June Records

Most of the night he sat up trying to tease a tune from his four-year-old son's harmonica. Annoyed when he couldn't he went out next day, bought a 10-c- book on harmonica playing. Thus Painter Thomas Hart Benton started on his music-making hobby. He bought more manuals, tootled away for hours when it was too dark to paint.

Before long his painting students were bringing their harmonicas to his Manhattan studio. For those who couldn't read notes he worked out a special harmonica notation system. He dug up 17th Century music from libraries. On walking trips through the hills of Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, he learned tunes from fiddlers and singers, copied others from old hymn books.

Saturday night at Tom Benton's became a musical institution. His son, T. P. (for Thomas Piacenza) Benton, took up the recorder. Benton put thumb tacks in the hammers of his piano to give it the proper twang. Friends and musicians began to come around to listen, laugh and join in--among them Singers Frank Luther and Carson Robison, Composers Henry Cowell and Carl Ruggles.

When Missouri commissioned a mural for its State Capitol, Tom Benton moved his family to Kansas City, and the Saturday nights ended. But within three years they were going strong again. This time the nucleus was a group of Kansas City Symphony players. Musicians began arranging folk tunes and composing original pieces for Old Tom, young T. P. (who now played the flute) and their fellow musicians.

Last spring Decca's specialties man, Frank Luther, asked Painter Benton to record some of the music played at his get-togethers. The result: Saturday Night at Tom Benton's--music as tangy and close to the soil as Tom Benton's paintings. Father and son blow their way with true amateur zest (and professional assistance from strings and voices) through three homely folk tunes: Cindy, Old Joe Clark and the fine, mournful Wayfaring Stranger. On three more sides they romp through two simple, diverting pieces (Gay Head Dance, Chilmark Suite) written for them by Edward Robinson, who accompanies on the harpsichord.

Other records of the month:

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Beethoven: Grosse Fugue, Op. 133 (Adolf Busch and his Chamber Players; Columbia; 4 sides). A puzzler even to musical savants of the 1820s, the granite-surfaced "grand fugue" which Beethoven composed as a finale to his String Quartet B Flat so irritated audiences that his publisher persuaded him to write a simpler finale, issue his pet fugue separately. Now recognized as a titan among fugues, it comes to life eloquently, pulsingly in the first album of Violinist Adolf Busch's reorganized chamber musicians, who made their U.S. debut earlier this year (TIME, March 30).

Rossini: The Barber of Seville (Charles L. Wagner Production, with Hilde Reggiani, Bruno Landi, Carlos Ramirez, Lorenzo Alvary, John Gurney and other artists, conducted by Giuseppe Bamboschek; Victor; 16 sides). This album is a condensed version (excerpts pieced together to make up a half-length score) sung by a second-string cast (virtually the same company which gave 65 Barbers on tour in two autumn seasons). But the excerpts are expertly chosen, skillfully welded; the singing is good; the performance brightly paced; the recording excellent. Net effect: highly satisfactory.

Schumann: Symphony No. 2, in C Major (Minneapolis Symphony conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos; Columbia; 10 sides). Both the beauties and the weaknesses of this least-played of Robert Schumann's romantic symphonies take on masterpiece dimensions under the direction of the Minneapolitans' Greek conductor. In part this is due to the orchestral balance achieved by Mitropoulos, in part to his judicious editing of Schumann's instrumentation (a conductor's privilege).

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Cleveland Orchestra conducted ) by Artur Rodzinski; Columbia; 8 sides). The first up-to-date recording of this popular classic. But Rodzinski's steely precision makes Mendelssohn's airy fairies march like storm troopers.

Gretchaninoff: Cradle Song; Moussorgsky: Within Four Walls (Paul Robeson, baritone; Columbia). The famed Negro's deep baritone at its best. Curiously the Moussorgsky is sung half in English, half in Russian (which Russophile Robeson speaks fluently).

POPULAR

St. James Infirmary Blues (Artie Shaw; 2 sides; Victor). An oldtimer in a new suit, niftily tailored by Shaw's now-disbanded band, with some mean trumpeting and singing by "Hot Lips" Page.

Strictly Instrumental (Harry James; Columbia). A persuasive, iterated phrase, and some neat jiving by the newest top-flight band, serve as background to Harry James's fluttering trumpet, as coy as Mickey Mouse.

Keep Smilin' (John Kirby; Victor). A primitive, mournful chant to the words "Let's keep laughing, let's be happy."

One Dozen Roses (Dinah Shore; Victor). Lush-throated Dinah Shore at her bouncing best in this current bestseller.

Little Bo-Peep Has Lost Her Jeep (Spike Jones and his City Slickers; Bluebird). Put-Put-Put (Barry Wood; Bluebird). The words will drive you crazy, if the music doesn't.

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