February Records

Some phonograph records are musical events. Each month TIME notes the noteworthy.

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Roy Harris: Chorale for String Sextet

(Kreiner Sextet; Victor: 2 sides). Oklahoma-born Composer Harris, once the enfant terrible of the Western prairies, here writes music with a cultivated British accent.

Gabriel Faure: Requiem (Chanteurs de Lyon and Trigintour Instrumental Lyonnais, E. Bourmauck, conducting, with Edouarde Commette, organist; Columbia: 10 sides). One of the profoundest works by a modern Frenchman. Beautifully performed.

Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major (London Philharmonic, Felix Weingartner conducting; Columbia: 8 sides). Best recording to date of a great Romantic symphony.

Haydn: Symphony No. 102 in B Flat Major (Boston Symphony, Sergei Koussevitzky conducting; Victor: 6 sides). Finest vintage Haydn, perfectly bottled.

Haydn: Concerto in D Major, Op. 21, for Piano and Orchestra (Orchestre Symphonique of Paris, M. F. Gaillard conducting, with Marguerite Roesgen-Champion; Columbia: 4 sides). Earlier vintage Haydn, with less body but plenty of sparkle. Pianist Roesgen-Champion serves it properly: at room temperature.

Wagner: Overture, Venusberg Music and Prelude to Act 3 from "Tannhauser" (Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; Victor: 10 sides). Stokowski at his thunderbolt-hurling best. The Philadelphians noodle magnificently.

Debussy: Preludes, Book I (Walter Gieseking, pianist; Columbia: 14 sides). A sheaf of Impressionist Debussy's subtlest miniatures played by his best living interpreter.

Harpsichord Recital" (Ralph Kirkpatrick; Musicraft: 12 sides). U. S. Harpsichordist Kirkpatrick, an authority on 17th and 18th Century composers, plays a representative anthology, including Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, two Scarlatti sonatas, two Purcell suites.

Brahms: Sonata in F Minor for Clarinet and Piano (David Weber and Ray Lev; Musicraft: 6 sides). Composer Brahms's two sonatas for clarinet and piano belong to his last, maturest period. Though recorded in an arrangement for viola, the F Minor sonata has waited till now for its first waxing in original form. The sonata is beautiful, the performance adequate.

POPULAR

Deep Purple (Larry Clinton; Victor). Most earworthy handling of the torch-song-of-the-month--an old Peter de Rose tone poem shortened and given tongue.

Song hits from "The Boys From Syracuse" (Decca). Three records in a handy folder-album which include two of the most melodious selections from the Richard Rodgers musicomedy score, hitherto unrecorded--Oh, Diogenes! and You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea. Frances Langford and Rudy Vallee sing.

Three Little Words (Commodore Music Shop, 52nd Street, Manhattan). Newest and one of the ablest of hot chamber-music combinations--Jess Stacy (piano), Bud Freeman (saxophone), George Wet-tling (drums)--does an old one. Two Stacy choruses in the middle are notably imaginative.

Bublitchki (Ziggy Elman; Bluebird), novelty-of-the-month. Jewish folk song by Benny Goodman's band (minus the brass section), featuring a riffling trumpet chorus by Mr. Elman.

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