New Records

Bidu Sayao: Celebrated Operatic Arias (with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva conducting; Columbia, 8 sides). With the help of recording engineers, who build up her graceful little voice, Brazil's Bidu comes through handsomely. The eight arias are mostly from the roles (in Manon, La Boheme) which made Sayao famous at the Met. Performance: good.

Mahler: Songs of a Wayfarer (Carol Brice, contralto, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner conducting; Columbia, 4 sides). In the first recording of these six songs of unrequited love, written by Mahler when he was 23 Koussevitzky's protegee, Carol Brice (TIME, March 11) reveals a promising, big, warm voice. Performance: good.

Brahms: Hungarian Dances (Erica Mormi, violinist, with Artur Balsam pianist; Victor, 6 sides). The nation's outstanding woman violinist plays the familiar dinner-concert favorites, Nos. 1, 5 and 6, and the less often heard Nos. 7, 8 and 17. Performance: excellent.

Prokofiev: Sonata In D Major for Violin and Piano (Joseph Szigeti with Leonid Hambro, pianist; Columbia, 6 sides). One of Prokofiev's most lyrical scores, recorded expertly and for the first time by the violinist who introduced it in the U.S. in 1944. Performance: excellent.

Wagner: Die Walkuere--Duet (Act I Scene 3) (Helen Traubel and Emery Darcy with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, Artur Rodzinski conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). Helen Traubel's Sieglinde is more vigorous but less musically sure than the old Lotte Lehmann version. Performance: good.

Russian Fair (Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff conducting; Columbia, 8 sides). The Cossacks sound, as required, like a chorus of cherubim or a convention of harmonizing tobacco auctioneers. Performance: good.

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