Music: November Records

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

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Bartolc: Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (Bela Bartok, piano; Joseph Szigeti, violin; Benny Goodman, clarinet; Columbia: 4 sides). Hungarian Composer Bartok (see p. 45) wrote these paprika-pungent pieces in 1938, expressly for his good compatriot-friend Szigeti and Szigeti’s good Midwestern friend Goodman.

The three made the recording last spring. The Contrasts: a blue Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance), a slow Piheno (Relaxation), an intricate Sebes (Fast Dance), in which Szigeti alternates between two fiddles, one purposely mistuned, and Goodman between A and B-flat clarinets. Composer Bartok stirs up an acrid dressing for his Hungarian tunes, but languid modern palates may like the dish.

Mozart: Concerto in A Major for Clarinet and Orchestra (Reginald Kell. clarinet, with Dr. Malcolm Sargent conducting the London Philharmonic; Victor: 8 sides). Limpid tootling of superb melodies. Clarinetist Goodman (above), slated to play this work with the New York

Philharmonic-Symphony in December—his first bout with a big orchestra—will have to blow like Kell to win.

Bach: Musical Offering (Yella Pessl, harpsichord, four strings, four wood winds; Victor: 10 sides). First recording, and a fine one, of the ingenious fugues, canons and sonata in which Bach tossed every which way a theme given him by King Frederick the Great (TIME, Feb. 5).

Beethoven: Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra (Jascha Heifetz, violinist, with the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini; Victor: 9 sides). The most majestic of fiddle works. needled with titanic energy by a great combination. But there are familiar faults: NBC’s Studio 8-H is as dull for recording as for inside listening; Maestro Toscanini’s refusal to pause for breaks between record sides makes it necessary for engineers to break arbitrarily.

Stravinsky: Suite from Petrouchka (Igor Stravinsky conducting the New York Philharmonic-Symphony; Columbia: 4 sides). Beautifully recorded excerpts from a ballet about the troubles of a puppet.

POPULAR

You’re Nearer (Frances Langford; Decca). Rodgers & Hart melody-of-the-month, from the film version of their Too Many Girls.

A Handful of Stars (Ray Noble; Columbia). Sound song, notable on this version for Harry Johnson’s solid trumpet work.

I Hear Music (Russ Morgan; Decca). Cute rendering of cutest tune from the film Dancing On a Dime.

There’ll Always Be An England (British Fusiliers Military Band; Columbia). The patriotic ballad that, among other things, is keeping British hearts high in spite of the blare of Hitler’s bombers.

For those who would like to have permanently on hand Franchot Tone’s recitation of England, My England; or John Barrymore’s Hamlet soliloquy; or Joe E. Brown’s story about the cat and the drunken mouse, Specialty Record Co. offers these and other movie star recordings.