Music: Program Notes

¶Last autumn Manhattan’s New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society gave its $1,000 annual prize “for a major symphonic work by a U. S. composer” to blond-mustached David Van Vactor of Evanston, Ill. Last week Composer Van Vactor conducted his prize-winning Symphony in D at a Philharmonic concert in Carnegie Hall, a piece of sound musical grammar & syntax, with considerable Sibelius influence. Incidentally, it made critics wonder again at the complete anarchy of the music market. Sample prices paid other composers : Schubert for his song Die Post: 20¢; Frank Silver, for his and Irving Conn’s Yes, We Have No Bananas: $60,000.

¶On the heels of Swingster Benny Goodman, who had just finished another genteel Carnegie Hall venture (TIME, Jan. 23), trod last week another classically-minded swingster. At a concert by Manhattan’s year-old Bach Circle, Negro Swing-Pianist Teddy Wilson delicately pecked an 18th-Century harpsichord. Playing Bach’s Concerto in C Minor for Two Harpsichords and Strings with Harpsichordist Yella Pessl for a partner, Harpsichordist Wilson forgot all about his pedals, stomped out Bach’s rhythm with one foot.