New Records

Record-makers the world over were getting set for the 200th anniversary this July of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach. Some of the best of the new Bach recordings:

Brandenburg Concert? (soloists and chamber group conducted by Fritz Reiner; Columbia, 6 sides LP). Dedicating the group "very humbly" to the Margrave of Brandenburg, in three of these Bach brought to perfection the concerto grosso form (in which a group of instruments instead of an individual soloist is pitted against an accompanying orchestra). Conductor Reiner balances his various instrumental voices like a master juggler, and gives the whole spacious warmth as well. Recording: good.

Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin. music seems to grow leaner with the yeas. between two excellent performances of the superb Sonata No. 1, Alexander Schneider's (Mercury, 1 side LP) is for those who prefer a hardness of tone and a rather blunt forthrightness; Tossy Spivakovsky (Columbia, 1 side LP) plays with more beauty of tone and slightly softer phrasing. Violinist Joseph Szigeti (Columbia, 1 side LP) has no competition in his performance of Sonata No. 5 (or, on the other side, in the Concerto No. 1, with the New Friends of Music Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry conducting). Recordings: good.

Other new records:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (the NBC Symphony, Arturo Toscanini conducting; Victor, 2 sides LP). Toscanini's music seems to grow leaner with the years. In this new performance, he has scalpeled away pounds of the bombast with which the "Eroica" is too often fattened out; what remains is clear, bone-clean, but still well-muscled. Recording: excellent.

Kodaly: Psalmus Hungaricus (Gabor Carelli, tenor; North Texas State College Chorus, Dallas Children's Choir, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati conducting; Victor, 6 sides, 45 r.p.m.). Composed in 1923 to mark the soth anniversary of the union of the twin cities of Buda and Pest, this is probably 67-year-old Zoltan Kodaly's best work; in it is some of the most brilliant choral writing of the century. Performance and recording: excellent.

Mozart: Great Mass In C Minor, K. 427 (Rosl Schweiger and Hertha Toepper, sopranos; Hugo Meyer-Welfing, tenor; George London, bass; Anton Heiller, organist; the Akademie Chorus of Vienna, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Meinhard von Zallinger conducting; the Haydn Society, 4 sides LP). This is not the greatest of Mozart's 60 "operas for the angels," but it is one that deserves to be heard oftener. Performance and recording: good.

Wagner: The Flying Dutchman (Hans Hotter, baritone; Viorica Ursuleac, soprano; George Hann, bass; Karl Ostertag, tenor; Franz Klarwein, tenor; Luise Wilier, contralto; Chorus and Orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera, Clemens Krauss conducting; Mercury, 8 sides LP). First complete recording of Wagner's early opera. Performance and recording: good.

T. S. Eliot: The Cocktail Party (original Broadway cast: Alec Guinness, Cathleen Nesbitt, Robert Flemyng, Eileen Peel, Irene Worth, Ernest Clark, Grey Blake; Decca, 4 sides LP). Listening to this recording is an experience in the music of the English language, as well as a plunge into the drawing-room metaphysics of Poet Eliot's hit play (TIME, Jan. 30). Recording: excellent.

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