The Missing Thrill

The U.S. is studded with frustrated performers who yearn for a chance to sing with a full symphony orchestra, toot a hot horn with a jazz combo, or play with a professional chamber group. Now they can do all three without ever leaving their homes. The missing thrill is provided by a Manhattan recording company called Music Minus One, which does 90% of its business in releases from which a voice or a single instrument has been purposely omitted.

The man who turned the listener into a performer is a sometime jazz drummer named Irving Kratka, who ten years ago launched a small record company that prospered briefly in the early LP boom. When business started to wane. Kratka recalled Columbia's earlier, unsuccessful "Add-a-Part" series on 78-r.p.m. disks, decided that the added convenience of LPs might make the idea work. At first, Music Minus One recorded chiefly classical releases, began to rake in the profits when it added jazz. It omits every instrument in the orchestra but the harp, often makes a single piece of music available in several mutations: Schubert's "Trout" Quintet can be bought without piano, violin, viola, cello or bass. The company's bestseller (20,000 copies) is a household nightmare: Rhythm Section Backgrounds for budding vocalists and various instruments. The best classical seller is an album of Mozart quartets for either violin or flute. Recently, for those who would like something grander than Sing Along with Mitch, Music Minus One began recording famous operas--minus singers.

Kratka, 35. uses either foreign orchestras or musicians recruited from such groups as NBC's Symphony of the Air. Musicians themselves are among the best customers. One violinist owns all the vio lin albums, has a habit of putting them on the record player after midnight, when he gets the urge to play but is unable to round up an orchestra. Kratka also sells briskly to schools, libraries, mental hospitals (where Dixieland is used for patient therapy) and to diplomats in remote areas. His most baffling customer: the man who wrote to request Bach's Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin. ''We considered." says Kratka, "sending him a blank record and the score."

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