New Records

Bach: Suites Nos. 2 & 3 (Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; Victor, 10 sides). A proper and stately performance of two of the best of Bach's suites. Includes the familiar Air for the G String. Recording: good.

Berg: Wozzeck (Charlotte Boerner, soprano, with the Janssen Symphony of Los Angeles, Werner Janssen conducting; Artist Records, 4 sides). This difficult opera, a kind of Nordic and atonal Carmen, was violently criticized at its Berlin premiere in 1925, was the first work of art to be damned as Kulturbolschewismus by the rising Nazis. These excerpts give only a sketchy idea of the late Alban Berg's score. Performance: good.

Franck: Psyche & Le Chasseur Maudit (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Desire Defauw conducting; Victor, 8 sides). In Psyche, Franck characteristically overlaid a classic pagan myth with some of his own emotional religiosity. Its companion tone poem, Le Chasseur, based on Teutonic myth, does not come off so well. Performance: excellent.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 (New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 8 sides; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; Victor, 6 sides). First U.S. recordings of the 1945 work which the high command of Soviet music damned as "ideologically weak" and "not reflecting the true spirit of the Soviet people." U.S. listeners will find the Ninth sometimes playful, often merely trivial and tricky, and never a match for Shostakovich's Fifth. Koussevitzky, speeding the slow movement, gets through it in one record less than Kurtz, but his performance is less satisfactory.

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Shura Cherkassy, with the Santa Monica Civic Symphony, Jacques Rachmilovich conducting; Concert Hall Society, 8 sides). In its search for the unplayed and unrecorded, Concert Hall has exhumed an inferior, uninteresting piece of Tchaikovsky. Performance: fair.

Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 (Isaac Stern, with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). A melodic and romantic showpiece by a contemporary of Tchaikovsky, in an impressive performance by young Virtuoso Stern (TIME, June 23)'. Recording: good.

Ellington Special (Columbia, 8 sides). Previously unissued Ellingtonia from the 1932-38 period, when the Duke had Barney Bigard on clarinet, Cootie Williams on trumpet and a better band than he has now. Recording: fair.

Handel: Twelve Concerti Grossi (Busch Chamber Players, Adolf Busch conducting; Columbia, 49 sides, 3 volumes). In presenting all of Handel's great monuments of improvisation for the first time in the U.S., Columbia does not match its laudable ambition with sound achievement. The performance is generally good, though uneven; the recording is not all it should be.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.