The New Records

This month's records say it with words as well as music.

The writings of Thomas Jefferson, set to music by Composer Randall Thompson, are sung by the Harvard Glee Club accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (The Testament of Freedom; Victor, 6 sides). Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait (Columbia, 4 sides) is narrated by Negro Baritone Kenneth Spencer to a derivative score played by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. In both these cases the words are wasted on pretentious, slight music.

Then there is Broadway Actor Ralph Bellamy soberly reading Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (Victor, 4 sides), and Orson Welles smacking and grumbling solemn words from Pericles to Lincoln (No Man Is an Island; Decca, 10 sides). Less noisy: A Walk in the Sun (Disc, 6 sides), a chronicle ballad of the famed Texas 36th Division, sung by Composer Earl Robinson. Strictly for their fans is the patter of Jimmy Durante (Decca, 8 sides) and Bob Hope (Capitol, 8 sides).

The month's music:

Schubert: Songs from Die Schoene Muellerin (Lotte Lehmann, soprano, accompanied by Paul Ulanowsky; Columbia, 14 sides). The greatest modern lieder artist (TIME, Jan. 28) in a deeply affecting recording of the Schubert pastoral song cycle. Performance: excellent.

Mozart: Salzburg Serenades (Chamber Symphony Orchestra, Edvard Fendler conducting; Vox, 8 sides). The small orchestra, clambering delightfully through divertissements by the youthful Mozart, sounds like a baroque music box. Vox, a new firm recording rarely heard classics, is owned by George Mendelssohn, the composer's great-great-grandson. Performance: good.

Respighi: The Pines of Rome (The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). Best recording yet of the clattery symphonic poem. Performance: excellent.

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor (Eugene List, pianist, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles, Alfred Wallenstein conducting; Decca, 10 sides). The concerto which is rapidly replacing Tchaikovsky's as the most heard and most abused, played by President Truman's favorite pianist (TIME, April 22). The late composer's own recording for Victor (1929) remains the definitive one. Performance: good.

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