New Records

From the moment famed Cellist Pablo Casals agreed to lead a 1950 Bach festival in Prades (TIME, Jan. 30, et seg.), Columbia Records began setting the stage to record it. Among other things, canny Columbia saw to it that only Columbia (or entirely unaffiliated) artists were invited to take part. This guaranteed some fine artists, but excluded such notable Bach interpreters as Harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who happens to make records for Victor.

Nonetheless, Columbia's ten-volume Prades Festival set (20 sides LP) makes record history. The performances were tape-recorded in a schoolhouse near the acoustically unsuitable Perpignan Cathedral, where the public performances were given. Although still not acoustically perfect (the piano sounds are particularly dull), the sum is a magnificent monument to Bach.

Since the full set runs to eight hours of playing time, most music lovers will want to pick and choose among the ten volumes. Among the most outstanding are Volumes I and II, which include beautifully clear and simple performances of the six Brandenburg concertos, with such noted soloists as Violinists Joseph Szigeti, Alexander Schneider, Flutist John Wum-mer, Oboist Marcel Tabuteau. The chief interest in Volume III is The Musical Offering (which Bach began as an improvisation on a theme supplied by Frederick the Great). Volume VI contains two memorable performances: Casals playing the Sonata No. 3 for cello and piano, and Pianist Rudolf Serkin's performance of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor and the Italian Concerto in F Major. The six suites for unaccompanied cello, which Casals previously recorded for Victor (H.M.V.), are not included.

Other new records:

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier (Wanda Landowska, harpsichord; Victor, 2 sides LP). The second installment (Preludes and Fugues 9-16) of 71-year-old Harpsichordist Landowska's definitive "last will and testament" (TIME, June 20, 1949). Recording: excellent.

Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 (Lukas Foss, pianist; the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, Leonard Bernstein conducting; Columbia, 2 sides LP). Composer Bernstein took his inspiration for this work from Poet W. H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety; he seems to have taken his musical inspiration from Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, et al. Performance and recording: good.

Mozart: Concerto No. 18, K.456 (Lili Kraus, pianist; with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Walter Goehr conducting; Decca-Parlophone, 2 sides LP). This is one of Mozart's finest concertos, and Pianist Kraus plays it strongly and forthrightly. Completing the second side, with Violinist Szymon Goldberg, she plays the unfinished Sonata K.404. Performance and recording: good.

Schumann: Scenes of Childhood (Vladimir Horowitz, pianist; Victor, 1 side LP). Pianist Horowitz caresses Schumann's cameolike little classics with more affectation than affection.

Verdi: Quartet in E Minor (the Paganini Quartet; Victor, 2 sides LP). Stuck in Naples, where he had gone to supervise a production of Aida, Verdi, then 60, decided to "amuse myself" by composing a string quartet--his first and only one. After a private performance, he pronounced it merely a "pastime," refused to have it published. He was too hard on himself: though his quartet is not quite a masterpiece of its kind, its first movement particularly has Verdi's irresistible melodic appeal. Performance and recording: excellent.

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