton's famed organist, shows some of the reasons why. Recording: good.

Brahms: A German Requiem (Eleanor Steber, soprano; James Pease, bass; the RCA Victor Chorale and Symphony, Robert Shaw conducting; Victor, 18 sides). Brahms avoided the traditional liturgy, chose his own excerpts from the Bible "because I am a musician and because I needed them." Finished eight years before his first symphony (and foreshadowing it), this was the first composition to win him wide fame. Its moments of beauty more than make up for its minutes of tedium. Performance: good.

Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner conducting; Columbia, 10 sides). A wag once tried to describe this fustian piece: "It is he, the Hero, and he has been drinking again. He is in E flat, and his cuffs are soiled by numerous dissonances . . . Four plain-clothes detectives come in on a sharp glissando, and, seizing the Hero, throw over his head a dark-tasting chord . . ." Performance: good. Suite from Der Rosenkavalier (Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). Some of the pleasantest music Richard Strauss ever wrote, pleasingly played. Recordings: good.

Prokofiev: Summer Day Suite (Santa Monica Symphony, Jacques Rachmilovich conducting; Disc, 3 sides). Originally pieces for children, written for piano, this suite loses some of its charm in orchestration, even though it was the composer himself who orchestrated it. Performance: fair.

Ravel: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Leonard Bernstein, pianist-conductor, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of London; Victor, 5 sides). Ravel was feeling the hot breath of Gershwin on his neck when he wrote this one in 1932; Bernstein gives it dewy-eyed, loving treatment. Recording (on Vinylite): excellent.

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